Beginning in the spring of 2012, a three-year largemouth bass restoration project will be implemented by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) in the Back Bay estuary of Tidewater Virginia.
The Back Bay largemouth bass restoration program comes after an experimental stocking of approximately 75,000 surplus largemouth bass fingerlings in 2009 proved successful.
According to DGIF, approximately 125,000 fingerling largemouth bass will be stocked in Back Bay in late May of this year. The young bass will be F-1 hybrids, a cross between the northern strain largemouth bass and the Florida strain largemouth bass.The fingerlings will be chemically marked to allow DGIF staff to track their movement, survival, and distribution within Back bay.
Back Bay was noted in the late 1970s as one of the top trophy bass fisheries in the nation. This outstanding bass 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. In recent years, the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in Back Bay has increased to levels not seen since the early 1980's.
source: Virginia DGIF
