Conservation with VA Dept. Wildlife Resources (DWR)
Preserving SML's excellent striped bass fishery through conservation measures like catch/photograph/release fishing and best practices management are core values for Smith Mountain Striper Club members. The Club embraces various opportunities to work closely with the fishery biologists and staff at VA Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) on key initiatives such as growth analysis through gill netting and otolith bone research, annual stocking, Angler Journals, summer mortality research, and other initiatives.
SMSC thanks Dan Wilson, DWR Fisheries Biologist, for the excellent work that he and DWR are doing to maintain a truly spectacular striped bass fishery at Smith Mountain Lake. In the section below, you will find articles and links to a variety of resources related to the conservation and protection of our striped bass or other fisheries. We hope that whether as a club member or a SML visitor, you also will support sustainable fishing at the lake!
SMSC thanks Dan Wilson, DWR Fisheries Biologist, for the excellent work that he and DWR are doing to maintain a truly spectacular striped bass fishery at Smith Mountain Lake. In the section below, you will find articles and links to a variety of resources related to the conservation and protection of our striped bass or other fisheries. We hope that whether as a club member or a SML visitor, you also will support sustainable fishing at the lake!
Dan Wilson, Fisheries Biologist
Office 434-525-7522 / Mobile 434-942-0405 | [email protected]
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, 1132 Thomas Jefferson Road, Forest, VA 24551
Dan Wilson, Fisheries Biologist
Office 434-525-7522 / Mobile 434-942-0405 | [email protected]
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, 1132 Thomas Jefferson Road, Forest, VA 24551
Catch & Release at SML
Field research in Lake Murray, SC showed a high mortality rate (over 50%) for striped bass caught & released back into water 75 or above. In response, "Sustainable Preservation Limits" were embraced by club members . These encouraged members to not fish for stripers in summer, and to limit their total catch to not more than two. The term "Catch 2 and Quit" was coined to encourage no catch & release during summer months (water temp above 75 degrees).
New research (2024-2026) by Nathan Smith and Coastal Carolina University reveals that in summer SML water is deeper, colder, and holds more oxygen compared to Lake Murray. The mortality rate was 25% of fish caught & released during the summer, based on a sample size of 198 fish.
The club's focus now is to educate members and lake visitors on how to use the proper techniques to successfully catch & release. We call this CPR: Catch/Photo/Release. Click below to see our CPR Quick Guide.
Please download and keep a copy of the 1-page guide on the boat in summer for easy reference.
Data shows that it takes 5-7 years to replace one 28" harvested striper! Let 'em go, let 'em grow...
Field research in Lake Murray, SC showed a high mortality rate (over 50%) for striped bass caught & released back into water 75 or above. In response, "Sustainable Preservation Limits" were embraced by club members . These encouraged members to not fish for stripers in summer, and to limit their total catch to not more than two. The term "Catch 2 and Quit" was coined to encourage no catch & release during summer months (water temp above 75 degrees).
New research (2024-2026) by Nathan Smith and Coastal Carolina University reveals that in summer SML water is deeper, colder, and holds more oxygen compared to Lake Murray. The mortality rate was 25% of fish caught & released during the summer, based on a sample size of 198 fish.
The club's focus now is to educate members and lake visitors on how to use the proper techniques to successfully catch & release. We call this CPR: Catch/Photo/Release. Click below to see our CPR Quick Guide.
Please download and keep a copy of the 1-page guide on the boat in summer for easy reference.
Data shows that it takes 5-7 years to replace one 28" harvested striper! Let 'em go, let 'em grow...
1-Page Quick-Guide for Successful Catch/Photo/Release of SML Stripers
| Catch/Photo/Release (CPR) Quick Guide for SML Stripers |
URGENT: DWR Funding Shortfall Results in Program Cutbacks
DWR Director Ryan Brown names two solutions to the problem:
1) Increase the annual transfer amount for the Sales and Use Tax on Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife-watching Equipment (“House Bill 38”) from $13 million to $19 million
2) Strengthen the current provision for handling “excess” Sales and Use Tax on Watercraft to guarantee 100 percent of this tax revenue is transferred as intended. Click below to read the full article.
1) Increase the annual transfer amount for the Sales and Use Tax on Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife-watching Equipment (“House Bill 38”) from $13 million to $19 million
2) Strengthen the current provision for handling “excess” Sales and Use Tax on Watercraft to guarantee 100 percent of this tax revenue is transferred as intended. Click below to read the full article.
| Virginia DWR Funding Shortfalls |
=> Use this handy Who's My Legislator tool to identify your VA State Delegate and Senators. Send them an email or letter like the examples below to ask their support in fixing the funding problem with DWR.
| Sample Letter to State Delegate or Senator on DWR Funding Fix (Word doc) |
| VA 2027 Legislative Session: DWR Funding Fix (sample letter #2) |
SMSC Preservation Committee - "The Voice of SML Anglers"
| SMSC Preservation Committee |
VA DWR Angler Journal and Online Form
Do your part to help improve the SML striper fishery!!
