Thursday, February 03, 2005
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: 2004: A vintage year for stream bass
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Bass-fishing success isn’t just measured by the bow of a fishing rod but also by the abundance of the annual spawn. Last year’s spawn in many Virginia streams was outstanding. Both smallmouth and largemouth bass enjoyed a vintage reproduction year that is certain to afford anglers the pursuit of happiness for seasons to come.
It was about time. Virginia’s stream fishing had fallen on hard times. You had to go back six years to find the previous decent spawn in the upper- and midsections of the James River.
“That’s a long time between good recruitment years,” said Scott Smith, a Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist.
In the lower James, where tidal water offers largemouth bass fishing, almost no bass hatched in 1999 and 2000, according to DGIF biologist Bob Greenlee. The 1997 and 2002 year classes were very weak.
“As a result, anglers experienced a rapid decline in the fishery beginning in 2000,” said Greenlee. Fishing fell to the point that anglers, including 2000 BASS Classic winner Woo Daves, began chanting for a stocking program. Fish officials almost never stock bass onto a standing population, but they didn’t rule it out this time.
Then came electrofishing surveys on the tidal James and Chickahominy rivers that afforded the first accounting of the 2004 hatch. Bass, mostly young ones, turned up at the amazing rate of 75- to 150-per hour of survey. It was so impressive that Greenlee declared the population “in good shape at this point.”
In the upper James, electrofishing catalogued an average of 52 juvenile bass per hour of survey. “When it is good, we get about 40-plus young fish per hour,” said Smith.
It was much the same on the New River, Virginia’s top smallmouth-citation producer. Like the James, the New had suffered through a series of poor hatches. The 1998 spawn had been average, and there was little success afterwards, until 2004, said biologist John Copeland.
The water flow last year appeared to be just what bass needed to produce an excellent spawn. A string of drought years followed by a flood in 2003 had stalled reproduction success.
“For the James River, we’ve found a relationship between river flows in June and how many young smallies we get that year,” said Smith. “If flows are too low or too high, we don’t get a good spawning year.”
What makes or breaks the fishery are the excellent year classes, like last year’s, Smith said. “From what we can tell it really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference if a year class is average or poor,” he said.
The 2004 hatch should begin making itself known this year in the abundance of 7- to 9-inch fish, said Smith.
Even with the good hatch of last year, anglers aren’t likely to abandon the idea of stocking bass. But biologists say when the bass hatch is good, you don’t need to stock still more bass on top of it. That would be a waste of resources and could cause harm to young of the year bass.
The question: Does stocking have a role to play in a native stream fishery?
“The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is ready to use stocking as a tool to address any future situation where our tidal river largemouth populations suffer multiple weak or failed year classes,” said Greenlee.
The goal would be to have fingerling hatchery bass available those years when the natural hatch is poor or has failed, and to hold off stocking during good years when stocking isn’t necessary or even could be harmful. That poses a production and public relations challenge.
Some tournament anglers have said they would be willing to provide funds for stocking bass. A group of Virginia BASS Federation members have proposed that a $20 stamp be required of every bass tournament fishermen. The proceeds would go for stocking.
The concept remains in the talking stage. Legislation to create the stamp has not been introduced in the 2005 General Assembly. With the outstanding hatch of 2004, stocking is destined to be a tough idea to sell.
