ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603110082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Outdoors
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Maybe it's the weather, the brutal wind that can lash the surface of a lake into angry whitecaps, and the frigid temperatures that can lock fish in deep-water vaults that are ice-box cold.
Whatever the cause, the striped bass season is off to a slow start at Smith Mountain Lake.
Could it be the lack of stripers, too?
Members of the Smith Mountain Striper Club can't do much about the weather - it will mellow, in time - but they believe there is an easy answer to improving fishing: Stock more fish.
If the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is stocking roughly 300,000 fingerlings annually, wouldn't the fishing be twice as good if 600,000 were stocked? And just think what a million would do.
What it would do, fisheries biologists insist, is nothing. It might even harm the fishing. Research conducted by the department in cooperation with Virginia Tech revealed the optimum annual stocking figure is 200,000 to 250,000 fingerlings. Beyond that, you get no better yield. You may even reduce the yield.
Biologists call it the bottleneck theory. Striper club members call it a crock. The debate has raged for 10 years.
``The frustrating thing from my standpoint, I don't understand where we are missing being able to communicate our point,'' said Mike Duval, the biologist who manages the striper fishery at Smith Mountain. ``The flip side, I am sure the anglers are asking the same question: `How is it that they can't understand that we want more fish?'''
``For the people who are out here trying to catch some nice fish, the stocking rates are way down and the fishing pressure is way up, and there just aren't that many fish left. That's our beef,'' said Joe Brubaker, president of the Smith Mountain Striper Club.
Del. Vic Thomas, D-Roanoke, has become the referee between fishermen and fish officials. The other day, the game turned a little rough.
In a letter to Thomas, Brubaker said, ``We believe that the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries striped bass stocking limit for Smith Mountain Lake is biased since it is based on its own flawed data.''
The striper club called for an independent study, hoping to break what it sees as the gridlock that has kept stocking rates low compared with releases that exceeded the 800,000 mark in 1979.
If you overlay the big trophy-fish years with the big stocking years, there is a definite relationship, Brubaker said. You have to wonder, he said, what the future holds, considering the stocking has averaged about 300,000 since 1982.
Brubaker's letter drew a sharp reply from A.L. LaRoche, a regional fisheries manager.
``We take exception to your statement that our data are flawed and the club's efforts to discredit our staff's credentials both in the media and in the public forum,'' LaRoche said. ``To the contrary, our staff is very committed to the balanced management of Smith Mountain Lake, is recognized for their professionalism by other fisheries professionals and resource users associated with Smith Mountain Lake.''
LaRoche said the data already have been published in scientific journals and reviewed by top biologists in the profession. If an independent analysis is called for, he said, the striper club should fund it.
``We would be more interested in buying some fish to put into the lake than paying for more study,'' Brubaker said. ``They have wasted dollar after dollar on studies.''
Even before the exchange of letters, the department had started a review of the Smith Mountain data, which was completed 10 years ago.
``I am not expecting any radical changes,'' Duval said.
Nor is Brubaker expecting much improvement in this season's fishing. ``I think we will catch a few fish, but it won't be what it has in the past,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB