2013 marked year 2 of a planned 3-year largemouth bass stocking project on Back Bay by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF).
The project plan calls for stocking 125,000, 2 inch fingerling largemouth bass each year for 3 years. Stocking is scheduled to occur in 2012 – 2014. Assessment will continue for at least 2 years, and up to 4 years, after each year’s stocking effort to determine the survival of stocked fish and any impacts on the adult bass population and fishery.
According to DGIF, Back Bay has undergone dramatic habitat improvement over the past several years in the form of expanding submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) coverage.
With improving habitat in the bay proper, and the relict largemouth population being almost exclusively relegated to western tributaries and little or no connectivity to this improving habitat, the goal of stocking is to give the bass population a jump start.
Back Bay was noted in the late 1970s as one of the top trophy largemouth bass fisheries in the nation. The fishery peaked in 1980, when 240 citation-sized largemouth bass (bass that weighed at least eight pounds) were reported to be caught in the bay.
source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries
Published: June 3, 2013 | Updated: February 1, 2018