BECKLEY, W.Va. — Eventually, when the water clears up and the aftermath of the flood in West Virginia subsides, anglers will head back to the state’s rivers to go fishing in some of the areas hardest hit by the flood.
However, it may be a little longer before the access points along the rivers are back in shape.
“We’re still in a mode of finding out,” said DNR fisheries biologist Mark Scott. “There are a lot of places hit really hard and we can’t get into or we don’t want to go into because of the recovery efforts still going on. But I don’t think it’s going to be major, major damage. The biggest thing will be cleaning up mud, debris, and things that have washed in.”
DNR officials examined a few access points days after waters receded. The Talcott ramp on the Greenbrier River was covered in mud and debris. At the Barger Springs ramp inspectors found considerable gravel erosion and the ramp blocked by broken trees which had floated into the area. The parking area at Kanawha Falls was covered in mud.
The DNR soon will have heavy equipment on sight removing the debris and restoring those ramps and parking areas, Scott said.
The bigger impact of the high water in West Virginia is less noticeable now but could be an issue long after the 2016 flood is a terrible memory. The timing of the flood has likely wiped out this year’s class of smallmouth bass on the Greenbrier and New rivers.
“Virginia Tech studies have found June is the key month for smallmouth on the New River and I would think the Greenbrier also,” Scott said. “They tend to spawn in late May, but for whatever reason they checked the flows during different months and June is the key month. With a major flood like that, your spawn is gone for the year so zero smallmouth spawn this year.”
Losing that class of fish wouldn’t be noticed for three years, by which time those fish would have grown to about 12 inches long. He said the loss would also be minimized unless there were several consecutive years in of spawn failure.
“Three years down the road is when you’ll start noticing it and by then you’ve forgotten about the flood,” said Scott. “One year you don’t notice too much, but back in the early 2000s we had two or three high-water years in a row and people out there fishing weren’t catching many–because they just weren’t there since they hadn’t hatched. They kept saying, ‘The river’s dead.’ Well no, you just need to think back three years and remember what happened.”
As for the mature fish in the river now, they’re OK.
Noted Scott: “If muddy water and high water killed fish they would have been gone a long time ago.”