Photo by Steve Brown

It never ceases to amaze me how so many of West Virginia’s trout fishermen stop fishing just when things are getting good.

I know exactly why. The state Division of Natural Resources stops stocking the streams at the end of May, and most anglers believe the end of stocking means the end of good fishing.

Au contraire. 

Until mid- to late June, water temperatures are ideal for trout. They feed actively, on minnows and aquatic insects, until higher water temperatures force them into an early-morning and late-evening feeding schedule.

The stockings might be over, but the streams are still full of hungry, actively feeding trout. And most of the fishermen have gone home.

Instead of mowing the grass or grilling steaks, anglers should be enjoying these last few weeks before low water and summertime temperatures put the fish off their feed.

Just sayin’.

Under new management?

Anglers who fish for the New River’s most popular game fish might soon do so under a new set of regulations.

Division of Natural Resources fisheries officials believe the river’s current regulations for smallmouth bass haven’t accomplished what they were supposed to do – grow more and bigger bass.

Since 2001, catch-and-release regulations have been in effect for the 12-mile stretch of the New between the Interstate 64 bridge near Sandstone and the National Park Service’s Grandview Sandbar access site near Quinnimont.

The regulations required all smallmouth caught in that section to be returned to the water at once.

DNR officials imposed the regulations believing that they would dramatically increase the number of trophy-sized bass available to anglers. Mark Scott, the DNR’s district fisheries biologist, said that failed to happen.

“We’ve captured and tagged 250 to 500 smallmouth a year for several years now, and those tags have given us a pretty fair amount of data,” Scott explained. “What we found is that bass move in and out of the catch-and-release area much more than we thought they would. With bass moving the way they are, those special regulations aren’t protecting very much.”

Scott said one particular tagged fish helped illustrate what was happening.

“We captured and tagged the fish at Sandstone. About three months later, it was caught at Keeney Creek, 20 to 25 miles downriver. We couldn’t believe it had moved that far, but it did. Most tagged fish don’t move that much, but they move enough to keep the catch-and-release regulations from having much effect.”

Now that DNR officials have lost confidence in the catch-and-release approach, they’re considering options designed to create the trophy fishery they believe the New can ultimately support.

“There are any number of possibilities – a significantly expanded catch-and-release section, a river-wide slot limit, a river-wide minimum size limit, or a return of the entire river to general bass-fishing regulations,” Scott said.

“Personally, I would like to see a river-wide regulation that would increase the overall size of fish available while allowing at least some harvest.”

That description seems to align most closely with a slot limit – a set of regulations that would allow anglers to keep a prescribed limit of small fish and/or a single trophy fish, while releasing all of the medium-to-large fish.

Earlier this year, DNR officials proposed similar regulations to protect spawning-sized walleyes. If approved by the Natural Resources Commission later this year, all walleye between 20 and 30 inches long would have to be released, but anglers would be able to keep two a day – only one of which could exceed 30 inches.

Scott said the daily limit and slot sizes would almost certainly be different for smallmouth bass, but added that it’s too early to predict what final proposals the DNR might make.

“We’re in the early stages of discussing this right now,” he said. “We’ve also discussed holding a couple of public meetings to get input from fishermen about what should be done.”