Keep a fishing journal to capture information to on what worked, when, how, etc. Your info is also valuable to the DWR biologist to help assess the state of the striped bass fishery at SML.
DWR provides a handy fishing log booklet which can be obtained at the Smith Mountain Striped Club meetings or by contacting DWR directly. This journal is simple to use, only requiring a minimal set of information on each trip. This data provides very important information on the fishery and striped bass population that cannot be collected by any other method and helps guide stocking and management decisions. It is just as important to record those "skunk days" as it is those great days on the water, to determine the true “angler catch rate / hour”, a core management objective of DWR biologists.
SMSC also provides a convenient online version of the Angler Journal form. Save it to your smart phone for quick and easy access on each fishing trip by using the link below:
Striped Bass Angler Journal (google.com)
Use a Google gmail address to get started with your online SML striper journal. If you choose the paper journal instead of the online form, bring it at year-end to a Club meeting, or mail it to VA DWR, c/o Dan Wilson, 1132 Thomas Jefferson Road, Forest, VA 24551.
Keep a fishing journal to capture information to on what worked, when, how, etc. Your info is also valuable to the DWR biologist to help assess the state of the striped bass fishery at SML.
DWR provides a handy fishing log booklet which can be obtained at the Smith Mountain Striped Club meetings or by contacting DWR directly. This journal is simple to use, only requiring a minimal set of information on each trip. This data provides very important information on the fishery and striped bass population that cannot be collected by any other method and helps guide stocking and management decisions. It is just as important to record those "skunk days" as it is those great days on the water, to determine the true “angler catch rate / hour”, a core management objective of DWR biologists.
SMSC also provides a convenient online version of the Angler Journal form. Save it to your smart phone for quick and easy access on each fishing trip by using the link below:
Striped Bass Angler Journal (google.com)
Use a Google gmail address to get started with your online SML striper journal. If you choose the paper journal instead of the online form, bring it at year-end to a Club meeting, or mail it to VA DWR, c/o Dan Wilson, 1132 Thomas Jefferson Road, Forest, VA 24551.
DWR and Carolina Coastal University (CCU) announce a new Tag Reward Program beginning 12/2025 for Smith Mountain Lake striped bass. This tagging study will provide DWR and CCU with the necessary data to estimate:
1. % of the population that is caught each year
2. % of caught fish that are harvested
3. % of caught fish that are released
4. % of fish caught with artificial vs. live bait
5. Seasons when fish are caught
6. Size of fish angled and if there is a relationship between size and harvest
With this study and our summer telemetry study we are trying to better understand how harvest and mortality of released fish may or may not affect the trophy potential of fish in SML. Trophy potential of a fishery is affected by a variety of things, but most notably: harvest and natural mortality, mortality of released fish, food availability and competition for that food, and environmental conditions such as temperature. This study will allow us to estimate the proportion of fish in the population that are dying from being harvested annually and combined with information from our telemetry study it will allow us to estimate the proportion of fish in the population that are caught and released, but subsequently die each year. Natural mortality is always a challenging thing to estimate, but we have an idea of the range it should fall within based on our knowledge of Striped Bass biology.
To understand how fishing potentially affects trophy potential in a fishery we run a bunch of simulation models under a variety of scenarios using the data we have collected and data from previous studies (if we do not have those data available from our own work). So, this is why it is important for anglers to turn in tags from tagged fish. If anglers do not turn in a tag from a tagged fish, then we do not know it was caught, which in-turn decreases the accuracy of our estimates. For example, if a large enough percent of fish with tags are angled, but the tags are not turned in, we will underestimate the percent of the population that is harvested annually. Subsequently when we run our simulations, the underestimated level of harvest and proportion of released fish that die could lead us to the conclusion that harvest and mortality of released fish has limited or no effect on the probability of a fish reaching citation size, even if those are the things that are limiting trophy potential. Ultimately, this could lead to incorrect guidance from biologists to anglers, and negatively affect the fishery.
Another important point is, if an angler catches a tagged fish, he/she should not let the presence of a tag influence their decision to harvest or release a fish. If an angler makes a decision to harvest or release a fish based on the presence or absence of a tag it would also bias the data. Thanks in advance to Smith Mountain Striper Club members and the SML striper fishing community for returning these research tags! We deeply appreciate your support.
