Friday, July 24, 2009
Grass for bass
Back Bay's game fish are making a comeback thanks to a resurgence of milfoil and other aquatic vegetation.
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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VIRGINIA BEACH -- Tom Snider is tickled.
He's walking ever so slowly through the tepid, waist-deep waters of Back Bay. Aquatic grasses rub against his legs.
He's smiling ear-to-ear, not just because of how the grass feels but simply because it's there.
It wasn't so long ago that Snider doubted he'd ever feel this way again.
Eurasian watermilfoil surrounds his legs, along with other submerged aquatic vegetation such as wild celery, coontail and red-head.
He's eyeing the water's surface for any sign of a feeding bass -- a species that loves to live in the grass -- but no fish are showing themselves this overcast morning. Even so, Snider casts and retrieves, running his lure through the growth in hopes of a bite.
Unlike recent years, there's a chance he'll get one.
Fishing this way takes Snider back decades, when he was one of the best anglers on what were some of the hottest bassing waters in the country.
In the 1960s and '70s, Back Bay basically was one enormous bed of submerged grass. Crappie, perch and bluegill also were abundant, some growing to trophy size.
The grass also made the waters at the southernmost end of Virginia Beach a pretty good place to hunt ducks in the fall.
But the grasses disappeared in the early 1980s. Fishing tanked. Ducks scratched off the place from their flight plans.
And Snider was concerned by what was left. He had just built a home in Creeds to so he could be closer to his beloved fishing waters.
"One big mud hole," he said. "It seems like it just died overnight. It was great bass fishing one day and nothing the next.
"Strange. Very strange. And really disappointing."
Theories on the bay's demise were plentiful -- construction and farm runoff, the closure of a saltwater pump at Sandbridge or maybe just the downside of a natural cycle.
These days anglers, biologists and environmentalist are sounding more positive about the bay. Grasses are making a serious comeback, and bass fishing is on the rise.
Snider doesn't really care about the reasons. At 74, and still pro-wrestler strong, he's just happy to be back in the waters he fished almost daily for more than 20 years.
"I never thought I'd see this again in my lifetime," he said.
Chad Boyce missed the good ol' days, but he now spends lots of time on Back Bay as a fisheries biologist with the state game department.
Much of his work centers on the bay's grass and fish populations.
Motoring southeast from the Pocahontas National Wildlife Refuge, Boyce slowed his boat along the shores of a marsh island and pointed to acres of grass that had grown tall enough to mat the surface.
Like Snider, Boyce is thrilled with what he sees, but his optimism is more reserved.
"Grasses were starting to show signs of coming back a little bit a few years ago, and it didn't really amount to much," he said. "But we saw even more grass last year, and now the entire east side and lots of places down south are loaded with it.
"If this growth can make it through the winter, there's no telling what it could look like next year."
Boyce plans to help increase the odds of that happening. One of his theories is based on water turbidity. Grasses prevent the bottom silt from washing up and covering plant life during winds and storms.
So in areas where there isn't much grass, Boyce plans to place floating curtains designed to slow wave action -- allowing seeds and roots to do their thing next spring.
"It's a theory, but I really think it will work," he said. "It can't hurt."
Todd Barnes, president of the Back Bay Restoration Foundation, is sure Boyce's plan will work. Keeping the turbidity down and the waters clear is essential in the bay's comeback fight.
"We're making some pretty good leads now," said Barnes, who grew up fishing the bay. "The (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service has purchased so much land around the bay and created a buffer. Sandbridge is now on the city's sewage system, so septic runoff isn't there anymore. And the farmers are using no-till practices that are really helping.
"Now I think it's just a question of letting the bay do its thing and making sure to do whatever we can to keep turbidity as low as possible."
Boyce said milfoil, while the most important grass for bass fishing, often can be its own worst enemy because it's a nutrient-limiting vegetation.
"I think the milfoil ran its course, eating up all the nutrients it needs, then dying off," he said. "The nutrients have gotten a chance to return, so the milfoil starts growing again. The more milfoil that grows, the healthier and clearer the bay gets.
"Fish and ducks come back in better numbers. The cycle could be on the upswing."
Snider hears a splash over his left shoulder and turns to cast.
He's still got the touch.
During the bay's boom, nobody was better at catching bass here. From 1962 to 1983, Snider caught 61 trophy bass bigger than 8 pounds. His two biggest each topped 10 pounds.
"This place was full of 5- and 6-pound fish," he said. "I guess I was so successful because I was here every day."
Snider has waded through the bay's grasses about a dozen times this year.
He has had some productive days, where he caught more than 10 bass.
"That's nothing compared to what it used to be, but I'll take it," he said, inching his way down a shoreline. "Used to be that 10 casts would get you 10 bass.
"Those days are gone. But I'm tickled with being able to do this again."
