467 | Bass Fishing Secrets Revealed Lake Norman 2026 Fishing Report with Biologist Casey Joubert

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Good morning, everybody.

Welcome back to Fishing the DMV.

I'm your host, Thomas Sarons.

A couple of years ago, I started a sub-series on the channel

called How They Built It.

We had the Army Corps of Engineers talking about Bugs Island,

one of the oldest lakes around, believe it or not.

That thing was being built while we were storming

the beaches of Normandy.

We have Smith Mountain Lake that we did

and another lake that you guys all wanted to do

kind of just a long in-depth history of was Lake Norman.

And I have on now, Casey Javair to really talk about that.

And so thank you so much for joining me today.

I really appreciate it.

Of course, thank you for having me.

So as always, I do with new guests

is what got you into this profession?

Yeah, so I have been with the Wildlife Resource Commission

for about seven years now.

I actually grew up on Lake Norman.

So I've always had a love for the outdoors

and kind of biology.

And I wanted a career where every day was different

and I was outside a lot.

I graduated high school, went to UNCW,

discovered that I didn't really want to work

in the marine field.

I'd rather be kind of in our inland fresh waters.

And so I then, after a couple other things,

did my masters at NC State and did a project

on the Yadkin PD River and then ended up

with the Wildlife Resource Commission.

So now I'm located in District 6, which is kind

of the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

And based out of Salisbury, North Carolina,

which is a little bit north of Charlotte.

What is your history in that region before you got

to take over it necessarily?

Did you have a lot of knowledge on Lake Norman?

Did you have any time spent on Lake Norman?

Yeah, so a lot of time from a recreational standpoint

on Lake Norman and kind of just being around the lake.

And then, yeah, I mean, mainly in the past seven years

is when I've been doing the research experience

and out doing surveys on the lake.

But yeah, along, I guess, 34 years out on Lake Norman.

So kind of just seeing how the fishery in the lake

has changed over that time.

That's really cool.

And then guys, so just like I did with Virginia biologist,

we have a PowerPoint presentation.

We're gonna be going through it slide-by-slide

and then at the end of every slide.

I'll be asking some questions there just to kind of break it up.

So I'm super, super excited for this.

So let me see if that's something to do on my end.

There we go, perfect.

So yeah, I guess take it away.

Yeah, yeah.

So Thomas asked me to do some background on Lake Norman

and the fisheries.

And so I'll definitely get into that.

As I mentioned, I've been with the commission for seven years.

So I definitely don't know everything

on the background of Lake Norman.

My predecessor did some amazing work out there

and he knows everything.

So if anyone has additional questions,

they can reach out to me.

And I might ask Lauren Sorsi, who's now my supervisor,

but he knows a ton of information out there.

All right, so I just wanted to show quickly this map

for those that are just listening.

If you go on your phone and you Google NC Fish Biologist,

a map comes up and this is great

because it just shows who in what district you should contact.

If you have any questions at all,

the way the state has broken up,

it's nine districts going all the way from the coast

over to the mountains.

We kind of have regions.

And then within each district, we have two biologists.

And then we have supervisors and research coordinators

and a ton of other people.

But I just want to let people know that's how the state

is kind of broken up.

And so if you email me and ask a question about the news,

I'm probably not going to be the one that answers that.

I'm going to point you in the direction of the correct biologist

who knows the most about that.

But yeah, so all you have to do on Google is Google NC Fish

Biologist and this map should come up.

And it gets updated pretty regularly.

And as always, I'll put a link in the episode description

too for people.

So if you want to, you can click on that.

That'd be awesome.

Yeah.

So I'm in district six with my coworker, Tori Thompson.

And we're going to be talking about like Norman,

which I don't have on this map.

But it's right kind of at the junction of the green,

the blue, and the purple.

So 7, 6, 7, 8.

And we actually here in district six

are only Mecklenburg County.

But as I mentioned before we started recording,

it's sort of become our baby, whether we like it or not.

And we do a lot of the work out on Lake Norman.

So going into some of the background on Lake Norman,

it is a relatively new reservoir.

My parents are older than this reservoir.

But it did start a long time ago.

It started even in the late 1800s.

They started buying up land.

They knew they wanted to do hydroelectric in the area.

They wanted to do energy production.

They knew that areas were going to get flooded.

So they started buying land and kind of letting people

know that this was a project that was started.

And it ultimately was completed in 1962.

It took like over 60 years, I think.

So following that construction, it

did the Katapa River was dammed up.

The river started backing up.

And it took a few years, but the lake

did fill up pretty quickly and created

the largest manmade lake in North Carolina.

So what you're looking at in this picture

is the Cowan Sword Dam being built.

And again, all of this is Duke Energy.

Creative this had a different name at that time.

But Duke Energy, and this is also

where McGuire nuclear power plant is now.

So I'll go into it in a couple more slides.

The main goal of the reservoir was power production,

excuse me.

And then flood control, recreation, fishing,

not anything.

For people that are watching listening,

just to put this in perspective,

when they thought about making this lake,

the Wright brothers just thought about flying.

And when this was completed, we were pretty close

to putting a man on the moon.

That is just a wild time period to think that lake

is a piece of history, honestly, for that's crazy to me.

Wow.

Yeah, it was a very large project.

I mean, there's, I definitely don't claim

to be like a historian or anything like that.

But it's a pretty massive project.

There's books out there on the history of it being formed.

And what's cool is there's still people

alive that remember when the dam was finished,

when the lake was filling up.

I think they used to lease out an acre of property

for $120 a year, which if you know anything of Hollywood,

now $120 is like absolutely nothing

compared to the prices now of houses and land out there.

But yeah, it was a massive undertaking.

And I did read that one of the original engineers

was motivated and inspired by Niagara Falls

when they started doing hydrologic there.

So yeah, so it was just kind of interesting.

But yeah, a huge project.

And they had considered doing some other nuclear

and some other areas of the lake,

but that kind of fell through.

