RALEIGH, N.C. (March 8) – “Only 4,552 more to go,” joked Brian McRae, watching as the just-tagged, 8-inch largemouth bass slipped from his hand into the holding tank.
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| Brian McRae and Kirk Rundle, fisheries biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, microtagged 12,000, sub-adult largemouth bass to monitor the effects of the stocking effort as well as evaluate the stocked fish’s contribution to the existing wild population. |
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| Tiny, magnetized wire tags were inserted into the cheeks of sub-adult, largemouth bass to determine growth, movement and survival rates of the stocked fish. |
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| Lesly Gibbon, promotional manager for Bass Pro Shops in Concord, N.C., tries her hand at microtagging an 8-inch, sub-adult largemouth bass – a task more difficult in practice than in theory. |
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| Kevin Dockendorf and Bill Collart, fisheries biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, stock the sub-adult largemouth bass into Conaby Creek in the lower Roanoke River. |
McRae, a biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, along with other Division of Inland Fisheries staff and personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, microtagged and stocked 12,000, sub-adult largemouth bass into the Roanoke and Chowan rivers on Feb. 25 and 26.
The collaborative tagging and stocking effort, supported with donations from Bass Pro Shops and RBC Centura, was the first step in an unprecedented three-phase stocking effort to restore largemouth bass fisheries in the Roanoke and Chowan rivers. These heralded fisheries were decimated by Hurricane Isabel last fall.
RBC Centura is supporting the effort to restore largemouth bass in the Chowan River while Bass Pro Shops’ $12,000 donation purchased the 6,000 bass that were stocked into the Roanoke River, considered by many anglers to be one of the most productive rivers in the Southeast.
“Bass Pro Shops’ donation helps to restore the Roanoke’s largemouth bass population and also restores the hopes of many anglers, who, before this stocking, would have been hard pressed to find any bass in the lower Roanoke,” said Chad Thomas, the Commission's coastal region fisheries research coordinator. “We typically stock 1- to 2-inch largemouth bass, and it takes them two or three years to grow to a catchable size. These donations will enable anglers to catch some bass — albeit smaller ones — this year.”
While the Commission's fish hatcheries have stocked largemouth bass fingerlings into waters across the coastal region after fish kills, this is the first time that 6- to 8-inch, sub-adult bass were purchased and stocked. Normally, the $2-per-fish expense incurred from stocking sub-adult bass precludes using these larger bass in fish-restoration efforts.
Stockings of 8-inch bass should provide several advantages over fingerling stockings, Thomas said.
“Typically, largemouth bass in the wild have the highest mortalities before and during their first winter. Because we are stocking these 8-inch bass in early spring, at age 1, they will not be subject to the rigors of a first winter, and we anticipate survival will be better,” Thomas said. “We also expect these fish will spawn in 2005, which will help accelerate the natural recovery process of largemouth populations in the two rivers.”
The unusual size of the largemouth bass stocked for this fish-restoration effort created a unique research opportunity. Prior to stocking, Commission biologists microtagged each bass to monitor the effects of the stocking effort as well as evaluate the stocked fish’s contribution to the existing wild population.
“We inserted tiny, magnetized wire tags into the cheeks of all 12,000 bass to determine growth, movement and survival rates of the stocked fish,” Thomas said. “Starting next month, we will conduct periodic recapture sampling to determine if the stocking effort was successful.”
Biologists will use hand-held metal detectors to scan each fish collected, and if the fish “beeps,” it is a tagged fish. The stocking evaluation will continue for several years.
“For Bass Pro Shops, there was no question that this project conforms with our conservation-and-management philosophy because the Roanoke River is one of North Carolina's most ecologically important rivers," said Martin McDonald, Bass Pro Shops' director of conservation.
"We're especially pleased that our funding of this project will address anglers' requests with immediacy as well as provide important data to the growing body of largemouth bass research.”
In addition to last month’s sub-adult bass stocking and tagging effort, the Commission will stock 1 million bass fingerlings in June in the Roanoke, Chowan, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Scuppernong and Alligator rivers. Of these 1 million fingerlings, 50,000 will be microtagged for research purposes.
“Our survey work after Hurricane Isabel indicated significant reductions in the numbers of predator fish that would normally feed on 1- to 2-inch bass,” Thomas said. “For this reason we want to stock fingerlings in all of our major rivers in the northeast and evaluate their survival rate.”
The final phase of the
stocking effort will be microtagging and stocking 12,000, 5-inch bass into
the Roanoke and Chowan rivers in October. Commission biologists will
evaluate all three stockings to determine which introduction provides the
most successful recovery strategy.
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