Columnist Paula Del Giudice: Striper weighs nearly 61 pounds

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 1998 | 10:44 a.m.

PAULA DEL GIUDICE has been an outdoors freelance writer, author and photographer for 13 years. Her column appears Wednesdays.

LAS VEGAS angler Herman Britz, Jr., landed a potential new state record striped bass near mile marker 61 on the Colorado River between Hoover Dam and Willow Beach recently. The lunker tipped the scales at 60 pounds, 14 ounces.

Britz and his friend Vernon Lomprey were drifting their boats and casting A.C. Plug Minnows to the cliff edge at around 2 a.m. when the big fish hit. Britz already had boated several large stripers before the 60-pounder took his plug.

There were eight or nine striped bass weighing over 40 pounds taken during the past two weeks.

The big fish were caught amid a flurry of accusations that some anglers have been ignoring the Bureau of Reclamation regulation prohibiting access above the cable, which is suspended across the river near mile marker 63 about 300 yards downstream from the dam.

Just yesterday, however, Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Bob Walsh announced that access will be allowed above the cable as far as the new log boom that was installed just down from the spillway last spring.

"The boom was installed for the protection of river users," Walsh said.

The Bureau of Reclamation has concerns about turbulence beneath the dam and the potential for danger in the event of sudden, large water releases.

The boom brings its own restrictions, also meant for the protection of river users: no mooring on the boom, no docking on shore and walking into the restricted area, and no access of any kind between the boom and the dam.

The old sign on the cable that once read "No Entrance Restricted Area" will be replaced with a sign that points to the log boom ahead, according to Walsh.

Some suspect that striped bass beneath Hoover Dam are growing to immense proportions because of the amount of food available -- fish that have been ground up in the dam's turbines or pass through during water releases.

Dam tailraces are renowned for fish that grow abnormally large from their abundant food supply. Trout that have been stocked beneath the dam area by the Nevada Division of Wildlife also may serve as an easy meal for stripers.

NDOW has been stocking surplus trout raised at its Lake Mead Hatchery beneath the dam because it is the closest spot where the fish can be released into the cool water they need to survive. The hatchery has ended up with a surplus because they've had better-than-average survival of the fish reared there.

"In order to remove the temptation for anglers to follow the fish trucks to the dam and perhaps pursue stripers in the area closed by the Bureau of Reclamation and to improve the availability of angler access to trout, we'll be releasing the excess trout that we rear, along with those scheduled releases of trout, at Willow Beach instead of beneath the dam," said Mike Wickersham, Nevada Division of Wildlife regional manager, prior to the announcement that access will be allowed past the cable.

Some accuse anglers who catch the big stripers of using live trout illegally.

"We don't need to use live bait to catch these big fish," said Allan Cole, creator of the A.C. Plug.

"I maintain it's the greatest plug ever. I have the U.S. patent on it. The A.C. Plug has caught more large bass than any lure in history -- two 18-pounders, four 17-pounders and several thousand over 10 pounds, which is totally unheard of.

"There are 26 striped bass over 40 pounds caught on that plug. It's caught a world record line class largemouth bass weighing 18.35 pounds in 1996, two world record line class lake trout in Great Bear Lake, big muskie in Minnesota, huge pike -- all kinds of big fish wherever it goes."

Notebook

* OATBRAN RIDE SET: The Nevada Pony Express Territory and the Nevada Commission on Tourism invites road bike enthusiasts to participate in One Awesome Tour Bike Ride Across Nevada Sept. 20-26. The ride departs from Lake Tahoe Sept. 21 and travels 428 miles with nearly 17,000 vertical feet of climbing. For more information call 1-800-565-2704 or check out the web site at www.virtualtahoe.com/tgftbike/.

* NDOW SATELLITE OFFICE: Don't forget to stop by the new NDOW satellite office in the K-Mart Shopping Center in Henderson at 744 South Racetrack Road. The telephone number is 486-6742. Boaters can now register and title their vessels at the new office, saving those who live in the southern end of the Valley a trip across town.

* RAIN HAMPERS DOVE HUNT: Hunting was slow on the opening days of dove season at Southern Nevada's wildlife management areas due to rain storms preceding the season. Roy Horsley, manager of NDOW's Overton Wildlife Management Area, reported that a large crowd of hunters were on hand for the first day of the season, but they managed to harvest just two or three birds per hunter. Results were similar at Key Pittman and Kirch WMAs and Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.