Sonar used to track fish at Smith Mountain Lake

MONETA, Va. (WFXR) — The sound was distinct, a loud ping, and it was exactly what the team of researchers from Coastal Carolina University were listening for. That ping was coming from a radio tag implanted in a striped bass at Smith Mountain Lake.

Graduate students from Coastal Carolina are working with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) to conduct a catch-and-release mortality study of striped bass at Smith Mountain Lake this summer. What they find could have an impact on how the species is managed in the lake.

“I think it could be sitting in between 14 and 14 and a half feet,” said researcher Nathan Smith as he discussed a fish being tracked with fellow researcher Riley Phelps. “We’ve been seeing it hanging out not too far from over there. I’m curious to see where he ends up.”

Smith and Phelps are part of the team conducting the research. What they hope to find out is how many striped bass actually survive catch and release in the summer at the lake.

Right now, there is no size limit on stripers caught between June 1 and October 31. That is because previous studies have found many striped bass do not survive the stress of a fight in extremely warm water. The daily harvest limit is two striped bass, and anglers are encouraged to keep what they catch, even if the fish are small. The thinking is there is no reason to impose a minimum size if a fish is likely to die anyway.

Those previous studies were all done on shallow, bowl-shaped lakes. Smith Mountain Lake is deeper and V-shaped, with oxygen at deeper, cooler levels. The DWR wants to know if that gives released striped bass a better chance of survival. If it does, it could mean a change in summer regulations at the lake.

“The biggest issue for inland striped bass is when they’re landlocked they don’t have anywhere to go to seek thermal refuge,” explained Smith. “They’re a fairly cold to temperate acclimated species.”

So, to find out if Smith Mountain Lake stripers have better survival rates, the research team is catching 120 of them by hook and line, tagging them with radio transmitters, and then tracking them with sonar to see how many live, and what the behavior is of those surviving fish.

“You can hear loud beeping pings,” said Phelps as he listened through headphones to a fish he was tracking. “It gets louder the closer you get to it.”

The fish being tracked had been caught a few days before and was still alive, though it had not moved far from where it was caught. In other cases, fish have ranged widely throughout Smith Mountain Lake, some as far as eight miles away from where they were released.

So far, 40 fish have been caught and tracked. Results from the research should be available sometime next year. They could affect harvest and size regulations on striped bass at Smith Mountain Lake in the future.

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