When it comes to striped bass in the Savannah River, Matt Thomas gets far more excited over a 12-inch fish than a mature 30-pounder.
"This week, we collected two of the small ones," said Thomas, regional supervisor at Georgia's Coastal Fisheries office. "That's a very good sign."
Biologists have worked more than 15 years toward the restoration of stripers that almost vanished from the Savannah River in the 1970s, when construction projects disrupted fragile spawning grounds.
This fall, anglers might be allowed - for the first time since 1989 - to catch and keep the giant sportfish, which biologists believe have recovered sufficiently to allow a very limited harvest.
The capture of 1- and 2-year-old juvenile fish this winter is an encouraging sign that the bigger stripers are doing something they haven't done in many years: reproduce naturally.
Although stripers were once plentiful in the 210-mile lower Savannah River, they began to disappear in the 1970s after a tidal gate and diversion canal were installed in the Back River, where they spawned.
Scientists believe the changes increased salinity in freshwater estuaries and rendered them unsuitable for striper reproduction.
In 1989, a moratorium on taking stripers from the river was adopted by both Georgia and South Carolina. Two years later, the tidal gate was removed and the canal filled in.
Since then, efforts to restore stripers have included annual stockings of up to 40,000 fish. Although the population has grown, most fish found in the river were stocked specimens, and not enough reproduced naturally.
Thomas said the stocking of small stripers was halted two years ago to enable biologists to determine whether the existing mature fish could reproduce on their own.
"We completely stopped putting fish in for two years," he said.
In the absence of stockings, any small fish that were found could presumably have come from natural reproduction.
"We think the small ones we've been catching are natural, but we still have to test them," he said. "There is some possibility they could have moved downstream from reservoirs, where small fish are stocked."
Although the striper population in the lower Savannah likely will need supplemental stockings for many years to come, the river's plentiful stock of large fish is comparable to levels that existed prior to the 1970s.
"If you look at what we see in there today, it is very much like it was long ago, and we've gotten the population back up," Thomas said. "We see some fish over 30 pounds, and those are eight to 10-year-old fish."
The current regulations prohibit keeping any striped bass in the river below New Savannah Bluff, but Georgia's Board of Natural Resources will consider lifting that ban sometime this fall.
The current plan would allow a very limited harvest of two fish per angler, with a minimum size of 27 inches. Such a limit would ensure that all fish caught would have had an opportunity to spawn at least once, Thomas said.
The change would need approval from the DNR board before any fish could be kept, and the proposal also would require approval on the South Carolina side of the river.
Val Nash, chief of fisheries for South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources, said his agency supports the planned re-opening of striper fishing, with the 27-inch minimum and two-fish limit.
"From South Carolina's perspective, the moratorium actually ends June 30, 2006, the way the law is written in our state," he said. "If we don't have something else in place, it would go back to the statewide limit of 10 fish and no size limit, which would be devastating in the Savannah River."
Consequently, South Carolina's DNR board is scheduled to ask the state's General Assembly to work out language similar to Georgia's to insure that the river - and its stripers - are managed with comparable rules.
"We'd like to coordinate this with Georgia so we have not only the same restrictions, but also the same starting date," Nash said.
Before any specific changes or dates can be adopted, Georgia fisheries officials likely will hold some public information meetings and a public hearing to discuss the matter with anglers and environmentalists, Thomas said. No dates have been set, but some of the meetings likely will be held in or near Augusta.
Until a formal change is made to existing regulations, anglers must continue to release all stripers caught below New Savannah Bluff.
Fishermen who wish to keep striped bass may do so at Thurmond Lake, which receives 400,000 stocked striper fingerlings each year.
BASS PRO CHOOSES MACON: Bass Pro Shops of Springfield, Mo., will open a 600,000 square foot outdoor sports center in Macon that will include a regional distribution center and spawn 400 jobs.
According to an announcement Friday by Gov. Sonny Perdue, the center will be located off Interstate 75 and will anchor a 207 acre development by Fickling & Company, Inc.
The state-of-the-art distribution facility will service shops in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. Construction will begin later this year.
The issues
• The lower Savannah River was closed to striper fishing in 1989.
• Restocking efforts have helped restore the population.
• A proposal to allow limited harvest could take effect this fall.
• Georgia and South Carolina each would have to adopt the plan.
• Public hearings will be scheduled this spring and summer.
• The proposal includes a 27-inch minimum and two-fish limit.
• Currently, it remains illegal to keep stripers from the lower river.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
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