So they did hold on,

do you get energy to hold on to some land

for the possibility of another nuclear power plant?

But they only ended up doing one.

And at this point, I think that's all that Lake Norman

is gonna ever have just because,

as I'll show it in a second, it's extremely built up.

And there's been a lot of urbanization around the lake.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah.

So overall, after all of that, 1962, it's finished.

It ends up being a 32,510 acre lake.

It's almost 34 miles long.

For anyone that's been out there,

if you take a boat from the dam all the way up,

it is a hole to go through the whole lake.

It also has over 500 miles of shorelines.

So just tons and tons of creeks and coves

and just, I mean, you could get lost on this like,

really quickly.

We have a lot of family that visits us

and they get lost all the time.

You have to go out and find them.

It's extremely heavily developed.

So houses are all over the shoreline.

Everything from little trailers

to multi-million dollar mansions.

And the lake overall has like a lot of user groups.

So everything from anglers to recreational boaters,

there's a lot of people out there.

anecdotally, has it always been that way

in your memory growing up in that area

or those sort of time it just really spiked?

Yeah, I mean, it definitely started out with like,

there was a lot of like single wide, double wide

that people would just have as their lake house.

And they'd lived somewhere else

and they'd come for their lake house.

And then just over time, more and more people

moved into the area.

I've looked at some of the population figures

and it's just crazy.

Like this area has just boomed.

So it really depends on like what part of the lake.

So there are still areas where there's older houses

that have been around, you know, since the lake was formed.

But a lot of those properties are getting bought up.

They're tearing down what was there

and their building mansions on it.

Because the shoreline is just coveted.

And you know, it's just the houses

that they're putting up are insanely huge.

But yeah, it really depends

on like what part of the lake you're on.

Some were developed later.

So there's an area in the lake called No Man's Land,

which a lot of anglers know about.

And now it is not No Man's Land.

There's a bunch of houses there.

But because for so long, there were no houses.

That got the nickname No Man's Land.

And it was No Man's Land because Duke Energy,

that was an area they were holding

to potentially build another nuclear power plant.

So like that area has only ever had

kind of quote unquote newer 20, 25-year-old houses.

Whereas other areas of the lake, Duke Energy,

right away, allowed people to buy the land, you know,

up on the shoreline.

And like I mentioned, like least acres of property.

And so yeah, it's changed over the years.

There's just a lot of people that want to live on the lake.

And so yeah, it depends what area you're in.

But yeah, it feels like there's barely any area.

And now that's not developed.

And that's the thing I should probably

ask on the other slide.

So this is not an Army Corps of Engineers project,

like bugs, gas, and this is owned by Duke, correct?

So by Duke, yeah.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, yeah, it's not an Army Corps lake.

It is a Duke Energy lake.

And then I guys, I also have here guys,

the power of a map here, just to,

so everyone, if you're watching,

you do can visualize with the lake going north to South here.

So it, and you said it's pretty much developed on all sides.

Is it more so developed on the Amoresville side versus the Denver

side or okay?

Yeah, yeah.

I would say a lot of the like older houses are kind of like up

the river on the Denver, the west side of the lake.

Those are kind of the older areas up in there.

And yeah, just for people, it's all right, I forgot to mention it.

It kind of spans from Charlotte to Statesville, really.

It's a, it's a large area.

And I 77 runs right up the east side.

You can see that on the map.

But yet kind of the lower end of the lake

has been more, more recently developed, I would say.

But really this, it kind of depends.

It's all over the lake.

There's, there's places where there's been houses, you know,

actually since the lake was formed.

So it really just, it really just depends where you are.

But at this point, it feels like every inch is getting

more and more developed.

You know, we do projects out there and it's every season we go out

or like, oh look, a new house.

Oh, they finished that one.

Here's a new, here's a new development.

So for us, it's getting harder and harder to find places

where we can kind of, you know,

tie the boat up and work up fish, because I'm just,

so many houses and houses that have been torn down

and are now being, you know, replaced with a mansion.

So it's an interesting, interesting lake for sure.

Okay, sorry, back to the slides.

Yeah, I know you're good.

So yeah, just a lot of different user groups,

a lot of different people want the lake

to be a lot of different things.

And so that does create some tensions and whatnot.

But, you know, it is a great resource for us to have.

So here is a little map kind of shows, you know,

where it is, essentially kind of located in North Carolina.

And two of the things on the lake that are kind of interesting

are the power production facilities, as I mentioned.

So towards the bottom there is McGuire.

So those are the two nuclear reactors there.

And then up in the top of the lake,

other little red arrows pointing kind of near Highway 150,

that is Marshall steam station.

And so those are kind of the two power production facilities

besides the dam, which produces hydro,

that produce energy and they produce warm water effluent,

which I know is always kind of something

that's interesting to anglers.

This is just kind of a view of what

the fishing access area looks like at Marshall steam stations.

So you can kind of see in the background,

my kids call it cloud factory.

And then this little walkway where you can walk along

the bank and fish.

And essentially, you know, it's pumping out,

they use the water from the lake for cooling.

And when it leaves the lake, it is warmer,

especially in winter, a lot warmer than the ambient water

temperature.

And so sometimes that brings fish into those locations.

And so, and then sometimes it's so hot,

fish don't want to be there.

So it really depends on the time of year.

But both Marshall steam station and McGuire

nuclear station produce that thermal effluent.

McGuire also allows fishing, but it's not overnight.

I don't believe.

And it just has never been as popular as Marshall.

If you go to Marshall on a cold day in the winter,

especially a Saturday, you can't find parking.

There's so many people fishing for hybrid straight bass,

which I'll talk about a little bit later.

But there are so many people you can't even find parking.

So it's very popular.

With the size of the lake, there are some power plant lakes,

especially up in like Virginia, where the whole lake

is is affected by the discharge.

This is a pretty big body of water.

So is it really isolated to a certain area

when you have the discharge or how does that work?