1. % of the population that is caught each year
2. % of caught fish that are harvested
3. % of caught fish that are released
4. % of fish caught with artificial vs. live bait
5. Seasons when fish are caught
6. Size of fish angled and if there is a relationship between size and harvest
With this study and our summer telemetry study we are trying to better understand how harvest and mortality of released fish may or may not affect the trophy potential of fish in SML. Trophy potential of a fishery is affected by a variety of things, but most notably: harvest and natural mortality, mortality of released fish, food availability and competition for that food, and environmental conditions such as temperature. This study will allow us to estimate the proportion of fish in the population that are dying from being harvested annually and combined with information from our telemetry study it will allow us to estimate the proportion of fish in the population that are caught and released, but subsequently die each year. Natural mortality is always a challenging thing to estimate, but we have an idea of the range it should fall within based on our knowledge of Striped Bass biology.
To understand how fishing potentially affects trophy potential in a fishery we run a bunch of simulation models under a variety of scenarios using the data we have collected and data from previous studies (if we do not have those data available from our own work). So, this is why it is important for anglers to turn in tags from tagged fish. If anglers do not turn in a tag from a tagged fish, then we do not know it was caught, which in-turn decreases the accuracy of our estimates. For example, if a large enough percent of fish with tags are angled, but the tags are not turned in, we will underestimate the percent of the population that is harvested annually. Subsequently when we run our simulations, the underestimated level of harvest and proportion of released fish that die could lead us to the conclusion that harvest and mortality of released fish has limited or no effect on the probability of a fish reaching citation size, even if those are the things that are limiting trophy potential. Ultimately, this could lead to incorrect guidance from biologists to anglers, and negatively affect the fishery.
Another important point is, if an angler catches a tagged fish, he/she should not let the presence of a tag influence their decision to harvest or release a fish. If an angler makes a decision to harvest or release a fish based on the presence or absence of a tag it would also bias the data. Thanks in advance to Smith Mountain Striper Club members and the SML striper fishing community for returning these research tags! We deeply appreciate your support.
2026 VA DWR & CCU Annual Presentations to Smith Mountain Striper Club, 3/13/2026
To view these livestream videos on SMSC's YouTube page, just Click Here to see Dan Wilson's presentation, or Click Here to see Nathan Smith's presentation.
Click below to view or download the PDF file of slides for each presentation.
Click HERE to see TV coverage by George Noleff and WFXR of research presented by Dan and Nathan
| Dan Wilson - DWR's Annual Update SML Striper Fishery - 3/13/26 |
| Nathan Smith - CCU - Summer Catch & Release Research SML Stripers - 3/13/26 |
2025 Presentation livestream from CCU and DWR (double click to view on SMSC's Facebook page)
| Nathan Smith presentation 3/7/2025: Striper Mortality at SML |
| Dan Wilson Presentation 3/7/2025: SML Striper Growth & Stocking Plan |
2024 VA DWR Annual Presentation to Smith Mountain Striper Club, 3/8/2024
Click on red link below to view on SMSC's Facebook page the full video recording of Nathan Smith's presentation, "Catch & Release Mortality of Striped Bass in Smith Mountain Lake", and Dan Wilson's presentation, "SML Striper Fishery Research and Trends".
You can also click on either PDF file to download a copy of the slides.
2024 Presentation recordings from CCU and DWR on SMSC's Facebook page (double click on blue text to the left)
| Nathan Smith presentation: 2024 Striper Mortality at SML |
| Dan Wilson presentation: 2024 SML Striper Growth & Stocking Plan |
2023 VA DWR Annual Presentation to Smith Mountain Striper Club, 3/3/2023
Click on blue link below to access the full video recording of Dan Wilson's presentation, "SML Striper Fishery Research and Trends", or click on the file below to read a written recap of the talk. You can also download the file to your computer for offline reading.
SMSC Facebook page. live stream of Dan Wilson presentation 3.3.2023
| Dan Wilson presentation: 2023 SML Striper Growth & Stocking Plan |
VA DWR Annual Presentation to Smith Mountain Striper Club, 3/4/22
Click on the link below to access the full video recording of Dan Wilson's presentation, "SML Striper Fishery Research and Trends", or click on the file below to read a written recap of the talk. You can also download the file to your computer for offline reading.
SMSC Facebook page, live stream of Dan Wilson presentation 3.4.22
Click on the link below to access the full video recording of Dan Wilson's presentation, "SML Striper Fishery Research and Trends", or click on the file below to read a written recap of the talk. You can also download the file to your computer for offline reading.
SMSC Facebook page, live stream of Dan Wilson presentation 3.4.22
| dan_wilson_smsc_presentation_3.4.22.pdf |
SMSC Supports DWR Gill Netting and Striper Growth Research
| striper_science_at_sml_by_blake_nylund_11.2023.pdf |
SML Striped Bass Management Videos
Below are 3 links for SMSC members and lake anglers to videos from DWR on Striped Bass management.
