Bluegill being stocked in the Pasquotank River.

Comment

Comment by Leo Nguyen on October 25, 2012 at 3:04pm

Wow. I would love to live next to this river.

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on October 25, 2012 at 2:12pm

Depends on what you read/believe Jim.....Many publications/University studies say Coppernose Gills were only native to Florida but other studies take their native range into extreme southeastern Georgia and up the Atlantic coast through the Carolinas......I had caught northern strain my entire life until 1983 when I visited Lake Moultrie in South Carolina for the first time and my float disappeared and this violent spinning motion began and some time later I got this purple/black sunfish to the boat....Turns out it was roughly   11 " long and close to a pound...my first Coppernose Bluegill......Those lakes were formed in the 1930s but nobody there knows if the Cooper River chain had Coppernose or if they were introduced......I go on to catch thousands of Coppernose in the Santee Cooper chain over the next 13 years.....Move ahead to 1998 after a few years in Tennessee, I arrive in the tidewater of Virginia and immediately begin looking for bluegill waters.....my search takes me to the dismal swamp and once again I catch several pound class Coppernose in the Northwest River in Virginia......I begin reading and researching Northeast North Carolina and take to the waters....I'm immediately rewarded on my very first outing in North Carolina with big Coppernose gills....I'm introduced to an elderly gentleman of some 84 years and we sit down and he talks of a time in which he and his siblings would fish the rivers of the Albemarle region of North Carolina as a child when hundreds of "Copperheads" over a pound were caught every year during the 1920s......... He went on to sight the unique shallow waters as an advantage because this was not appealing to industry......Other than a few mills and boat yards, the river remained unchanged for decades thus the pollution during an era that was loosely regulated never happened.....The fish here have three enemies...." The Ecosytem that is the swamp, a hungry human and bigger fish.......Doesn't answer your question Jim but I was all ears when an 84 year old Bluegill fisherman was providing testimony that I spun off of into the fishing I do today.......He was the first to describe the impact of water levels on my local rivers and he believed with much conviction that the "Copperheads" sleep from November through Good Friday, hence my countdown to Good Friday every year.....Somewhat useless trivia and definitely not scientific but interesting to an angler seeking information.....

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on October 25, 2012 at 10:09am

Mighty nice of 'em....

Makes you happy to buy a fishing license, dont it?

Comment by Jim Gronaw on October 25, 2012 at 9:21am

So...is it safe to say that the coppernose are not native to the NC rivers in the northeast portion of the state? Or were they native, but replenished as saw fit?

You are right...it is a very good thing to see 6 inch class gills being stocked anywhere in the nation. Other than private lakes and fisheries, I am not sure I am aware of another state that supplements them at this size...

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on October 25, 2012 at 8:50am

I love it when those new Coppernose by the thousands get added to my home river....

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on July 14, 2012 at 4:50am

We just had 25,000 more 5 inch Coppernose put in the Pasquotank River by the state....It's a great sight to see those lively fish hitting the river.....The photo is from a few years back after a Hurricane.....It's good to see the money that goes into this program actually working.....

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on December 30, 2011 at 8:16pm

Based on Wildlife and Fisheries studies and the impact of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes (associated fish kills), the local rivers and reservoirs are replenished. The technology has advanced to the point that they are actually putting thousands of six inch Bluegill and Redears in these public waters....I track these fish surveys and its amazing how well some of these places rebound from disasters such as Hurricane Isabel in 2003 with the help of these hatcheries and education......I'm a fan of anyone or any program revitalizing Wildlife and Fisheries....What's refreshing to me is the amount of donations that have been raised in North Carolina for these efforts....

Comment by Jeff Soto on December 30, 2011 at 8:05pm

Sorry, I just read it was a river.  I'm sure it already has lots of BGs in it... right?

Comment by Jeff Soto on December 30, 2011 at 8:03pm

Is it a new lake or one that does not have Bluegill in it, or are they just replenishing the place with more fish?  I sure wish they would do this at my local park lake, but stock Redears and coppernose BGs.