2/8/07

Fish Fears?
Anglers, biologists discuss striped bass harvesting restrictions
By Eric Goold

ERIC GOOLD/Manning Times
SCDNR official Scott Lamprecht (left) and biologist Jim Belak (right) address a room full of fisherman in a public meeting last Thursday at the FE DuBose auditorium.

One of Clarendon County’s most recognizable and marketable assets is in trouble.

Biologists and officials from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources met with approximately 70 fishermen and businessmen in the F.E DuBose auditorium last Thursday night to discuss the future of striped bass in the Santee-Cooper water system.

In the past few years, the population of striped bass in the system has declined and mortality rates for the fish have risen dramatically. Since 2002, striped bass have demonstrated a very poor reproduction rate.

“We need to do something now before the problem gets worse,” said DNR official Scott Lamprecht, the Freshwater Fisheries Coordinator in Region IV.

Lamprecht gave a slide presentation that detailed the history of striped bass at Santee-Cooper, as well as graphs that depicted data about the population. He discussed stocking efforts and other issues with anglers and fielded their questions.

The state officials were quick to point out that harvesting from fishermen is not the only cause of the striper population decline. The problem is that the stripers are not able to reproduce naturally because they die or are fished out before they reach the age of sexual maturity, which is four or five years old for these fish.

A graph presented by Lamprecht indicated that stripers in the Santee-Cooper system have a 70 percent mortality rate, and he said that 40 percent of that is caused by harvesting from fishermen. The other 30 percent comes from natural causes, like the drought conditions in the water system, being eaten by predators and competition for dwindling food reserves.

At issue is an effort to institute more severe harvesting restrictions. Currently, fishermen can take up to five striped bass per day, limited to fish over 21 inches. The striped bass season lasts all year long.

Lamprecht and other DNR officials made public presentations at Moncks Corner, Columbia, Santee and Manning in order to gather public opinion about possible harvesting restrictions that would change the limit of striped bass available to fishermen as well as change the length of the fishing season.

“We wanted to survey an accurate area around the Santee-Cooper system,” said DNR biologist Jim Belak.

Lamprecht said the most popular suggestion seems to be creating a striped bass season from Oct. 1 through May 31. Limits would be reduced to two stripers per day, with a minimum length of 26 inches. Catch and careful release would be allowed.

The season would be completely closed from June 1 through Sept. 30. No targeted catch and release fishing would be allowed.

Some of the anglers at the meeting suggested that such changes would dramatically impact the regional economy that is based on recreational fishing in the Santee-Cooper system. Don Drose, a fishing guide based in Manning, pointed out that the proposed harvesting restrictions might prevent recreational fishermen from coming to Clarendon County.

That would hurt businesses that rely on those fishermen, from the hotels that house them to the restaurants that feed them. Obviously the guides and the fish shops and boat shops that provide equipment to visiting fishermen would also suffer some hardship.

“We have to take a hard look at these issues,” said Drose.

Unlike most states, South Carolina can only institute change through its Legislature. In the next couple of weeks, Lamprecht and Belak will present the opinions they heard in the public meetings to the DNR Board, which will then decide if it wants to pursue action with the Legislature.

If harvesting restrictions on striped bass are implemented, they will have to come by law.

“The changes happen at the Legislature,” said Belak. “We make recommendations to the DNR Board, then they go to the Legislature. The only way other than that is for concerned citizens to go directly to their legislators and ask them to introduce a bill.

“We’ll make our recommendation to the Board, then they will decide how to proceed from there,” he said.