Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 7, 1994 TAG: 9403080021
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last March, some fishermen needed a snow shovel to reach their favorite trout stream when a blizzard turned trout country into what looked like an advertisement for Snowshoe ski resort.
This year, it has looked as if a chain saw might be required in addition to the usual trout fishing gear.
The February ice storm toppled tons of timber across backwoods roads that lead to trout streams, especially those tucked into the wilds of the Jefferson and George Washington national forests.
Early last week, George Duckwall, trout fish cultural supervisor for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, was beginning to express confidence that most - if not all - streams would be reached by hatchery trucks and stocked in time for the March 19 opening day. Then a new ice and snow storm hit.
Duckwall doesn't believe the second storm was as damaging to the stocking schedule as the first, but there is no question it slowed the progress of hatchery trucks.
``It probably will be another week before we have an accurate assessment on what streams we will not be able to get to,'' said Duckwall, who hasn't ruled out getting to all of them. ``It still is [nearly] two weeks till opening day and everybody is going to do every thing they can to get the fish into the water.
One thing that has helped open tree-clogged roads for the hatchery trucks is the fact that some people have been hungry for fire wood.
``People have been coming in with their chain saws and cutting firewood,'' said Gary Martel, chief of the game and fish department's fish division. It is easy pickings, he said. All you have to do is back your pickup down the road and load her up.
You can only speculate, Martel agreed, just how much of this effort is in behalf of keeping Mama warm and how much is a desire to make certain there is access for the hatchery truck to a favorite stream. Either way, the sound of chain saws has been sweet music to the people who stock trout.
Last year on opening day, the water was high, the morning temperatures low and snow drifts spilled out of the wooded hollows to cover parking spots along many streams. Old-timers said they couldn't recall another first day quite like it.
The trout were lethargic, too, and spread far and wide by the surly water. Both fish and fishermen appeared to have their spirits dashed by the rivulets of snowmelt that invaded the streams.
Now another season is approaching, and it isn't out of the winter-locked woods just yet.
What's happening, anyway? Is it the return of the Ice Age, or what?
You have to remember that opening day comes earlier now, 9 a.m. the third Saturday of March, instead of the old, traditional beginning of noon, the first Saturday in April.
One thing we have learned, T.S. Eliot was wrong. April is not ``the cruelest month.''
The earlier opening was the result of a survey taken by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries in 1986. One of the questions, ``Should opening day be moved from April to March?'' received a 62.7 percent ``yes'' vote.
In fact, 57.6 percent of the participants said
they didn't want an opening day all all. They
And that's pretty remarkable, said Duckwall, because rearing conditions haven't exactly been ideal. When the weather is too cold or too hot, trout tend to shun food and their growth is retarded. The summer was hot and dry and the winter was extremely cold, Duckwall.
``We have some extremely dedicated, devoted people in the hatcheries who work very hard,'' he said.
This season's stocking list is remarkably similar to last year's. Very few streams have been lost to problems such as posting and pollution. New to the list is Cranesnest River in Dickenson County. Removed are a couple of small streams, North Fork of Tye River in Nelson County and Briery Branch in Rockingham County. Officials have found good populations of native brook trout in them, so they will be managed as wild trout streams.
During the late '70s and early '80s, an alarming number of streams were being removed from the stocking schedule, often the result of landowners who were fed up with the crowds that showed up following announced stockings. Details on when a particular stream will be stocked no longer are published ahead of time, and that has helped officials add streams to the program rather than delete them, Martel said.
``Prior to that we lost about 35 percent of our trout streams to posted land,'' said Martel. ``It was a nightmare.''
As the newly appointed fish chief, Martel said he will strive for more diversity in the program. That likely will include the addition of special-regulations streams. The prime candidates for new catch-and-release programs will be some of those streams lost to the program during the era of announced stockings, he said.
by CNB