OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE STUDY OF SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992                   TAG: 9201280078
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE STUDY OF SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE
State fish officials have announced plans to begin a multi-year research project at Smith Mountain Lake with the idea of unlocking some of the mysteries of a dwindling striped bass population.
What the study doesn't entail is the stocking of 1 million striper fingerlings. The Smith Mountain Striper Club had campaigned to have the annual 300,000 stocking more than tripled.
"The last thing they wanted to hear was: `We are going to study this,' " said A.L. LaRoche III, a regional fisheries manager with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The study is scheduled to begin in March, with a creel survey. It is the first survey on the 20,000-acre lake since 1984.
Creel surveys provide biologists with information on fishing pressure and other factors that are important in managing a resource. Since the mid-80s, they have been cut out of the department's budget for the lack of funds. The discontent of the striper club has helped spotlight that fact.
Club members say fish biologists aren't taking into account that there are large numbers of fishermen after striped bass.
"If that be the case, what do you do about it?" asked LaRoche. "Their solution is just throw more fish in. That will take care of it. Our data indicate that is not the case. The lake will hold just so many pounds of fish."
The objective of the research will be to determine the very best stocking rate.
Along with this year's creel survey, biologists will be contacting other states to learn what is working and what isn't with their striped bass programs.
By next year, experiments will be made with stocking rates, LaRoche said.
"Some years we may increase the stocking; some years we may reduce the stocking," he said.
Stocking techniques also will be varied. Night releases will be tested. Boats will be used to scatter fingerlings over a wide stretch of the lake, as opposed to dumping them at boat ramps.
Stockings of larger fingerlings will be tested, fish that are three to four times bigger than those now released. There is growing concern that the one- to two-inch fingerlings now released may not have the accessibility to food necessary to get them over the first-year hump and on their way to becoming trophies, LaRoche said.
Follow-up creel surveys will be conducted to determine if stocking variances make an impact. Many fish will be marked with microscopic tags that can be detected with special equipment in the hands of creel clerks.
The study, which also will encompass Kerr, Anna and Claytor lakes, is designed to last a half-dozen years, said LaRoche.
"But that doesn't mean we are going to wait until the end of the study to do anything," he said. "If we see we have a dramatic improvement of survival with a different technique, we will go ahead and start using that technique."
LaRoche also hopes to get an eye on the lake in the form of hydroacoustic equipment designed to make a sonar count of fish populations, even the baitfish.
While Smith Mountain has a modest two-fish-per-day limit, the harvest still may need to be reduced, he said.
How?
Suggestions by LaRoche include outlawing bait fishing, prohibiting striper fishing during the summer months when mortality is high, leaving the fish alone for several years and letting their population build as was done with a moratorium on the Chesapeake Bay.
"I am not sure that is necessary, but that is an idea," he said.
There are footnotes to this story. Earlier we reported that the Smith Mountain Striper Club said it had support for its million-stocking request from the Appalachian Power Co. Mike Thacker, a power company spokesman, said his company had not taken a stand on the issue, that club members had mistakenly thought it had when a company employee expressed his personal opinion.
We reported incorrectly that the Smith Mountain Policy Board had endorsed the stocking request. That should have read "the Smith Mountain Partnership."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB