The Georgia DNR announced in 2005 plans to stop stocking hybrids in Oconee, Sinclair, Jackson, and High Falls. That is the bad news. The good news is that stripers will be stocked in those lakes instead of hybrids.

Hybrids are a cross between a striped bass and a white bass. Stripers live in the ocean and run up rivers to spawn. White bass live in freshwater all their lives. Stripers get big – the all tackle record is 78 pounds, 8 ounces. White bass are much smaller, the record for them is 6 pounds, 13 ounces. The hybrid record is 27 pounds, 5 ounces.

Natural populations of striped bass live in the Atlantic Ocean and run up Georgia’s bigger rivers to spawn. Stripers need many miles of moving water for their eggs to survive, so rivers must flow freely with no dams on them. Some of our rivers, like the Savannah and the Altamaha with its tributaries the Oconee and Ocmulgee, support stripers.

Due to many factors the natural populations of stripers in the Atlantic that spawn in our rivers are threatened. One problem is hybrid bass that are stocked in lakes make their way through the dams and populate rivers below them. When in the rivers, they compete with the native stripers running upstream to spawn.

To lower this competition hybrids will no longer be stocked in lakes that feed the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers. Instead, striper will be stocked. Stripers can survive in lakes as landlocked fish but they generally can’t spawn since there is not enough free flowing water above the dams to allow their eggs to survive.

Stripers living in lakes get big though. The record landlocked striper weighed 67 pounds, 8 ounces. In some lakes both stripers and hybrids have been stocked since hybrids are usually easier to catch and have a short life span but stripers live longer and get much bigger. From now on only stripers will be stocked in those lakes.

If you fish those lakes you will have a better chance to catch a huge fish weighing over 20 pounds. Unfortunately, they will be harder to catch than the hybrids. On trips to one of those lakes right now you might expect to catch a dozen or more hybrids averaging about three pounds but in the future you will be fishing all day hoping to catch one or two big stripers.

At public hearings held by the DNR, most fishermen making comments were in favor of this change. Only time will tell if it will change your fishing.

There is a good striper fishery on the lower Savannah River when they run in to spawn every spring. Since 1988 it has been illegal to keep any stripers caught there since the population was in serious decline. In 1990 the DNR started stocking stripers in the river trying to build up the populations.

Stocking has worked well, and they are considering allowing fishermen to keep some stripers now. They are planning a two fish daily limit with a 27-inch minimum length on the Savannah River downstream of the Clark’s Hill Dam beginning in October 2005.

Hopefully, lowering competition from hybrids up the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers will allow the stripers that spawn in those rivers to thrive and establish a healthy population. Stripers are like salmon in that they return to the same river they were hatched in to spawn.

Stripers that live in the Gulf of Mexico are a separate subspecies and they run up rivers like the Flint and Chattahoochee to spawn. Currently there is no plans to change the stocking of hybrids in lakes that are on those rivers.

There has been a good fishery for landlocked stripers in Lake Lanier for many years. They are so numerous and big that trout can’t be stocked in the lake, stripers like them better then I like ice cream. It is probably our best striper lake.

If you fish for stripers at Lanier, watch for orange tags in the fish you catch. The DNR is tagging 500 stripers this month and offering you $5 to return the tag to them. Returned tags will help DNR fisheries biologists know how the striper populations are doing.