Yam
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Post by Yam on Jan 31, 2017 12:38:55 GMT -5
A while back I caught a fish near Indian Creek that looked like he was done. He was just shy of 30 inches and weighed around 10-12 pounds (can't remember). Thus I kept him and gave him to steviejayvaughan (SJV), a member of this site. SJV noticed the fish had a tag sticking out of his butt and sent the tag in. Here is the info he received back from Dan Wilson.
Interesting Info: AGE: 15 years Last Tag: 2004 near marker B40
From Dan Wilson: I received your information on the tagged fish you caught. I will send in your tag reward since I expect you would want it, the tag was worth $50. Your tagged striper was estimated to be 15 years old, we do not have exact ages of fish when they are tagged since we need to sacrifice them to determine the age. However; since your fish was smaller when tagged (23”), it should have been 3 years old based on sizes and ages of fish that year. It was tagged in December of 2004 which makes the age now 15 years.
There has been really poor striped bass growth in recent years and especially for fish between 26”-30”, either they were growing extremely slow or not at all. Stocking rates were reduced slightly for a couple years but recent survival of stocked fish has also been much lower than usual so the numbers have gone down and we opened up the slot to allow harvest of stunted sizes. Together it appears the numbers at SML are much lower right now but the growth and forage has substantially improved. We are currently trying to rebuild the striped bass numbers up from where they are currently but will likely take a few years. Now that we have been able to adjust striper management based on shad populations, we should be able to do a better job managing the striped bass population by reacting sooner to problems.
I have attached some additional information that I put together for someone else but should provide further insight. If you have additional questions, feel free to let me know.
Dan Wilson Fisheries Biologist VA Game & Inland Fisheries 1132 Thomas Jefferson Road Forest, VA 24551
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Post by coheasion on Jan 31, 2017 13:02:21 GMT -5
Very interesting - that is a reeeaaalll slow growth rate.
And you Roanoke guys just can't help yourselves when it comes to stealing fish from the BW!
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Post by drag4striper on Jan 31, 2017 13:51:50 GMT -5
I enjoy reading about tagged fish travels and growth. Thanks Yam and SJV. Never caught a striper with a tag, but have caught several tagged walleye.
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KB
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Post by KB on Jan 31, 2017 18:29:07 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing. Was a good read. Interesting that a fish 30 inches would be 15 years old when I've seen some that were 28-30 inches turned in ( just heads) and they be only 8 or nine years of age. Definitely tells you the difference in growth rates per fish. Still shows that the slot limit rule is great and hope everyone can help spread the word and help with preserving the fishery. Thanks again to both of you.
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BentRod
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Post by BentRod on Jan 31, 2017 19:16:59 GMT -5
Yeah that was our problem for awhile - they exploded to 26-28" then stalled out and never could make it up. It's nice to see Dan thinks we're seeing growth now (hadn't heard that from him yet) - actually he said exactly what I've been feeling myself so that makes me think a.) I'm not crazy and b.) he's not crazy! We just need to get some young fish back in the system. I think in 5-6yrs we may see a dip in 12-20lbfish bc of the reduced population now, but we'll be ok if the fish growth is still good. I'm excited for the next two or three springs - I think we may see some special fish for SML.
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Post by steviejayvaughan on Jan 31, 2017 20:43:10 GMT -5
It was interesting to read. I was surprised at the age. Are the stunted fish usually from the same year classes or does it vary where some can have normal growth rate while others for unknown reasons don't grow?
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Post by slammer on Feb 2, 2017 10:49:51 GMT -5
Glad to see that Dan knows what is going on with the lake and that he recognizes that the population is WAY down. He could fix this much quicker by a temporary ban on keeping stripers at all. Waiting for stockings to catch up it will take 5 years to get better.
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Post by slammer on Feb 3, 2017 10:17:31 GMT -5
I will e-mail Trump. He can take care of this tomorrow with an executive order. He wont make us wait 5 years to have more fish in the lake. lol. He doesnt care if he pisses off the guides who make money off the fishery.
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BentRod
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Post by BentRod on Feb 3, 2017 11:35:54 GMT -5
I will e-mail Trump. He can take care of this tomorrow with an executive order. He wont make us wait 5 years to have more fish in the lake. lol. He doesnt care if he pisses off the guides who make money off the fishery. Just my opinion, but stockings are a better way to approach it as it can be adjusted and controlled year to year without having to go through Richmond. Not only that, but you keep more constant and can begin to manage the system for the long term. If you ban keeping any fish at all, then you throw an additional unknown into the equation and would almost be starting from scratch as far as how to manage the system when the ban ends. I also don't think the fishery is in that dire need of such a ban.
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Post by slammer on Feb 4, 2017 10:42:36 GMT -5
Well, I do agree that the stockings are the much slower long term way of fixing the issue but you would have to agree that the DGIF as a whole moves so slow to fix anything. And, over the years the fishery has not really been that stable,moving up and down almost like a stock market chart does. I believe that could be more stabilized with adjustable/flexible creel limits. Its in my opinion, a huge tool the they dont even use.The same ole 2 fish limit for the past 30 years, come on man. There have been HUGE swings in the fish population in the past 10 years. Many may not believe this, but I fish a lot as many of you do, and in this time frame I have seen many 50 to 100 fish days swing all the way down to hoping like hell to catch 10. Now thats truly not healthy,I dont think. Those big numbers years had to play hell on the baitfish, causing other effects on the fishery. All that could have been adjusted with the creel limit. You may want to remember how long it took to get a slot limit into effect, which is the number 1 reason that you are finally getting bigger fish. That was fought for for many many years, myself included in that fight. Its just the way government works. The DGIF could be much more flexible as it should be, limits could be changed with fishing pressure upticks, bad stocking years,baitfish crashes etc.. Its just like with the deer population, we as hunters had complained for YEARS about the population of deer on the public land and we pleaded for years to have the doe kill limited. They finaly admitted ,after 10 to 15 years of excuse after excuse, that there was a problem, that there was overharvesting and changed the years long regulations.
