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

DATE: SUNDAY, June 4, 1995                   TAG: 9506060040
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: E11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COHCRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ANGLERS MAY BE LEFT HIGH AND DRY

It was the second day of the Virginia B.A.S.S. Invitational at Kerr Lake, and Brauer had dropped out of first place.

The late-April lake level was falling rapidly, and the spots where Brauer had pulled in 17 pounds, 5 ounces of bass the first day hardly held enough water to make coffee the second day.

``Places where I caught bass yesterday, the fish would have to lie on their side to be there today,'' he said.

Brauer wasn't making excuses. He didn't have have anything to prove. He won the Virginia event in 1994. He was B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year in 1987. His earnings on the B.A.S.S. circuit are approaching the $1 million mark, ranking him third in all-time winnings.

But the usually quiet pro from Camdenton, Mo., paused to address the crowd, leveling criticism at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for drawing down the level of 50,000-acre Kerr Lake at a time when the bass were attempting to spawn.

``The negative of this, they are going to lose a lot of fry here because they are going to leave them high and dry,'' Brauer said. ``The ideal scenario [when bass are spawning] is to have high water and it stay steady.''

Brauer didn't mention the world ``pipeline,'' but the Southside Virginia crowd at the weigh-in had to be thinking it. If the Kerr bass were hurt by a dry spring, what is going to happen when up to 60 million gallons of water a day are piped out of the Roanoke River drainage from Lake Gaston and sent to the Tidewater area?

Fishermen, for the most part, have been strangely quiet about that prospect. There has been little leadership from outdoor organizations or the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, because the proposed pipeline is a politically hot issue that has the support of Gov. George Allen.

What's more, it is difficult to measure the impact of the project on Kerr and Gaston, and especially on Smith Mountain Lake, where studies have ignored potential effects. The Corps of Engineers has said the pipeline drawdown at Kerr, even during a drought, would be no more than 3 inches.

Three inches doesn't sound like much, but Brauer will tell you it can be enough to frustrate a largemouth bass that is attempting to spawn in the shallows.

It also could put more pressure on Kerr's striped bass population, which has marginal habitat during hot, dry periods. It is the Kerr stripers, remember, that provide stock for Smith Mountain, Claytor and other impoundments. The striper spawning season this spring was shortened by dry weather.

What fishermen must fear most of all is the precedent that would be set by the pipeline: Sixty-million gallons now, 95 million later, 200 million after that, with no emphasis on controlling development or on conservation or on pursuing water through desalination.

``I love fishing a good lake that has a lot of shallow cover,'' Brauer said of Kerr. ``It is one of those kinds of lakes, and it has a lot of good fish.''

Nothing should be done to jeopardize that kind of endorsement.