Board signs off on regulations

RICHMOND -- Striped bass fishermen at Smith Mountain Lake are a dedicated bunch, and they can be a demanding bunch.

"They want more fish, they want bigger fish and they want to keep fish," said Fred Leckie, the assistant director of the Fisheries Division for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

But when it comes to fisheries management, there's a pretty simple rule: "You can't have it all," Leckie said.

Hoping to help the lake regain its reputation as Virginia's best for trophy stripers, the department's board followed the recommendation from the agency's staff to implement a couple of major changes to the lake's striper regulations.

The changes were among dozens to fishing, hunting, wildlife and boating regulations adopted by the board Thursday. Others included banning the feeding of deer from Sept. 1 through early January, liberalizing antlerless deer hunting rules in many counties, extending smallmouth-bass slot limits on the New and James rivers, moving several hunting season opening days from Mondays to Saturdays, and establishing more delayed harvest trout waters. Most of the rules will not go into place until July 1.

The Smith Mountain Lake slot limit is intended to protect nice-sized fish that are on their way to becoming trophies. Trophy stripers all but disappeared from the lake in 2003, when a lack of forage and a parasite outbreak caused a die-off.

Biologists also had proposed expanding the bag limit to four fish and eliminating the minimum size for stripers during the summer months, but backed off the plan. The new rule leaves the limit at two fish, with no minimum size from June 1 through September.

The ban on deer feeding is intended to solve what department officials consider several potential problems.

By concentrating deer, feeding can speed the spread of disease. That concern has become more pressing with the recent discovery of chronic wasting disease in West Virginia, just 10 miles from Virginia's border.

The dates of the ban -- leading into and through deer season -- address fair chase concerns. Although hunting over bait is illegal, hunters still can condition deer to food piles, then hunt in the area. There also is the possibility that landowners with intensive feeding programs can draw deer off adjoining parcels.

Wildlife division chief Bob Duncan hinted the seasonal ban on feeding may lead to consideration of a year-round ban.

Shenandoah County, starting with the 2006 season, will allow hunters to take one buck of any size, but require a second buck to have at least four antler points on one side. With a growing number of hunters shifting their focus toward trophies, this rule could start a trend, Duncan said.

The pursuit of trophies was center of several major fishing regulations. On the James River, a protected 14- to 22-inch slot limit for smallmouth bass will be put in place on the entire upper river, from its headwaters near Iron Gate to the fall line in Richmond. Biologists say that limit, in place for several years on the river in Botetourt County, could double the number of 20-inch-plus smallmouths.

The department also wants to improve the trophy muskie fishing on the New River, bumping up the minimum size for the toothy critters to 42 inches.

Trout anglers get new delayed harvest waters, including a section of Peak Creek in Pulaski, and an expansion of the delayed harvest section on Chestnut Creek near Galax.

A handful of changes will go into effect sooner than later.

One will restrict hunters from bringing into Virginia whole carcasses of deer and elk, as well as certain body parts, from states known to harbor cervids infected by chronic wasting disease. That rule takes effect Tuesday.

Visit http://www.dgif.virginia.gov for a complete list of changes.

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