Thursday, December 02, 2004
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Rex Smith -- Mr. Striper -- steps down
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Rex Smith is one of those retirees who moved to Smith Mountain Lake, doing so in 1991, because he liked the lake, liked the region and liked the idea that beneath the sheen of the water roamed broad shouldered, leg-long striped bass. Fact is, Smith is a man with a major dose of striped bass fever throbbing through his veins.
But by the time he made the move, the lake’s fabled striper fishery was in decline. The reputation that the 20,000-acre lake had as being one of the top striper fishing spots in the country was becoming tarnished. Anglers were beginning to gripe, and their concerns were mirrored in the plummeting number of citation catches being registered with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
As a newcomer, Smith had some choices to make. He could take up golf, rock on his deck or do something to help improve the striper fishing.
He had come to fish, so Smith joined the Smith Mountain Striper Club in 1992, and became its president in 1996, a position he has dominated with strength and gentleness.
When he took the gavel, club membership was around 100. Now there are more than 800 on roll and as many as 150 show up for meetings. Few, if any, fishing organizations in the state can match those numbers.
But size isn’t what Smith considers the club’s greatest accomplishment. What counts, he said is “The fellowship that we have developed with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and around the lake.”
In his December President’s Report, Smith announced that he would not run for another term. “I feel it is time for me to step aide,” he told members.
If you make the mistake of thinking he is going to cut back on fishing you will get a gruff response. He plans to continue fishing the National Striped Bass Association Gold Cup series.
Smith is part of the Polar Team, made up of fellow club members Kenny Short and D.J. Runge. The team is in fourth place in the season’s standings and is competing in the national championship this week in Tennessee.
“I don’t think that is bad for some local boys,” he said.
In its early years, the Smith Mountain Striper Club had an advisory relationship with the DGIF. A major goal was to force the department to increase striper stockings. Biologists resisted, saying the lake’s striper problems were too complex to be solved by boosting the releases of fish. Things like heavy fishing pressure, angling mortality and reduced productivity of the aging lake had to be considered. Stocking more fish could harm, rather then help, the fishery.
The club removed its boxing gloves under Smith’s leadership and developed a partnership with DGIF that included the drafting of a 1997 management plan designed to shorten the time between bites. It lobbied for the new Vic Thomas striped bass hatchery in Brookneal and came to the aid of DGIF when its funding was threatened.
It advocated improved stocking procedures by spreading striped bass fingerlings across the lake rather than dumping them in a couple of spots. To make that happen, club members met the hatchery truck in their boats to distribute the fish. Members also became co-workers with DGIF and Virginia Tech in research efforts. What the club also got was some increased stockings.
Just as things were looking up, double-barrel tragedy stuck. During the winter of 2002-03 there was a major die-off of forage fish that striped bass need for food. Next came an infestation of copepod parasites. Trophy stripers suddenly showed up floating dead on the surface. Last year’s citation count dropped to just over 20, a far cry from the more than 700 registered in the late 70s.
Some anglers, inside and outside the club, felt that neither the club nor the DGIF was doing enough to address the parasite problem. The club chose to maintain its cordial relationship with DGIF, a move you’d expect from Smith.
When asked about that, Dan Wilson, DGIF biologist in charge of managing the lake’s fishery, said: “In defense of the striper club, they have been basically following my advice of wait and see during the early stages of this problem and they have always been there offering assistance if needed. I have been pleased with the club’s attitudes about this fishery and their willingness to look at the lake biologically and objectively.”
It appears that the parasite problem is abating and stripers are putting on weight. Some big schools have been spotted in the upper Roanoke River arm of the lake this fall. Thus the future of the Smith Mountains Lake striper fishery holds more promise than a few months ago, although it will be years before the loss of big fish can be overcome. Meanwhile, Smith says he has left the club in good hands.