Yeah, it's not impacting the whole lake.

It is a very large lake.

It kind of creates, if you like, picture almost a little river

of hot water coming out of these areas.

And so, and if you drive up with your boat,

the closer and closer you get, you watch your temperature increase

as you get closer to it.

And again, it really depends on how much energy they're

producing, how much effluence going out,

what the water temperature is when you're there.

But yeah, it does not impact the whole reservoir.

And Duke Energy does do a lot of work

where they go in the night.

They have to like sample that effluent area.

They have to sample other areas that aren't impacted

and kind of make sure that things are being impacted

by that thermal effluent, or at least not too much,

or too negatively being impacted by this thermal effluent.

But really, for our anglers, at least at winter,

it's a benefit.

It brings this fish in and it allows them

to catch fish that are utilizing that area.

Does it create constant current or a current flow

in the lake?

Yeah, whenever they're generating, not the whole lake.

But kind of these, they're almost like little coves

where the water's coming out.

You can actually zoom in on the sides.

But it's almost like a little canal coming out of there.

And so that area definitely, you can see it kind of pumping out.

But I would say once it gets out into the main,

some of the lake, it's really not having a huge impact.

I mean, besides the fact that you can see Marshall

Seam Station and you can see the nuclear reactors,

I think a lot of people don't even realize

that they're putting out this thermal effluent

if you're just driving by, you wouldn't notice.

Gotcha, oh wow.

Yeah, you're right, it is.

It's just like a little, okay.

Yeah, you can see the whole canal.

So it'll come down, it'll kind of go south,

like again, depending on all the other factors,

wind and what the temperature of the water is.

But yeah, the water will come out,

kind of come down the channel, kind of come south

and kind of flow out.

But really quickly, it mixes with the rest of the lake water.

I don't think it has a huge impact on the rest of the lake.

But if it is really cold, it's cool you can go in there

and it's all steaming and it's very warm, for sure.

That's, there's so many fingers on this,

like it is crazy how many pockets and coves there are.

Yeah, we did a tracking study a couple of years ago

and it would take us, I think it took us four full days

to track if we would essentially drive

the entire shoreline of the lake,

looking for fish that we attacked.

And it was quite the project.

Wow.

It does take a long time.

And most people, if you ask, most people

who are not so much anglers,

but just like recreational people,

they'll go to one part of the lake

and they'll never leave that part.

You know, they'll, like that'll be kind of their home area.

They do all their boating and that one little cove

or stretch at the lake and they probably never even explore

any other parts.

That's so cool.

All right.

That's nice.

So kind of getting into the fish.

There's a lot of difference, big lake,

a lot of different species.

So, you know, before it was a lake,

it was the Kataaba River.

So we, of course, have native species that were there.

You know, there's a lot of the sunfish, largemouth.

Oh, somehow, my, I can't be sure I term it,

crappy, purgegar, other species,

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.

But these are just kind of the ones,

you know, that are popular with anglers.

And have been out there since the lake was formed, really.

And I'm going to go into, like, a couple more of the projects.

But those are just some of the native species.

And then we have non-native species.

And some of these have been stocked by the commission.

Some of them are still stocked by the commission.

Some of them were brought in, you know, invasive species.

That sort of thing.

But we have a lot of invasive catfish, you know,

blues channels, flat heads, channels are,

necessarily considered invasive.

But, you know, those catfish species,

and there's a lot of anglers out there,

who enjoy, you know, fishing for catfish on Lake Norman.

Then we have, you know, white perch, white bass.

And then we have bode bass, which we bring in and stock

in the lake, which I'll talk about in just a little bit.

And I didn't put it on here because it has its whole own slide.

But Alabama bass, of course,

is also a non-native fish, which was brought in.

So, yeah, so that's just like a quick rundown of some

of the species.

There's a ton of other fish out there,

mollusks, preyfish, all kinds of things.

We do have a whole other group within inland fisheries,

called the Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Group.

And they do all the work on what we call non-game fish.

So I'm not going to go into all those,

but there's a lot of critters out there,

some that are supposed to be there

and some that are not supposed to be there.

But, yeah, so we, yeah, go ahead.

How is the bluegill population there?

When I think bluegill, I think of more like farm ponds and stuff.

And it seems like boat docks are the primary cover

on the lake if I'm not mistaken.

So how is the population there?

Yeah, so we just catch them whenever we're doing

our other surveys.

There's a lot out there.

It just depends on what kind of area you're sampling.

We do sample a lot of our electrofishing

is done around docks, but you'll roll up a bunch.

I mean, they're out there in addition to like forage fish.

But I wouldn't say we've done like a survey on just bluegill.

There are some other likes that I have

that I could say like, oh yeah, that like,

if you want to target shell cracker, go here.

I wouldn't necessarily say, oh, if you want bluegill,

go to like Norman, but they're certainly there.

And there's a bunch of other sunfish species as well.

But I wouldn't say they're an amazing population,

but there are a lot of people.

How would you consider the primary forage

for the stripper and the bass?

Is it shad, blueback, or something like that?

There's threadfin, geyser-chad, the life got introduced.

So there's definitely like a good amount of forage

out there in the lake for those species,

as well as you know, you'll definitely

have them predating on small sunfish and things like that,

whatever they're back in creeks.

So at like the large mouth, especially too,

we'll predate on those guys.

So yeah, we definitely see them in our surveys,

but because they do pretty well on their own,

we don't like specifically target them for surveys.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, all right, awesome.

Yeah.

So yeah, when it comes to management,

I know you're asking about like the history of management.

So management on like Norman and routine surveys

and all of that, it's kind of been a collaborative effort

with Duke Energy, really.

They have fisheries biologists.

They work right out of that McGuire nuclear area.

So they do a good amount of sampling

of our fisheries resources, partially because they have to.

And I think partially because they want to see what's out there,

you know, their biologists are really dedicated.

And so we're able to collaborate with them

and look at some of their data, but in general,

what WRC does is stocking.

