VA Stocking Smallmouth

WRIC, Defying the Odds: Little Babies Could Have Big Fishing Impact

Virginia has a smallmouth bass problem.

The commonwealth is one of the top smallmouth bass destinations in the United States. People love to catch them. Virginia is the location of a number of world-class smallmouth bodies of water including the James, Shenandoah, and New Rivers.

So, what is the problem?

Poor spawns, primarily due to weather, have plagued Virginia’s smallmouth streams in recent years. On some rivers like the James and Shenandoah, there are huge gaps between year classes.

In the case of other fish, stocking to supplement numbers would be the answer. But, when it comes to smallmouth bass, hatchery raising smallmouth is difficult, and some fisheries experts say, it is next to impossible.

However, Virginia is defying the odds. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (VDWR) has developed a process to hatch and raise smallmouth bass to stockable size in captivity. Virginia is just one of a handful of states to successfully hatchery raise smallmouth.

“Smallmouth are difficult to raise,” said VDWR Fisheries Biologist Jason Hallacher. “We are making some strides and we’re hoping we can use stocking as a tool to recover some of our ailing smallmouth population.”

So far, the VDWR has hatchery raised more than 80-thousand smallmouth bass. A final count of this year’s class is still being done.


The fish are being hatched and raised at the Front Royal Fish Cultural Station. The facility has large ponds that are needed to successfully have smallmouth adults spawn and produce eggs. The eggs are laid in gravel spawning beds placed in the ponds.

“We put brood stock into ponds, and we actually put trays in there with gravel in them,” said Front Royal Fish Cultural Station Manager Wayne Pence. “We then check those nests and move them to other ponds when we see they’re going to hatch.”

The ponds are then drained and the smallmouth bass fingerlings are corralled and collected. They are then transferred to holding tanks and then stocked.

So far, stretches of the James and Shenandoah have received stockings. Other streams will eventually receive fish.

Well, good, but Smallmouth don't strike me as a fish that ought to be difficult to rear in aquaculture. They may be more sensitive to water conditions that largemouth, but I can't believe they're more sensitive than various species of trout and salmon that are routinely farmed.

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