Thomas column: Big stripers in Roanoke

Thursday, February 10, 2011 http://www.salisburypost.com


Can you imagine catching a 100-pound striper in a river that’s a cast and a half wide and 3 to 12 feet deep? Sound like heaven?
It’s called the Roanoke River and it stands a shining example of how conservation efforts can restore a decimated fishery.
There are records of many 100-pound fish being caught out of the Roanoke in the early 1900s. At least hundreds and possibly thousands of years before that, we know Native American fishermen came here every spring for the great striper fishing. All those years and the action has always happened within a few miles of what’s now known as the Weldon boat ramp. When you enter Weldon, the sign welcoming visitors to this small town in the northeast corner of North Carolina says “Rock Fish Capital of the World,” and for about two months in the springtime, they have every right to that title.
Stripers that live their adult lives in the ocean travel through Albemarle Sound and up the Roanoke River almost 160 miles every spring to spawn. Depending of water level and temperature, they always end up within a few miles of the boating access area in Weldon.
For roughly four to eight weeks it’s literally a fishermens paradise.Thousands of fish from up and down the eastern seaboard and beyond congregate each spring for hundreds of years in the same tiny piece of river. That spring spawning ritual is what makes the Roanoke River such a unique and special fishery. Chad Thomas, coastal region supervisor and fisheries biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission (AFS member, ’92) , explains why this happens.
“We know that hundreds of years ago, long before there were any dams on the river, Native Americans fished for stripers on this exact same site. What makes the river near Weldon so unique is the presence of a fall line, a change in elevation where the coastal plain ends and the piedmont begins,” Thomas said. “A combination of factors including good spawning habitat and a good flow of water draw the migrating stripers to this spot.”
By the late 1980s, what had been an unbelievable fishery for many years was nearly totally gone. Legal over fishing as well as illegal catch and sale of stripers from the Roanoke took a tremendous toll and we lost a special spot here in North Carolina. People like Thomas were determined to bring the fishery back to its glory and they’ve succeeded in a big way.
“In the late 1980s, the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission began introducing new regulations to protect spawning striped bass.
The make-up of the fishery at that time consisted of mostly 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old striped bass in very low abundance,” Thomas explained.
Reasons for the decline in the fishery were numerous and included over fishing throughout the system, illegal activity, poor water quality and highly variable flow regimes from Roanoke Rapids Dam.
About that same time a group of individuals consisting of anglers, scientists, power company officials and others formed what became known as the Roanoke River Flow Committee. The committee’s objective was to look at the relationship between survival of eggs and fry of striped bass in the Roanoke and the amount of flow from Roanoke Rapids Dam. The group came up with a series of guidelines that showed what flow levels in the spring would help the striped bass population spawn most successfully.
The changes to the flow regimen have proven to be a significant benefit to the fishery. We have also seen marked improvements in water quality over the last 30 years.
So we now have optimum spawning flows, improvements in water quality and fishing regulation in place to protect the existing spawning stock. Those three things in conjunction with one another are primarily responsible for the tremendous increase in the numbers of striped bass in the system. The anglers have had to endure continual changes to their fishing regulations.
“Without the anglers commitment to these regulations and to the way we’re trying to manage the fishery, we wouldn’t have the recovered population that we have today,” Thomas said.
The best news is that these fish are returning and as time goes on, we move closer and closer to getting those giants back to Weldon. One of the tools NCWRC uses is a boat with charged electrodes that stun the fish so they can be netted, weighed, measured and tagged. Their data reinforces what fishermen already knew.
“Back in 1991 most of the fish we observed while electro-fishing were small 3- to 4-year-old males around 18 inches. As time has gone by, now we’re seeing 10-, 11-, 12-, and occasionally 13-year-old fish in this population. Once you get a striped bass to 13 years old that fish is over 40 inches, and usually between 33 and 37 pounds. So each year we’re seeing bigger and bigger fish and that’s a really good sign, especially when those fish are males.”
The big question Thomas asks now is, “What could the fishery look like in the future? We have a river now that’s full of fish and the fish continue to get larger, but can we ever get back to a situation where we have 80 and 100 pound fish here? It may be a little optimistic to think that we could, but that’s what we get paid to do, is to take something that is already good and try to make it even better. Needless to say, I doubt there is an angler on the river that wouldn’t love to see and 80 pound gravid striper grab their bait and head downriver,” Thomas said.