West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Black Bass Study

The DNR's efforts are paying off in Jackson County.

June 3, 2009
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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Putting water back into a lake that had been accidentally drained is one thing, establishing a healthy, thriving fish population is something else entirely. That was the challenge facing DNR biologists after a gate was stuck open on Woodrum's Lake four years ago.

The water's back in, catfish, blue gill and crappy were stocked: they also put a lot of bass in the lake. Now we're back to do a survey to see how the bass population is doing.

Scott Morrisson/DNR Fish Biologist says:
"I did it the first year, in 2007, just to make sure we didn't have to re-stock bass, so we know they would re-produce, so we didn't have to stock the bass again. Bass generally reproduce well."

Generally, but not always, so we spent a long night trying to find out if there were many big bass hanging out in Woodrum's Lake.

This is our second spot and we have found some nice sized bass. This one is 17 inches. This one looks to be even heavier, 17 1/2-450? Good night of fishing, boy!

And there were plenty of big guys just like those two - we just had to find them.

The 17 inch fish are about three years old, fish that Morrisson originally stocked and are repopulating the lake now. There are a lot of bass in this lake.

Scott Morrisson/DNR Fish Biologist says:
"We got over 100 and back before the lake had problems with the drain, we were getting 100-150 or so and we just broke 100."

One question answered-the population is healthy. Question number two-are there a lot of big fish in Woodrum's Lake?

Scott Morrisson/DNR Fish Biologist says:
"I was surprised at how many we got that were over 12 inches, I would say that of the 100 bass we got, probably half were over 12 inches and also we took 10 to 15 that were over 17 inches. We didnt get any 18 inch fish, so there are bigger ones out there."

And thanks to the catch and release policy on bass in the lake, they'll still be there when you get ready to do some serious fishing in Woodrum's Lake. For West Virginia Wildlife, I'm Patrick McMurtry, Eyewitness News.