This website is a testing environment only. The contents of this site are not refreshed regularly and should not be relied upon.
For up-to-date information on North Carolina licenses, regulations and other wildlife resources, please visit the agency’s website NCWildlife.org.
Fisheries Biologists Keith Ashley and Tom Rachels had a great week collecting American shad and striped bass.
“Striped bass numbers continue to increase and we expect that trend to continue for the next two to three weeks,” Ashley said.
This week’s sampling concludes their American shad sampling for the year. Over the course of the sampling season, Ashley and Rachels collected 649 American shad at a CPUE of 50 shad per hour, which is slightly below last year’s catch rate of 65 shad per hour.
“However, we collected 169 more shad this year than last, suggesting that this year’s run was slightly larger,” Ashley said.
Ashley and Rachels surveyed the Cape Fear on May 7 and 8 this week, sampling fish populations from their electrofishing boat below each of the three locks and dams on the river at Duarte, Elizabethtown and Riegelwood in Bladen County.
They sampled 81 American shad and 31 striped bass. The breakdown was: one male American shad at lock and dam 1, along with 26 striped bass (20 males, 6 females). At lock and dam 2, Ashley and Rachels sampled 38 American shad (20 males, 18 females), along with one male striped bass. At lock and dam 3, they collected 42 American shad (25 males, 17 females) and four male striped bass.
All the striped bass were tagged and released, with the exception of eight fish (six males and two large females) that were transported to the Watha State Fish Hatchery to serve as brood fish for producing, rearing and stocking fingerling striped bass into reservoirs across North Carolina. "Hopefully, that will conclude our brood fish collections this year," Ashley said.
Size ranges for the fish were 15-22 inches and 1.2 pounds to 4.2 pounds for American shad. The striped bass ranged from 16-32 inches, with weights ranging from 1.7 pounds to 14.3 pounds. The largest fish sampled for both days was a 4.2-pound American shad and a 14.3-pound striped bass.
Sex ratios for the American shad combined across all three locks and dams were: 46 males and 35 females. Among the striped bass that Ashley and Rachels collected, 25 stripers were male, and six were female.
As has been the case a lot this year, the weather was cloudy and cool with air temps in the low mid-60’s when they sampled the Cape Fear as part of their routine weekly spawning stock monitoring. The water in the Cape Fear was slightly turbid with normal flows (~7,140 cfs) and the temperature was 64° F. Flows were at 4,450 cubic feet per second (cfs).
Ashley and Rachels saw no recreational boat anglers below either lock and dam 1 or lock and dam 3. At lock and dam 2, they saw one recreational boater and seven or eight anglers fishing from the bank. At lock and dam 1, they saw five to six bank anglers fishing from the newly constructed fishing pier and at lock and dam 3, they saw one bank angler fishing – all were fishing for catfish.
In addition to their weekly sampling efforts, Ashley and Rachels assisted Dawn York of Dial Cordy and Associates with groundtruthing of several GPS sites designated as potential sites for construction of a ½-acre gravel spawning site for American shad. According to Ashley, these GPS sites are located immediately downstream of Lock and Dam 2, one of which will be selected for creation and enhancement of American shad spawning habitat in the river.
Additional Observations
Doug Mumford of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) shared the most recent creel survey information collected from different stretches along the Cape Fear River.
"White shad are still being landed at Lock and Dam No 2. and 3, and the water was very high last week," Mumford said. "The first striped bass releases of the year were reported from the Cape Fear River. Several anglers fishing at Lock and Dam no. 1 reporting releasing as many as 40 striped bass during the report period."
Creel surveys are administered by the Division of Marine Fisheries through Coastal Recreational Fishing License funding, and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission assists with design and data interpretation in the upper portions of the Cape Fear River.
The new fishing pier at lock and dam 1 on the Cape Fear River features alternating low-high handrails to provide a handicapped-accessible fishing opportunity that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.