Feel free to contact Dan directly with any questions or comments using the info above. Enjoy these videos!
1- Sampling and management of reservoir striped bass:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/744189692801024/?__so__=serp_videos_tab
2 - Striper broodstock collecting and hatching:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/480117896611532/
3- Pond harvesting and stocking of striper bass in VA:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/into-the-world-harvesting-and-releasing-striped-bass-at-dwr/155507409983304/?__so__=permalink&__rv__=related_videos
The document below contains VA DWR's management of Striped Bass in Smith Mountain Lake. It is updated annually to include the latest information gathered from DWR field research. Feel free to contact Dan directly with any questions or comments.
Below are 3 links for SMSC members and lake anglers to videos from DWR on Striped Bass management.
Feel free to contact Dan directly with any questions or comments using the info above. Enjoy these videos!
1- Sampling and management of reservoir striped bass:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/744189692801024/?__so__=serp_videos_tab
2 - Striper broodstock collecting and hatching:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/480117896611532/
3- Pond harvesting and stocking of striper bass in VA:
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDWR/videos/into-the-world-harvesting-and-releasing-striped-bass-at-dwr/155507409983304/?__so__=permalink&__rv__=related_videos
The document below contains VA DWR's management of Striped Bass in Smith Mountain Lake. It is updated annually to include the latest information gathered from DWR field research. Feel free to contact Dan directly with any questions or comments.
| DWR Striper Report for SML 2026 |
Fish Head Otolith Bone Collection
SMSC volunteers play a key role helping to collect growth data from striped bass at Smith Mountain Lake. Striped bass are like trees in that it is possible to determine age by counting their "rings". For striped bass, the rings are on the "otolith", a small bone found within the ear of the fish. The otolith bone is an accurate indicator of age, which is vital for making sound management decisions.
Our local VDGIF Biologist would be happy to receive just the otolith bone from anglers, but it is a small bone that can be difficult to collect without some skill and knowledge. However, this information is valuable and a collection station have has been established where anglers can drop off fish heads from harvested fish so that they can be later processed to collect the otolith bone. When dropping off a fish head, be sure to provide the date the fish was caught along with the fish's length. If you include your name and/or e-mail contact information then once processed the VDGIF biologist will generally provide you with the details on the fish's age.
It is important for anglers to understand that collecting data in this manner allows VDGIF to gain insight on the growth rates of our fish in their mid and later years. Similar data is collected through the use of gill nets at various times of the year, but this generally produces data points on young fish up to 4 years of age, so the data from fish head collections is vital to understanding the on-going growth rates. Anglers are asked to collect only striped bass heads for fish 26 inches or larger. VDGIF has plenty of younger fish available but really needs the larger fish to monitor the entire population.
Summer time is an excellent time to collect fish heads due to the lower survivability rates of fish in warmer water and the increased rate of harvesting by many anglers. So in addition to enjoying a tasty filet of striper, consider taking a few extra minutes to detach the head, drop it in a freezer bag and then drop it off at one of the local drop-off locations.
Our local VDGIF Biologist would be happy to receive just the otolith bone from anglers, but it is a small bone that can be difficult to collect without some skill and knowledge. However, this information is valuable and a collection station have has been established where anglers can drop off fish heads from harvested fish so that they can be later processed to collect the otolith bone. When dropping off a fish head, be sure to provide the date the fish was caught along with the fish's length. If you include your name and/or e-mail contact information then once processed the VDGIF biologist will generally provide you with the details on the fish's age.
It is important for anglers to understand that collecting data in this manner allows VDGIF to gain insight on the growth rates of our fish in their mid and later years. Similar data is collected through the use of gill nets at various times of the year, but this generally produces data points on young fish up to 4 years of age, so the data from fish head collections is vital to understanding the on-going growth rates. Anglers are asked to collect only striped bass heads for fish 26 inches or larger. VDGIF has plenty of younger fish available but really needs the larger fish to monitor the entire population.
Summer time is an excellent time to collect fish heads due to the lower survivability rates of fish in warmer water and the increased rate of harvesting by many anglers. So in addition to enjoying a tasty filet of striper, consider taking a few extra minutes to detach the head, drop it in a freezer bag and then drop it off at one of the local drop-off locations.
2011 Fish Length data collected via gill netting & otolith collection.
Drop off Locations:
Indian Point Marina
Striper Management Data
The two documents attached are the latest information capturing the various collected data on the striper fishery, used by our DGIF Biologist to aid in his management of the fishery. Information on stocking, gill-net surveys, angler diaries, fish-head collections and others are captured in these documents.
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