Lake Oconee Get First Striped Bass Stockings

The first batch of tiny, fingernail-sized stripers from this year’s stocking program went to their new home last week, and how well they do there will be of great interest to biologists and anglers alike.

The first stocking of the season took place May 18, 2005 at Lake Oconee, one of five middle Georgia lakes getting stripers for the first time in at least 15 years. The others are High Falls, Jackson, Sinclair, and Tobesofkee.

At Oconee last week, 15,000 tiny fingerling stripers were stocked at the Swords Ramp, and 15,000 went in at the Redlands ramp. Fisheries Biologist Scott Robinson said Oconee is expected to receive about 190,000 stripers total this year, provided that production in the hatcheries meets expectations.

The final trip for stripers born in hatcheries is a ride to a boat ramp, where the tiny fingerlings are pumped through a hose into their new environment.

By the first of June, the striper-stocking program should be completed, with about 2.5 million stripers going into Georgia lakes (see the April GON for proposed numbers for each lake). West Point is slated for its first striper stocking since the early 1990s. Other Chattahoochee River lakes that will get striper fingerlings this spring include Goat Rock, Oliver, and Eufaula, and Lake Seminole will see a significant increase in its stocking rate of stripers.

Striped bass fingerlings raised in a hatchery could grow to be among a lake’s biggest gamefish.