So that's now with F1 Large Rock Fast,

which we'll talk about in a minute.

And Vody Bass, which is what North Carolina calls them,

hybrid striped bass.

Oh, great.

That's what it is.

Gotcha.

Yeah, it's a hybrid striped bass.

Hybrid striped bass, same thing in North Carolina.

And so that's a name that the Resource Commission

started using in honor of one of the former employees

for the commission.

So we use stocking as a management tool

and then we use routine surveys to look at the population.

So we do that on crappy.

Those hybrids are large milestones.

Slash all the way to my bass.

Those are the primary ones.

And then we, of course, have regulations out on the lake.

And we can change those regulations

based on management need or, or any,

if we feel that there's a benefit to the fishery

by changing regulations, we can always do that.

Yeah, so going in, oh, I forgot that the animations

that the animations would not work.

So we click out of there.

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All right, I'll just leave it.

So, Alabama bass were, are we familiar?

I don't want to, I don't want to like talk about something

that we've already gone hashed over a bunch,

but I don't want to talk about it.

People need to hear about it though,

because it's a thing.

Yeah, that way we're on top again, link Norman.

So, a little bit of background on link Norman,

for those that don't know,

it has often been referred to as the Dead Sea.

So, it is a very large reservoir,

and at the base of everything, literally and figuratively,

it is a very small watershed,

and it's very low in productivity.

So, I was looking at it,

because I was just curious.

So, I also work on hierarchy,

and hierarchy is like half the size,

and has twice as big of a river basin compared to link Norman.

Really?

That's crazy.

Yeah, if you just think about like,

normally where it is,

there's just not a lot flowing into it.

Look out, Sholes is directly upstream.

You're surrounded by houses,

which the most you're going to get from them

is maybe some fertilizer runoff from their yards

or a septic system overflows.

There's practically no farmland,

very little forested land,

and then just the water flowing in is very small.

So, there's just very little primary productivity in the lake.

There is some, I'm not saying that,

there's not, or anything like that,

but compared to other places,

a Jordan or hierarchy,

it's just very low in productivity.

If you don't have that base of the food web,

the rest of the populations of fish above that

are going to feel it.

And so, that's just something to mention.

And so, for that reason,

the largemouth bass population

has never been amazing at Lake Norman.

We the first to admit that there just wasn't

a huge forage base for them.

They just never took off in the lake

or were ever that great of a population.

And so, at some point,

Alabama bass were brought in,

which are not native to North Carolina.

They were brought in by anglers.

We've been told that they brought them,

not myself, but some other biologists

have been told that.

And they were released into Lake Norman

because they were under the pressure

that it would be a great resource for the lake.

And that was probably in the 90s.

Our biologists, I think it was actually Duke energy biologists,

caught the first ones in the early 2000s.

And then since that time,

we've really just seen Alabama bass explode in the lake.

And so, it's really not a new introduction.

We're going on probably almost 30 years,

if not 30 years, that Alabama bass

have been in Lake Norman.

And some people love them.

So, from before they'd go to,

having a hard time catching largemouth

to now catching bucket loads of these Alabama bass,

the kind of the problem with them

is that they never get in Lake Norman

and appear in North Carolina in general,

to very large sizes.

So you're just catching these like,

well, I call them little torpedo fish.

They're just like never getting to great sizes.

And sometimes they do.

I know somebody's at home driving in the car,

yelling at me, I caught a fat powder.

That is possible.

They are out there.

There are larger Alabama's.

But in general, you just get swamped

with these like two, three pound Alabama's

or even smaller.

And so, some anglers love that.

Some anglers are saying, well,

at least I'm catching something.

And so I can understand a little bit

of where that argument comes from.

But for, say, tournament anglers

that can only bring in five fish,

they really need those nice quality largemouth

to actually win the tournament.

So there's kind of this like,

push and pull of, you know, Alabama bass being in the lake.

And yeah, now you're catching fish,

maybe more than you were in the past,

but they're still just like not getting

to these quality sizes.

And that was kind of the figure I'm showing.

It just shows the change in catch.

Our largemouth catch has just plummeted

whereas our Alabama bass has increased.

Yeah, on the next slide, yeah, there.

So that's kind of just a slide that we have had for a while now.

But it just kind of shows that change.

But the bigger problem with Alabama bass,

even outside of Lake Norman,

is that they hybridize with other species.

So when they get into these other lakes,

they can swamp like smallmouth bass.

Just they just, they're the bullies on the playground

and they will, you know, they'll breed with them

and eventually you don't have a smallmouth bass population anymore.

And unfortunately, these fish are getting moved

around to more and more lakes all over the state.

And so our big, big soap box

that we always get on is, please do not move fish.

You know, even when the Norman people thought they knew

what would happen when they did that.

But that's not always, you know,

the intended consequences aren't always what happens.

That's for sure.

Please do not move fish.

What is the difference between an Alabama bass

and a spotted bass?

Is it just like local term like a shell cracker

versus a sunfish to being on what side of the fish is there?

Yeah, so they are, they are different species.

At first, it was thought that Alabama bass might be

a subspecies of spotted bass,

but our geneticists across the southeast

have been looking at that.

And they are a scientifically different species

from spotted bass.

So, but they are not.

It's very hard to tell the difference between the two.

So you'll notice like in our regulations,

we will never have a regulation

two regulations that are different

for spotted bass and Alabama bass.

So right now on Lake Norman, you can go out

and you can catch as many Alabama bass

as you want and take them home.

And I would encourage people to do that

because they're so numerous,

there's only so many mouths as a lake can feed.

Honestly, you would just be helping

the other Alabama bass out there.

Maybe they'll grow a little bit bigger.

Maybe you give the large mouth a little bit more food

on its plate, but yeah, they are two different species.

Looking at that graph, if you have an answer great,

if not, that's fine.

What is it about the 2005-2006?

Was it a flood, a drought, or something

that hurt the spawn class of the large mouth?

