Lake Hartwell anglers may recall the lake’s first recorded fish kill last summer. After copious amounts of rain, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the lake’s level, was forced to spill water over the emergency gates and then later siphoned off deeper layers to control the flooding. The result was a disaster to stripers counting on the deep, cool water in the main-lake basin.
Dan Rankin, a biologist with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, said there was no way to anticipate the kill and indicated the estimated 500 fish seen floating may have only represented a small percentage of the total kill.
“You never really know the magnitude, because you don’t know how many fish went to the bottom instead of floating up,” Rankin said. “The primary impact would be on the larger fish; they don’t survive well in low oxygen.”
To make up the deficit as well as fill in a noted gap in poor survival of released fry over the last couple of years, SCDNR has stepped up stocking efforts of striped bass in Hartwell.
“Our target rate is seven striped bass per acre,” he said. “In 2013, we averaged 9.3 fish per acre between South Carolina and Georgia, who co-manage the lake’s striper stockings. This year we went up to nearly double, 12 ½ fish per acre — a total of 458,000 from South Carolina and 240,000 from Georgia. That doesn’t include the 230,000 hybrids we put in and the 169,000 hybrids that Georgia put in. Now we just need to give them a little time to grow.”
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