Dan should have a committee of fishermen,good fishermen that fish the lake a lot,that can report the heartbeat of the lake to him on a semi annual basis. The baitfish polulation, size structure of the fish etc... then regulations can be adjusted to make a more stable fishery. Nature can throw one thing at this lake and it takes years and years to recover. Just sayin..
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2017 16:12:31 GMT -5
I agree with everything you said slammer. All of us that fished back in the day, knows, we had numbers and big fish.... I can close my eyes and see acres of breaking fish. I have heard to long, "for some reason" the fish are hitting a brick wall at 26-28 inches and are not growing. The fishery has been waaay to long recovering..... I don't want to see the after birth, show me the baby.
I've heard parasites... I've heard shortage of bait fish... I've heard genetic flaw in some of the fish... I've heard not as many nutrients coming into the lake as before...I've heard to many fish being kept... I've heard to many fish being released (during the hot months)...Geez, if it can be fixed, fix it.... if it can't tell us.
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Post by slammer on Feb 6, 2017 12:32:09 GMT -5
Sometimes it does NOT take a rocket scientist to figure this out. And sometimes scientists/biologists just cant seem to make a move without years of data and studies, I get that, but sometimes its not that hard, but the sportsmen suffer in the long run.
SML is a put and take fishery for stripers. The ONLY two things you can control is how many are put in and to some degree how many and what sizes are taken out. The first being stockings, takes years before you see any results,and should remain stable from year to year if possible. You can then get a handle on the population structure and then use the CREEL LIMIT to control the size structure and population. Example: Years ago we had huge numbers of small fish, 15 to 18 inch fish and could barely catch a fish over the then 20" limit to keep. We begged to be able to CREEL some of these smaller fish,(the largest segment of the population)NOPE, shot down, need more data. So fishermen were forced to keep the larger fish(which there were very few of) instead of beng able to harvest the most prevalent size. This in turn put us back another 5 years from having any decent size fish. Sometimes it does not take a rocket scientist ! Just sayin !! I could go on and on about " I told you so scenarios " with this fishery.
Its just like with the deer as Ive said. I remember a very bad winter about 93, huge amounts of snow stayed on the ground for months. Long story short it killed about 50 percent of the deer in the mountains, deer were starved so there was no reproduction that year either. Guess what, NO CHANGE IN THE DEER LIMIT FOR THE NEXT YEAR !! or the next year !! We need more data ! Well then another bad winter. So the deer population has still never recovered from this. Western states adjust their limits all the time dependent on winter kill etc.. It just makes sense.
My 2 cents and then some.
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johnr
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Post by johnr on Feb 6, 2017 12:50:29 GMT -5
Hey it's the same story down at Philpott.
For the last 3-5 years we've been catching a ton of 16-17" walleyes, which fall just shy of the 18" limit down there. Each year, the amount of keepers per fish caught has gotten smaller. Last summer, we were over 20 catches per each 18" keeper in my boat. Most of the fish we caught were healthy specimens, but between 16-17.5".
We've been providing our input during the public comment periods for a few years now. Basically saying there is plenty of fish, just not enough big ones. The fish aren't growing that big, period. We asked for the creel limit to be reduced. We asked to be able to keep a couple fish between 16" & 18". We asked to keep (5) 16". We asked for a 16" limit with one or two allowed over 18" to try and preserve the larger fish. Nope, none of it was done.
What did they do? They are allowing us to keep (5) per day at 18" minimum. To get more larger fish into the system, they are going to reduce stockings to theoretically provide more food for each fish. So now we will have less fish overall, still be able to keep almost none, and be expected to be happy about it.
The state has no idea. They claim that a measly 13% of angler effort is directed towards walleyes at Philpott. Baloney. When I go down there on a Wednesday after work in June, and I count 15 boats fishing for walleyes, and there is only 20 boats on the whole lake, I'd say it's pretty easy to determine that more than 13% of effort is directed towards walleyes. Please tell me how stocking less walleyes is going to make it a more productive fishery when every boat on the lake these days is fishing for them?
We want to be able to keep a "couple" for dinner, while having the opportunity to catch a big fish every now and then. With the regulations in place now, neither option is very viable.
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Post by slammer on Feb 6, 2017 15:30:56 GMT -5
Wow ! Bingo !! You should be allowed to keep those smaller ones and let the bigger ones grow. They will get it figured out in 5 years John. lol They must all go to the same school !
You dont need a masters degree to figure that out do ya !
Bet this, If I or many of the other fishermen here were in charge of SML there would be bigger fish, and more numbers than there are right now. The slot limit would have been in effect 10 years sooner than it was and we would not have been forced to keep the bigger fish by creel limit for all those years ,think about that ! There would be some 40 pounders swimming around.
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Yam
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Post by Yam on Feb 6, 2017 18:33:31 GMT -5
I don't pretend to know the answers when it comes to playing god. However, I do know that if you get rid of all of these master-degree-toting scientists, data-craving biologists and red-tape-slinging government folk, we would all be left with 0 stripers and 0 walleye.
By all means, have and express your opinions, but please show some respect to the hands that keep our passions burning.
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