Is there any reason that it had such a severe drop

right then?

In that specific year, I'm not sure

with that specific area,

but it is kind of that same.

The general trend is because the Alabama bass were,

and still are being those bullies on the playground.

So they push the large mouth fast off their spawning beds.

They just run them out of areas.

And so what we're seeing now is large mouth can still be found

in like Norman, but for the most part,

they're like in the backs of coves.

We see more of them kind of in the upper reaches of the lake.

Alabama bass, you know, prefer some more of that open water.

It seems like so there's a little bit of a separation,

like habitat-wise for the two species, not all the time.

There's definitely overlap, but there are a lot of large mouth

fast, you know, that are holding out hope in like Norman.

And so I know I've talked to like a lot of tournament anglers

and they'll go out from the very first thing they'll do

is they'll just get five Alabama in the bag.

They're like, I'm just gonna go out

and just gonna find five Alabama's

and then I'll just call them as I catch a large mouth.

And that's kind of, I think, what a lot of people do

because like, you know, you've got your five fish,

you know, spend a couple hours doing that.

And then you can spend the rest of the day

trying to get, you know, a quality large mouth

to really bump up your numbers.

We worked a tournament just a couple weeks ago,

doing work, which I'll talk about in a minute.

And I know the person that won,

they won because they caught, I think, two or three large mouth

that were quality size.

So those fish can really like make or break the difference

in whether or not you win a tournament,

bringing in five Alabama, they would have to be

quality, quality, all the time fast.

You're gonna win a tournament, so.

We're seeing the problem in Virginia too,

a ton of biologists, they're people transporting fish.

And people just get this mindset that they look at places

like, like Hartwell or Leneer,

some of these places in California

where they're catching these preposterously stupid size fish.

And it's like, well, I just, it's as common as like,

I just put it in there and I get the same results

and not thinking of the ecological damage

it's gonna be done.

And that it's probably not even duplicatable

like what those certain environments have.

Yeah, yeah, they're just not the same location.

Alabama is not North Carolina at the end of the day.

So yeah, that's, it's a problem.

It's sad to me and like,

no one that they're there now and that we're seeing them.

Again, I understand why some anglers like them,

but it's really sad when you think about

these amazing smallmouth fisheries and places like

where they're just like decimating species

that we're just like not gonna have anymore.

And people really gotta just realize it.

I really don't wanna only manage Alabama bass

for the rest of my career, you know,

that would really be, really be a bummer.

And it's out of scope of this,

but I know you have a lot of Appalachian lakes.

It is, are the smallmouth still strong

in the Appalachian part of the state

or is this a big issue for those lakes as well?

It's an extremely large issue out there.

Yeah, I won't speak to exactly like specific fisheries

just cause I don't work enough out there.

If you want more information on those specifics,

definitely reach out to those biologists,

but yeah, I think we're trying to stalk

pure smallmouth to keep up with them,

but it's Alabama bass man.

They just, they love taking over.

And they're really good at making babies,

unfortunately, for us.

And they're good at making babies with smallmouth,

but then eventually they get,

the smallmouth gets swamped out.

Again, you get, you know, one generation's not quite as aggressive

and then the next generation's not quite as aggressive.

And then, you know, three generations down the line,

they're out of there, they're gone.

And it's just an Alabama bass fishery.

So, yeah, it's definitely an issue.

I won't claim to know specifics on each individual lake

or anything like that, but yeah, I was just clicking over.

I have another, another slide where it'll be

a little bit, a little bit wonky, but that's okay.

So yeah, so in response to some of this Alabama bass invasion,

not occurred, and it's still occurring across the state.

In Lake Norman, we have F1 largemouth bass.

So, are you okay with me diving into that topic?

Go for it.

That's okay.

I'll flip to the next slide.

Again, I didn't realize that the animations won't work out.

So ignore the word.

With the power of editing, the right slide will be up

on there when this thing goes live, so people will see it.

Well, there's also a QR code there.

So the QR code takes you to our website.

There's tons of information on the website.

It's a, I mean, I could do an entire podcast

just on like the F1 project, but for those that don't know,

it feels like they've been around for a while now,

but F1 largemouth bass are a hybrid

between largemouth and Florida bass.

I don't want to go into the genetics of everything,

but Tiger bass, they became popular.

They're more aggressive, they grow at a faster rate,

theoretically.

And so when this came out as an option,

we had a lot of anglers that like Norman say,

you know, this could be something for like Norman.

Why don't we try it like Norman?

And so that was back in about 2020, I believe.

So about six years ago, and fast forward to today,

we kind of had this collaborative effort

with anglers and the commission,

where we are stalking F1 largemouth bass

into Jordan, Gaston, and Norman.

Specifically like Norman, you know,

we're stalking in the hopes that maybe these F1s

are a little bit better than the native fish

that are out there.

We're not trying to get rid of Alabama.

I mean, we are trying to get rid of Alabama bass,

but that's not what F1s are going to do.

And I shouldn't say we're trying to get rid of them.

There's no way to get rid of them.

The horse is out of the barn.

Alabama bass is what they're to stay,

at least for now, with the technology we have.

But yeah, so we're stalking F1s.

We're hoping that they grow faster,

and grow to larger sizes than the largemouth bass

that are already out there.

And just backing up a little bit for those that don't know.

And the analogy I use is,

an F1 is kind of like a golden doodle, right?

So you have a golden retriever and a poodle,

and they make a baby, and you get a golden doodle or doodle.

And essentially that doodle, hopefully,

has the best characteristics of its two peer-bred parents.

And that's really what we're looking at with these F1s.

Is that, hopefully, they have higher growth potential

and higher aggression, and they just do better

than the native largemouth bass, which are out there.

And the native largemouth bass that are out there,

we've done the research and run genetics on those fish.

They're just kind of like a mutt, essentially, of those two.

So they have a little bit of largemouth genes

and a little bit of Florida bass genes.

