Tight lines

Prized bass once in danger of vanishing is finding its way back to the water and surprising anglers

MONCKS CORNER - Nobody is quite ready to say so, but stripers apparently are back in Marion-Moultrie lakes.

Anglers fishing for largemouth bass are pulling in more 12- to 18-inch striped bass, just under keeper size, after years of barely catching any. Sample catches by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources this year - so far - have outstripped last year by about 2 to 1 and bested low-year 2007 by more than 7 to 1.

The prize fish that began to vanish seven years ago is finding its way back onto the hook.

"It does look promising," said Allan Weiss of Blacks Fish Camp. "We haven't seen an abundance, or anywhere near it. But there's been a marked improvement in the small fish."

"We're just tickled," said Scott Lamprecht, DNR fisheries biologist, who last year suggested a comeback might be on the way when he saw more stocked fingerlings survive.

A recovery couldn't come too soon. The big bass is the signature catch of the lakes; it helped turn surrounding counties such as Berkeley into a vacation destination worth an estimated $300 million per year, according to tourism officials. It was named the state fish for its Lowcountry success.

Boats used to race to where the seagulls swarmed and line up in rows to cast where the waters boiled with jumping fish. Then the gulls quit swarming.

The catch fell off precipitously despite the state stocking 2 million fingerlings per year. DNR's sample count fell from more than 500 in 2000 to 50 in 2007. Weiss hasn't booked a tourist party to fish for striper since 2004.

Frustration with Natural Resources' management of the fish rose as the catch dropped. Recreational fishermen, guides, tourism officials and even some state legislators want to do more, but few could agree on just what to do. A long list of blames for the decline ran from the drought to competition from other species eating hatchlings and hatchling food.

The cures ranged from replanting lake grasses to killing off fingerling-poaching cormorant and introducing hybrid "palmetto" bass. DNR in late fall 2007 formed a stakeholders committee - made up of sometimes competing interests of recreational and guide fishing representatives, along with tourism and Santee Cooper officials and others - to come up with recommendations. Weiss is on the committee.

Its first charge was to propose a set of revamped catch restrictions, and it did. Last year, the state Legislature approved closing striper fishing during summer months, reduced the daily catch limit and adjusted the "keeper" sizes to give more fish a chance to spawn.

Meanwhile, the stripers' apparent return has come too quickly for the restrictions to have made a difference. Nobody is sure quite what to make of it. Lamprecht said he thinks the recent drought that dropped lake levels - one of the factors blamed for the loss of striper - released nutrients and killed enough predators to give more fingerlings a chance to make it.

Anglers say more needs to be done.

"Whatever caused them to go away and come back, we need to have something in place to protect them," Weiss said. The stakeholders committee wants a series of protections that include more law enforcement to catch poachers and more studies of population, mortality and the effect of predators.

"It's kind of like robbing a bank. We don't know what to account (cormorants) are robbing on the lake, but we know they're having an effect," Weiss said. Some members want studies of white bass and crappies, which also have disappeared. Eventually, the committee may call for stricter size limits and even for introducing the hybrid bass.

But for now, the gulls are back and anglers are happy to see them.

"What they're doing now, it would have been nice if they could have done it 10 years ago, but they waited until the fishing was destroyed," said Al Jones of Angels Landing. "It's all positive steps, but it's going to be a long turn down the road before we really see any benefit."

Source: The Post and Courier