Thursday, November 10, 2005
New regulations will reshape the way we hunt and fish—Part II
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
Outdoorsmen will be going afield under a host of new regulations over the next several months. Last week I covered regulations that will affect sportsmen who hunt and trap.
This week, let’s take a look at fishing and non-game regulations.
All of the new regulations can be found on the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website, www.dgif.virginia.gov. My effort won’t be to cover them one by one, but to make comments on several key issues:
SMITH MOUNTAIN STRIPERS: The November issue of the Smith Mountain Striper Club Bulletin contains a full page of members displaying lots of striped bass, the result of the club’s fall tournament. They are nice fish, but they are small. The tournament winner was Rex Smith who won with an 8.84-pound striper that measured 28 inches. No offense, Rex, but a few years ago a fish that size wouldn’t be worthy of a second glance. But the big fish are gone.
The pressing question: How do you return bragging-size stripers to the lake--20-pounders, 30-pounders, 40-pounders, even 50-pounders?
That’s something club officers and the DGIF have clashed over. The DGIF proposed bold regulations changes while the club members who control the organization believe the current regulations will work if given a chance.
Club members appeared at a DGIF public hearing in Roanoke and submitted opinions to the DGIF website, but didn’t turn up for the Oct. 27 final hearing in Richmond. That caught the media and DGIF officials by surprise.
In the end, the DGIF board sided with its staff, not the club. It enacted a two-per day slot limit, no striped bass 26 to 36 inches Oct. 1-May 31, and two-per day, no length limit June 1-Sept. 30. One change, a four-per day limit had been proposed for the June 1-Sept. 30 dates. That was changed to two.
Ron Curtis, outgoing president of the striper club, told members “We will have to obey and evaluate their effect.”
All sides can hope that the new regulations will return big striped bass to the lake. They become law July 1.
TROPHY MUSKIE: Muskie fishermen on the New River and Claytor Lake will need a longer measuring stick. The minimum-size limit starting July 1 will go from 30 inches to 42 inches. That’s a major leap.
In the minds of serious muskie fishermen, a 30-incher no longer is a trophy. In fact, 11 percent of the muskie anglers interviewed by DGIF said a muskie needs to be at least 50 inches to be a trophy.
Every inch that a muskie puts on, its body weight climbs significantly. Fish officials say a 40-inch New River muskie will weigh about 15 pounds. A 50-inch will weigh close to 40 pounds.
Here’s the exciting part. New River muskie exhibit some of the most rapid growth rates found in North America. So anglers need to give them an opportunity to fulfill their promise.
Fish officials say a New River muskie reaches 30 inches in two years. They can be 40 inches by age 5. In contrast, it takes four years for muskie in Wisconsin, New York and Pennsylvania to reach 30 inches and five to six years Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ontario.
The general feeling is that New River muskie fishermen release most of the fish they catch, so size limits aren’t all that important. Research reveals something different, that 54 percent of the citations registered from 1997 to 2003 were harvested.
Along with the new slot limit will be a reduction in the catch limit, which will decline form two to one daily. This should force more anglers to release their catches.
JAMES RIVER BASS LIMIT: When fish officials proposed adjusting the limits on black bass in a number of streams and lakes across the state, angler reaction was light with the exception of in the Piedmont section of the James River. Organized smallmouth bass tournament fishermen there said the proposed 14-22 inch slot limit for the James would put them out of business.
“We would have to terminate our club,” said Tom Housner of the James River Smallmouth Bass Club. If it were illegal to keep a bass that measured anywhere from 14 to 22 inches, then club members would have few fish to bring to the weigh-in.
Housner said the club could live with at 14-20 inch slot, but the DGIF board sided with fish biologists and established the 14-22 slot limit.
The Old Dominion Smallmouth Club applauded the more restrictive limit. “There will be more fish to catch,” said club spokesman Bob Dickerson.
He suggested that tournament fishermen do away with weigh-ins and verify their catches through another means, such as digital photography.
Chuck Craft, who has guided on the James for 21 years, supported the 14-22 limit. “Right now, our fishery is at a low,” he said. “We don’t have many big bass in the river.” Craft said the slot limit should help fish of all sizes.
SAVING SALAMANDERS: When I was a kid, I fished with an uncle who delighted in catching what he called spring lizards. He used them as bait for brown trout and smallmouth bass. Back then, catching salamanders probably had little impact on this wiggly species, but that’s not the case nowadays.
Salamanders have restricted ranges and low recruitment. Over-collection of them is a threat to their well-being.
Several years ago, a law was passed that made it illegal to sell salamanders. Now comes a new regulation that will make it illegal to possess any salamander for fish bait that is 6 inches or more in length.
That’s not much of a handicap, because anglers generally collect the smaller salamanders. But it is going to seem strange to some old-timers to have to carry a ruler with them when they go after spring lizards.
