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PLYMOUTH, N.C. (May 28) – “We’re about down to the last fish now, and boy, he’s a big one,” said Plymouth Mayor Brian Roth as a 4-pound largemouth bass wriggled from his net and plopped into the tea-colored Roanoke River.
Friday’s stocking of 259 adult bass at the Plymouth waterfront was unprecedented. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission commonly restocks largemouth bass after a fish kill. But these fish typically are 1- to 2-inch fingerlings, which pale in comparison to the 14- to 18-inch, 2- to 4-pound adult largemouths released Friday. Hurricane Isabel, which ripped through Eastern North Carolina last September, created the unique circumstances. The hurricane devastated fish populations in several coastal rivers. The damage didn’t end with the natural resource. The economies of many northeastern river towns rely on fishing and fishing tournaments. So the Wildlife Commission, in cooperation with the town of Plymouth, stocked catchable-size adult fish into the Roanoke to jump-start both the fish population and the local economy. These adult, wild fish produced the fingerling largemouth bass that are now being stocked in the state’s northeastern region. “The health and well-being of the Roanoke River is acutely important to our local economy — not just to Plymouth but throughout the area because of the extensive visibility and influx of sportfishermen,” Roth said. “The Wildlife Commission’s intensive focus to restock the fish and also to monitor the health of the river will help address three key issues for us: the environmental health of the river, the importance of this resource to sportfishermen and the economic impact to this region.” Fingerling bass, which take 2-3 years to reach catchable size, would not have been immediately beneficial to the area. Adult bass provide almost immediate benefits, said Chad Thomas, fisheries biologist with the Commission. “The advantages of stocking adult largemouth bass are twofold,” Thomas said. “Adult largemouth bass are capable of spawning, which will help accelerate the natural recovery process of largemouth bass in the river. And anglers can start catching these fish today.” Thomas is coordinating the Commission’s multiphase stocking effort to mitigate Hurricane Isabel’s fish kills in the Roanoke and other rivers of northeastern North Carolina. “The lower Roanoke River is the most productive river that we have in the Northeast, providing good water quality, a tremendous amount of forage and lots of habitat for diversity of fishes,” Thomas said. “This stocking today was one more step in our efforts to get the Roanoke River back to where it was before Hurricane Isabel. “Although it may be several years before catch rates of largemouth bass return to the levels we saw in spring 2003,” he added, “recovery of the largemouth fishery in this system is almost a certainty.” |
