Who can explain to me the problem this summer

[striperfan]

Hi, I have been fishing the lake for 5 years and have generally done the best during July-Sept. Weird but true, we used to locate small schools of fish and sometimes got a bite or two. This year, we have not really marked a single school of fish, more than 6-8, and caught a few fishing blind. We can catch all the bait we need in two or three throws so I really don't see lack of forage an issue. My say is that with the extreme amount of fishing pressure that the stripers get, that a much larger number 500,000 plus needs to be stocked annually. And to get a mix of genetics, not just from Kerr. I think the "skinny" fish are a generic flaw, not from lack of forage. MY THOUGHTS.

[drag4striper]

It is my understanding stripers that are stocked now alternate yearly between salt water and freshwater fingerlings.

[striperfan]

Sept 10, 2016 17:15:57 GMT -5 drag4striper said:

It is my understanding stripers that are stocked now alternate yearly between salt water and freshwater fry.

Well, the saltwater were stocked last year, King and Queens, hatchery. This year some were due to a lack of numbers in the local hatchery. I do not believe that a definite stocking schedule has been scheduled for alternate years, can you tell me more?

[Deleted]

  The fish are still here... Seems to me that fishing and the fish movements were normal up to the spawn. After that, seems like a very odd summer with their movements for some reason. It doesn't make sense, but seems like somewhat semi-normal summer patterns were 3-4 weeks behind in developing. Anxious for fall to get here to see when/if they move back into their normal patterns.....  just my opinion, would love to here others.


  I was told one time that there were 3 major schools of stripers in the lake.  One stayed around the dam, one stayed around mid-roanoke, and one roamed from end to end..... yeah, that didn't help me none either.... and goes against everything I've learned over the years..  but, who knows.... maybe I'm always chasing the one that travels from end to end.

 

[drag4striper]

I really couldn't say anymore other than some saltwater fingerlings have been introduced. I have recently joined the Smith Mt.Striper Club to hopefully learn more.
Maybe some of the long time members will jump in with more information.

[slammer]

My opinion is the population is pretty low. I have fished the lake over 30 years-mostly a spring fisherman and some fall. This spring was the worst in at least 15 years for numbers of fish we caught. That was information from about 10 boats of good fishermen. We did catch a few nice fish, bigger than years past. Thats the only good thing from this spring. We all fished hard from mid march thru may. Pretty sure im heading to Lake Anna next spring. I like to catch fish-not that pressed about size really.

[striperjohn]

Sept 10, 2016 18:30:36 GMT -5 @bigun2 said:

  The fish are still here... Seems to me that fishing and the fish movements were normal up to the spawn. After that, seems like a very odd summer with their movements for some reason. It doesn't make sense, but seems like somewhat semi-normal summer patterns were 3-4 weeks behind in developing. Anxious for fall to get here to see when/if they move back into their normal patterns.....  just my opinion, would love to here others.


  I was told one time that there were 3 major schools of stripers in the lake.  One stayed around the dam, one stayed around mid-roanoke, and one roamed from end to end..... yeah, that didn't help me none either.... and goes against everything I've learned over the years..  but, who knows.... maybe I'm always chasing the one that travels from end to end.

 

Bugun I agree with you that we still have the fish, in large numbers. If you guys tried to fish the patterns that have been the norm for the last 5-7 years well IMO thats the problem. The patterns on this lake since the late 70s change every 5-7 years or so. Then that fish kill really had a major effect.
I have had the best spring fishing both in numbers and size the last two years similar to before the fish kill. Now my patterns were similar to late 80s fishing. I caught fish in places I did not even bother to try the last 10-12 years or so. It was nice in that we were the lone boat catching fish in spots not known for holding fish. I think you guys need to think out of the box and burn some gas. If you look at structure similar to where you used to catch them thats a start. Also many of those spring days we were fishing in rain.
Another good example is the bnbs as THE summer spot. When I fished in the summer I fished it twice then found fish in similar structure without fighting the fleet.
Burn some gas, do some research, the fish didn't go anywhere.

