Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9407150022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some fishermen call it a crock.
The debate is over how many striped bass should be stocked annually in Smith Mountain Lake.
According to the observations of biologists, the best survival of fingerling fish occurs when about 200,000 are stocked in the 20,000-acre lake.
``And you get your worst when you go over 300,000,'' said John Ney, professor of fisheries ecology at Virginia Tech.
``If you try to put too many marbles down a funnel into a bottle, it doesn't matter how big the bottle is, they get stuck,'' Ney said. ``That is what is going on out there. Why it is, I don't know.''
For this reason, the state's stocking rate has been about 300,000 annually, said Mike Duval, the biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries who is in charge of the lake's fishery.
Some anglers don't agree with the theory. They want the state to stock more. If 300,000 is a good number, why wouldn't 600,000 be twice as good? They say the best fishing occurred when as many as 800,000 fish were stocked.
``I think they are way off base on that [the 300,000 theory], but I am not a biologist,'' said Bob King, who is a guide and tackle shop operator on the lake. He also is president of the Smith Mountain Lake Striper Club.
Said Duval, ``I think it is evident when you plot out the relationship between the survival of the fish and the rate that you stocked you keep coming back to the same thing. You get very good survival on the low end and very poor survival on the high end.''
Duval and Ney met with striper club members recently to talk about the theory and to announce the beginning of a study aimed at determining why it occurs. The researchers told club members that they wanted their support.
They got it, but with some reluctance.
``I think the mood was, `We are in favor of this study,' but members are saying, `Don't beat us to death with studies, give us some fish''' said King.
As for the bottleneck, ``I think it is one of two things, maybe both,'' said Ney. ``I think it is either predation or starvation, or a combination.''
To check this out, the biologists plan to make two changes in stocking procedures: try releasing a larger fish earlier in the season and scatter the stripers over a larger area when they are released.
Two years ago, fish officials began experimenting with stocking some larger stripers, fish that are about 4 inches long rather than 1 inch. Studies so far show little benefit, Duval said, but the biologist believes it might be different if the larger fish were introduced into the lake earlier in the year.
That way they would have an opportunity to adapt to their food supply and put on fat reserves to get through the winter. Stripers captured during late April on the Dan River and artificially spawned in the state's Brookneal Hatchery are being raised in Virginia Tech's aquaculture center. The purpose is to get fast, early-season growth in order to have some large fingerlings ready for stocking next month.
The research also calls for dispersing the fish when they are stocked. During recent years, fingerlings have been stocked at just two spots: Hales Ford Bridge on the Roanoke River side of the lake and at Penhook Dock on the Blackwater side.
``Dumping that many into two sites may not be the best way to get good survival,'' Ney said. Predators, such as black bass, may gang up on the vulnerable stripers.
``Next year we will use more sites and lower density to see if it makes a difference,'' Ney said.
That should have been done a long time ago, King said.
``We have offered our boats, we have offered manpower,'' he said.
The two-year study will be conducted by a research team from Virginia Tech, headed by Ney. The funding contributors include the Electric Power Research Institute, Virginia Tech and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
by CNB