The dogwood blossoms are the size of a squirrel’s ear, and that means two things for Tar Heel sportsmen — spring wild turkey season has arrived and the striped-bass spawning run up the Roanoke River has reached fever pitch.
As the water in the river warms toward the magical 68-degree mark, these fish — some residents that live in Albemarle Sound and others that swim inland from the Atlantic Ocean — are just starting to arrive at the upper reaches of the Roanoke River near Weldon and Gaston in Northampton and Halifax counties, respectively.
“It’s hot right now,” said James “Pete” Kornegay, the senior research biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s fisheries division. “The month of March there was no action at all at Weldon and even in the lower reaches of the river, then about two weeks ago (April 5) the fish started showing up.
“Now it’s April 19 and it’s hot in the upper river.”
Stripers swim upriver like salmon to spawn each spring and don’t turn around until they reach the Roanoke Rapids dam, if the water is high enough.
“Right now we’ve got good (water) flow,” Kornegay said. “The Army Corps of Engineers has been real good the last 10 or 15 years about cooperating with (WRC) and is holding the water back in Kerr Lake. The outflow (at Roanoke Rapids Dam) is 8,000 cubic-feet per second, and they plan to hold it there. It should be stable unless we have some kind of big rain event in the upper Roanoke watershed, and the (Kerr) lake level gets above 304 (feet above sea level). Even then, if they have to let water out, they’ll do it slowly.”
The water temperature is just 56 degrees but is rising rapidly with the warm spring days that started about mid April.
“There are really good numbers of fish in the (upper) river right now, but not many of the big females yet,” said Kornegay, a 32-year-veteran WRC employee. “The (WRC technicians) went electro-fishing last Monday (April 13) and caught mostly males, but two stripers were in the 20-pound range.”
Top artificial lures include Zoom flukes, Kornegay said, but anglers also use frozen shad and live bait, including herring less than 6-inches long netted from Kerr Lake. A moratorium was placed on the netting of blueback herring and alewives in the Roanoke system two years ago in order to attempt to rebuild migratory anadromous stocks. The WRC assumes fish less than 6-inches long, however, came from impounded lakes, such as Kerr Reservoir, where they can be netted.
“There’s a couple guys near Weldon on pontoon boats selling live bait, herring, they caught at Buggs Island,” Kornegay said.
Jack Eudy and Chuck Laughridge are taking fly-fishing anglers as well (Clouser flies are popular), and “they’ve been having a blast,” Kornegay said.
Only single barbless lures may be used until June 30, and anglers may keep only two stripers daily. Both fish may be less than 22 inches long, or one of the two may be more than 27 inches long, but no stripers from 22 to 27 inches long may be kept.
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