Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990                   TAG: 9005220258
SECTION: SMITH MT. LAKE GUIDE                    PAGE: SML-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE BASS RAREST OF SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE FISH

But Jenkins, a Roanoke College biology professor, was elated over an unusual visitor to his lab on this rainy, spring afternoon.

Some students had recently brought Jenkins a Roanoke bass - the first one he'd kept alive in a tank in his many years of studying the fish. On an expedition to seine darters out of the Pigg River, the students bumped into an angler who had caught the Roanoke bass with his hands and was proudly showing off the result of his dexterity.

Of the fish in Smith Mountain Lake, the Roanoke bass is the rarest, according to Jenkins. It's also one of the few natives in an impoundment populated by fish introduced for the sport of man and the vigor of the recreational economy.

Jenkins believes the Roanoke bass that are found in the lake stray there from the Blackwater and Pigg rivers. They prefer moving water to the placid environs of the lake and probably don't spawn there, Jenkins said.

Few fishermen make a distinction between the Roanoke bass and the rock bass, its closest relative. Both are members of the sunfish family. Both are scrappy and flavorful game fish and both go by the name "redeye" because of their crimson iris.

"Redeye is a good generic name for the Roanoke variety. Rock bass is inappropriate because the true rock bass is a different species. Unfortunately, the term Roanoke bass does not confer that it's a close relative of the rock bass," Jenkins said.

As long ago as 1867, the Roanoke bass ( cavifrons ) was recognized as a separate species when Edward Drinker Cope made the first inland Virginia fish-collecting expedition.

The Commonwealth of Virginia and the average angler don't always draw a distinction between the Roanoke bass and the rock bass, though.

Jenkins says he's had an ongoing battle with the state to recognize the Roanoke bass as a separate species and put it into the citation program for anglers. Back in 1979, Jenkins wrote that analysis of citation records from 1964 through 1977 revealed that the Roanoke bass accounted for approximately 64 percent of citation-size rock bass reported. So far, his efforts at putting the Roanoke bass in the citation program have not been successful, though the state does recognize the Roanoke bass for state records.

Most anglers figure they've just caught a big rock bass when they catch a sizable Roanoke bass. Understandably, those who don't know what to look for could easily mistake one for the other. The rock bass has an absence of white spots on its back and a dusky margin on its anal fin; the Roanoke bass has pale spots and a uniformly pale anal fin.

Unlike the rock bass, which ranges from Canada to the Ozarks, the Roanoke bass is found only in limited portions of Virginia and North Carolina. In the Roanoke drainage, it's found in greatest abundance in the Pigg and Blackwater rivers. Pollution, river impoundments and competition with the prolific rock bass have taken its toll.

In 1979, Jenkins wrote that "the Roanoke bass is the only native freshwater game fish in danger of disappearing from Roanoke water."

He's still concerned about the future of the fish.

"A forthcoming publication of the Symposium on Virginia Endangered Species will recommend it for special concern status. I've recommended it for a number of years and expressed concern for its continual existence.