So it's kind of complicated, but essentially,

we're hoping that the fish that we stock

have hybrid vigor, is what it's called,

and that they do a little bit better.

Things with them, though, is that it's only that first generation

that has hybrid vigor.

So F1, all it means, is first generation.

So my kids are my F1s, and their kids will be my F2s.

So it's really not super complicated.

It's just the first generation cross of those two pure species.

So hopefully, the fish have hybrid vigor.

Hopefully, they grow a little bit better.

The project overall is a long-term project.

It's gonna go into the 2030s.

We're evaluating it.

We're taking samples during our electrophishing surveys.

We're taking samples at tournaments.

To evaluate, you know, one, are these F1s actually surviving?

Are we just stalking them, and they're all getting eaten up

by catfish, or that sort of thing,

which there's quite a few anglers that will tell me,

all you're doing is feeding other fish,

which, to some extent, is probably true,

but hopefully enough to survive that juvenile stage.

We're stalking them as fingerlings, so they're small fish.

But hopefully enough of them will survive to adulthood and grow

and show up at tournaments or show up for anglers

and have this higher growth potential

and be quality fish out in the lake.

And we're doing it, as I mentioned,

the three different lakes.

Those three different lakes have three different levels

of nutrients, so kind of seeing, you know, like,

in like Norman, that's relatively low in nutrients

to these F1s, really.

Can they do well there, or are they not really any different

than the native largemouth that are out there,

compared to like Jordan and Gaston, which are kind of like,

Jordan's high, New Shreds, Gaston's kind of in the middle.

So it's a giant experiment to see if we, you know,

stalk F1s, how well they do if they survive

if they grow faster and grow their sizes.

Well, why Gaston instead of bugs, just out of curiosity?

Well, Gaston's in North Carolina.

So I think bugs isn't for junior, right?

Oh, interesting.

Okay, so that's how that's, okay, gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah, so we're just doing North Carolina lakes.

We're definitely not, you know,

all the work that we do is funded by our anglers

buying licenses in North Carolina, buying gas in North Carolina,

buying tackle in North Carolina.

So that's the other thing with this project.

There's a lot of money going into it.

And we're not out, you know,

we're not in the business of wasting our anglers

and taxpayer for money, you know,

we want to do this project.

We want to see if it works.

It's expensive.

These fish are 50 cents a piece.

It does.

It is not a cheap project.

And so, you know, by the end of this project,

we are going to have an answer.

Yes, we're going to keep doing this

or no, we're not going to keep doing this

because we're not going to do it

if it doesn't make a difference.

Again, we don't want to waste our anglers money.

And so, yeah, that's like the main thing is like,

we really want to get a good understanding

of where this works, where it doesn't work,

if it's worth it.

And we've had a lot of cooperation as I mentioned

before, we're sampling it tournaments.

And so anglers will bring in,

they'll bring in a lot of Alabama's

and hopefully some largemouth.

And we'll sample those largemouth,

where you take thin clips from those fish,

do length and weights on them.

And then we find out if those fish were F1s

based on genetics.

So, as I said, I know some people will tell me,

that's an F1 for sure.

You know, I know just by looking at it.

And I would love to find out how they know that

because it is as far as we know, not possible.

So, it's a lovely idea.

But we take thin clips, so that way we know.

And we can test the fish and see if it is

that perfect 50-50, because I don't want to get too

into the weeds and genetics.

But if we don't have pure parents out in the lake,

they can't naturally produce F1s.

So, all of the fish that are naturally out in the lake

are this like mix of genes.

And so, we are able to take genetic thin clips

from all the largemouth and see which ones

are the fish that we stalked.

Gosh, I gotcha.

And then, how do you guys calculate how many

that you're going to be stalking per year in each place?

Yeah, so in general, we've been going

with like a four to seven fish per acre rate.

Part of that is based on previous other studies,

other states.

Part of it is just funding what we have available.

We hope to make enough, but stock enough

that there's going to be some survival.

Yeah, it's a per acre rate.

And that way, it's not just like the same exact number

in each three lakes.

It makes sense to the volume of the lake.

So, yeah, it varies a little bit based on funding,

but anywhere from four to seven fish per acre.

So, when do you hypothetically believe you're going to start

seeing those four to five pound fish?

F1s show up at Gaston, for example.

Is that...

Oh man, so Gaston was stalked.

We only started it.

You're getting out of my district.

We started that two years ago.

I think we should be full here.

But I mean, theoretically, with how fast

they're supposed to be able to grow a couple more years,

I hate to talk out of my district.

Oh, you're fine, you're fine.

But, yeah, they could already be in Norman.

And that's why we're sampling all the fish

that we get, we're sampling.

And they could theoretically probably already be in Georgia

as well, so they're starting tournament sampling

as well here in the next year.

But yeah, we stalk them in about June timeframe.

That's when we're able to get them from the hatcheries.

They are produced at commercial hatcheries down in,

I believe it's Alabama, that makes up...

I don't think I'm Arkansas.

You never remember where they're located,

but, and then they chuck them up to the lake.

And then we stalk them at Lake Norman.

We actually take them out on boats in giant tubs

and we try to put them on the best habitat that we can find

just to give them as much of a fighting chance as possible.

So, I grew up on a horse farm,

and I know when you have horses cross state lines

there's quarantines, you have to do back and forth.

When you buy from a fish hatchery out of state,

is there a same problem?

Like, how does that all work?

It's not so much, no, it's not really quarantine

because the fish just don't do well with being held

like out of the ponds.

And so, they sort through them at the hatchery,

and then we also look through them as they come in.

And when we put them in the tanks,

we're making sure that no other little prey fish

are with them or anything like that.

But the hatchery does a good job,

and then we also check as we're loading them onto the boats.

But no, they're pretty young fish,

so the chances of them moving any kind of viruses

or anything, that makes it pretty low.

Gotcha, gotcha, cool stuff.

Yeah, let's see here, what do I have next?