[slammer]

Oh there was plenty of gas burned and research done this spring. Any given day we had great exapanses of the lake covered with different fishermen and doing different things. Not sure what others think is a good or bad day depending on numbers at least- I know the cliche that any day fishing is good. I can only go by experience and what we have been able to catch over many years.We did ok by some peoples expectations I guess, catching 5 to 20 fish a day. Averaging usually about 15 a day and thats a long day of fishing-not a few hours. In the past though, we have had some much much larger numbers of fish caught than that. Many 30 to 50 plus days/evenings and some crazy days of even higher. Last 3 years we have had only one day of 50 fish, thats it and the avaerage catch rate has went down each year. I pretty much fish every day/night , accept weekends in the spring. Most of the fishermen in my circle struggled to catch 5 to 10 fish per long day. Just my 2 cents but dont assume that we dont cover some ground and fish outside the box. I can show you some gas reciepts ! lol

[jb4sml]

Talk to some of the guides here on the lake. They are all having issues with meeting the experations of their customers. If anyone here on the lake has the pulse of what's going on it's them and it's not good from what I understand and experienced.

[jmr04]

I fish with a certain guide a lot over the year. He says his numbers are down. Thinks it due to pressure on the fishery. He has a lot of clients who are meat hunters. A lot of days he's taking as many as 12 fish out of the lake (legally). Kills him but that's how his bills are paid. Can't say I blame him. Why not change the limit from 2 to 1. Multiply 1 by just the days he fishes and the clients he has on the boat per day and it adds up to a huge number. Then multiply that by the amount of guides on the lake forced to do the same thing and you can see how the numbers are significant.

Mike, maybe you can shed some light as to whether this has ever been discussed or considered by VDGIF.

[hillbilly]

Summer vacation season is when lake fishing guides make money. It's when the vacationers are here, and those are the customers that help guides make a living. Unfortunately, striped bass caught between June and October are dead fish It's just the way it is

Only idea I would offer is for guides to market bass fishing and catfishing as the first choice during summer months, given their survival rates are much better during the hot months. But that doesn't offer the draw that striped bass fishing does at Smith.

But to be honest I don't know enough to feel strongly that the summer harvest is a problem. Don't have an educated guess. I just don't striper fish during the summer. Personally - I haven't caught one since May

[mwardncsu]

Sept 17, 2016 19:29:20 GMT -5 jmr04 said:

Mike, maybe you can shed some light as to whether this has ever been discussed or considered by VDGIF.

Well, the rest of the state has a 4-fish / person / day limit - as I understand it, SML's was changed to 2/person/day post fish-kill (or was it previous to that?). There has not been any serious discussion of changing to a 1/fish/day limit - in fact a few years ago our biologist was quite concerned with our lower-than-average growth rates and that we could be setting up for another crash and felt that some of the the fish in the stunted growth area (basically right around the low-end of the previous slot) needed to be removed from the system - and one of the options he had proposed on the table was changing back to a 4 fish/day/limit. The other was to move the lower end of the slot from 26" to 30", but leave the upper end as it was. He reached out to a number of folks on the lake - the Smith Mountain Striper Club, numerous guides, and numerous other anglers that put a lot of time on the water to discuss his concerns, the data behind what he was seeing, and to solicit input on the various options at play. From this dialog the decision evolved to recommend the 30"-40" slot - one that would accomplish the desire to remove some of fish that were in the stunted growth region, but also provide protection to the larger fish. The general concern from the anglers in discussion and several of the guides was that changing back to a 4 fish/person/day would effectively "ring the dinner bell" to the region saying we had too many fish and to "come and get 'em" - at least by moving the slot we added protection for our "trophy" fish but also protected #s year-round. Perhaps that's why folks are catching more 38"-42" fish in the last year.... There was a lot of discussion here on this board and I'm sure elsewhere about the concern of opening up the 26"-30" range and that size fish getting hammered even though that protection was only provided to them from Nov - May anyway - and maybe a lot more of those have gone into the coolers than expected - hard to really know - but I still am confident that the solution put into place is better than a 4 fish limit

I need to put my hands on the information - could not find it quickly this evening - but I know we had two years back-to-back in the not that distant future when stocking survival rates were not great - and I have been wondering if that is part of what we are seeing at present - I'll try and find the info tomorrow or early next week to see if the years correspond to where they would be in the range we should be seeing more of. Once they fingerlings are stocked it is about 18 months before there is a chance to get an assessment on the stocking success - this is done by gill-netting which is done in the Oct-Dec timeframe - and given we stock in June-July, the 6 mo old fish are not caught in the nets, but then 18 month and older fish are - and used for the sampling.

[rme25v]

LOL stock Snakeheads you'll never worry about population numbers again.