So there's a QR code, can magically pop up again

via the magic of technology.

If you want more information on the project,

please scan the QR code.

Or go on our website, NCWildlife.gov,

and in the search bar, all you have to type in is F1,

and the first link that pops up is the F1 stocking page.

And that is a huge amount of information.

I'm sure I was confusing with half of that.

And so it's a cool project,

and I can come back on and maybe for so years

and give you an update.

I will say what we've seen so far,

we are seeing F1s in our sample,

but at this point, it's still fairly low numbers.

Just because we've sampled about 1,000 fish,

and I think we've had 15 of those, the F1s.

So it's just a process, like going out there,

keep getting samples.

So we're gonna continue doing that.

And at Norman, we've stopped over half a million.

I think close to three quarters of a million F1s.

So there's a lot of fish out there.

So hopefully we keep seeing them return

and see that they grow,

till these larger sizes that we hope are capable of.

Just to make sure I've vocalized this,

a half a million over three years,

or what was that again to make sure I didn't miss this year?

Yeah, so we started, and we started, we stocked some,

I believe it was October of 2020.

And then 2021 was the first year we did fingerlings.

I'm pretty sure I have to get back

from the exact numbers.

But yeah, combined years at Norman has been,

I think it's like 625, of course, other.

Good Lord, that's a lot.

625,000 fish, yeah.

So between multiple years,

and again, some of those years,

because of angular contributions,

we've been able to stop more.

I think it's, I'm gonna butcher it,

bass anglers for NC bass anglers, F1s.

I should remember the web address,

but if you, I'm sure you can Google that as well,

they have a website where they take donations

and essentially what that allows us to do

is just buy even more fish and stock in the reservoir.

And I'll, guys, when this uploads,

I'll drop a link in the episode description.

You can check out their website too,

if you want to donate to the cause as well.

All right, so completely changing gears.

The other fishery that we have in Link, Norman,

or one of the other fisheries we have is Boaty Bass

or Hybrid Stripe Bass.

So these fish started getting stocked in 2013,

which of course I mentioned the lake,

it's formed in the 60s.

And so from the 60s through 2013,

I can't remember exactly what year we started,

but we stocked Stripe Bass historically.

So Stripe Bass were what went out in the lake for a long time.

It was an okay fishery.

There weren't great relationships between our biologists

and our anglers, they wanted more bass,

they wanted more forage.

We had certain reasons for not doing certain things.

Anyways, it wasn't a great relationship

and then we ended up happening

as AOives got introduced into the lake.

And that led to some pretty massive fish kills of Stripe Bass.

And so after those fish kills started,

you know, understandably Duke Energy

was not loving that PR, you know,

you get thousands of dead fish in a reservoir.

They were not loving that.

Nobody wanted to be out there picking up,

you know, these huge Stripe Bass dead.

And it also, you know, it's a waste of the resource.

I don't think any of us want fish hills

happening out in the lakes.

And so what that ended up leading to

was a switch to hybrid Stripe Bass, Vody Bass.

And so again, that switch occurred in 2013.

And really the very spark notes version

is anglers really took to the fishery.

The fish did really well

and it became very popular with like bank anglers,

like I mentioned at those thermal effluent areas,

you know, below Marshall Seamsacea.

And as well as, you know, the river, boat anglers,

really it's just, it's taken off.

And it's a very popular fishery to this day.

And so annually, we stock,

we have a goal of stocking 325,000 fish annually.

We recently changed the regulation to a 20 inch minimum.

It used to be 16.

And we had some anglers reach out.

They wanted, you know, to give the fish a little bit

longer to grow and live in the lake.

And so it went from 16 inches to 20 inches.

And we've gotten very little pushback on that.

And the fish are growing, which I have a slide coming up

that shows they're growing to that,

that harvestable size of 20 inches in two to three years.

So really they grow, they grow pretty fast.

They're taking advantage of the forage that's out there.

Threadfin, Gizard Chad, and they're really grown fast.

And this fishery is really just pretty popular.

Not anything too crazy with it.

And we've had, you know, pretty good angler feed back overall.

Do they spawn naturally at all?

Or is it something that has to always be supplementally stocked

to keep you back?

Yeah, so it's only through stocking.

They will try to spawn, which I've kind of mentioned that

the boaters have a lot of success in capturing these fish

on the spring.

Because they're making a spring spawning run.

So they're trying to go up to look out sholes dam.

Well, they are going up to look out sholes dam

and they're trying to spawn, but their spawns are not successful.

So essentially, they're like the mules of fish.

OK.

Yeah, so while they will try to spawn, it's not successful.

And what that allows, though, is it really allows

for a very, I don't want to say easy to manage fishery,

but if something happens, and we need to stop having straight

bat, hybrid straight brass and Link Norman,

we simply can stop stocking them.

So that is a nice tool that we have as managers.

And that's available to us.

So I think.

Yeah.

So other management work, you know, we

are out there doing routine surveys.

As I mentioned, District 7, District 8, they'll help us with these

as well.

But we'll do trap net surveys for crappy out on Link Norman.

Those happen in the fall.

There's that picture there.

Kind of in the middle of the screen shows a trap net.

We keep an eye on those fish.

In general, crappy are pretty, pretty great at making babies

and growing and doing their thing.

So not a lot that we have to do out there.

We do have an eight inch minimum 20 fish limit out there.

And then we do our black bass surveys with electric fishing.

So that's with our boat, boat mounted electric fishing unit.

And because of the F1 project, we're

doing that every single year.

Whereas normally, we're kind of on a three-year rotation

for all of our surveys in general.

But because of the F1 study, we're doing that annually.

So we're out there a lot.

And on Link Norman, that's a lot of shocking docks

and trying to just trying to get our hands on as many fish

as we can.

And then our body bass, our captured hybrid straight bass,

our captured with gillets.

And so we're going to be going out in this winter of 2026.

We went out in 2023.

We'll be going out again in 2026, kind of keeping an eye

on that fishery and seeing how those fish are growing,

how they're doing.

And then there's a lot of other work going on out there

on non-game species.

But those are kind of the big ones that anglers generally

generally care about.

So we also, while we're doing our gill net surveys,

we also catch a lot of white bass, white perch, catfish,

you can kind of keep an eye on those.

But for the most part, our catfish are doing just fine.

Like Norman, they're invasive for a reason.

They proliferate and grow to quite large fish.

Oh, metal.

This was just an example I wanted to show of just like a very

small amount of the data that we get back.

So this is just when we're out there doing our body bass

sampling.

Again, it's every three years with gill netting.

You can see that top right picture.

That's us pulling a net in out of Lake Norman.

We'll remove all the fish.

For this survey specifically, all the fish

are sacrificed for aging purposes.

So we will get that odorless out of their head.

And we can use that to age the fish, see how fast they're

growing.

And then this figure just shows like the length frequencies

that we're getting of those fish.

And just how many of them are harvestable.

So you can see there's quite a few fish over that harvest

size.

But yeah, we'll look at a lot of other metrics.

But I don't want to go to data heavy on this.

But these, we do survey reports for all of these.

So if anyone ever wants, you know, the most recent

crafty survey, the most recent body bass survey results,

we're happy to share that information.

And a lot of it is put on the website.

So you can always search there as well.

Let's see.

Yeah, and then some topics that always come up

is habitat work.

So across the Piedmont, you know, we

are doing a huge amount of vegetation work

and habitat improvement using things like fish attractors,

cut and cable trees, that sort of thing.

However, at Lake Norman, it is a challenging system.

It's probably our most challenging system

to work in for many reasons.

But some of them are depth restrictions for fish attractors.

So Duke Energy sets those requirements.

And because of like lake fluctuations and safety reasons

and other reasons that maybe some of which I'm not even sure,

fish attractors have to be in water

that we feel is so deep it might not really benefit angling.

So we run into some roadblocks there.

Or if we are putting out attractors,

they all have to have a buoy on them.

And then half the time our anglers are like, well, then just

don't bother.

A lot of anglers want fish attractors

that don't have a buoy on them.

They're like, we can use our maps.

We don't want that.

So there are some like rock reefs out on Lake Norman.

There are fish attractors on Norman.

But it is just kind of a uphill battle.

Same thing goes for planting native vegetation.

There's a huge amount of shoreline origin on Lake Norman.

And just a ton of this like private property.

And it just makes it really difficult for us.

So whenever just so people know, like if we

wanted to go out and plant native vegetation,

we have to be a certain distance away from anyone's private

property.

And even if we got a person to allow us to plant on their beach,

for instance, if their neighbors are close to them,

they also have to get their neighbors to agree.

And if any of that vegetation starts growing,

they can't remove it ever.

So I'm not ever, but with permits.

And so it's kind of one of those things

where for the most part, nobody is going to allow us

to start putting native vegetation on their pristine beach,

which they covet in general, which is a lot

with the on Lake Norman.

And so it's hard to find places to even put vegetation

where it won't one get washed away immediately

by wakeboats or two where people even allow us.

And that's fascinating.

Because I know we have a couple of like

up here deep creek lake where it's just now

rip wrapped the whole thing and studies

being done about how bankgrass or water

willows we call it up here can actually help

with some of those things.

So that's fascinating.

Yeah, unfortunately, it is a lot of rip wrap on Lake

Norman.

It's just a lot of, you know, like man-made shorelines

and bulkhead walls.

Yeah, it's a challenge for sure on the lake.

Is there any native or non-native SAV in the lake?

Yeah.

So we've had out in the lake.

I don't have like the most recent reports in front of me,

but essentially Lake Norman, we have a tag,

which is a technical advisory group.

It's Duke Energy, Charlotte Water, DEQ, you know,

Wildlife Resources, the Wildlife Resource Commission.

I'm short in the League of Memory Commission.

It's a whole group of people that get together.

And every year, they go out in a survey,

what vegetation's out there.

And then right around this time, January, February,

we'll look at those survey results

and decide if anything needs to be done.

And so it's kind of a hot button subject, I guess.

Yeah.

It's hydrolyb, but so hydrolyb is a fairly noxious weed.

So if it is in the lake, work has to be done

to try to eradicate it from the lake.

So we've had hydrolyb in the past.

And unfortunately, it is a species that gets out of control.

It just does.

I live right across the street from Hyrock

and there is vegetation out there.

And while anglers love it, there's certain sections

of the lake that could not be used last year.

And so it is one of these things where you try to keep it

under control, but hydrolyb doesn't like to be controlled.

It's like kudzu, honestly.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

It's like kudzu, honestly.

Yeah, it is absolutely the water version of kudzu.

And so that's why we try to come in

and we try to do cotton cable trees and water willow

and other species that are native,

that hopefully can fill that niche and still do the same thing,

but not the hydrolyb.

But so long story short, we have seen hydrolyb in Lycdormin,

Chara, Lingvia, there is some eel grass out there,

probably anglers out there that are shushing me,

but there is some of them out there.

Is that native or non-native?

I don't know where that normal ranges for eel grass.

I think there because I'm not sure if it's native

or non-native, honestly.

I don't want to speak out of turn,

but believe what's out there is non-native,

I'm not sure though.

I don't want to speak out of turn.

I don't know how to speak it in there.

How does it get in there?

Is it just the flow from the rivers and everything

and run off?

Probably anglers.

But I'm not certain, but it's out there,

but with that, and we'll even go out and stalk F1s

and we'll be like, oh, sweet,

and we'll throw babies on it

because we know that that is habitat for them.

But the concern from Duke Energy and from Charlotte Water

is if any of that floats up and you clog an intake

for a nuclear reactor,

you can very quickly run into a scary situation.

So kind of going all the way back to this talk

of multiple user groups.

Unfortunately, we are trying to, not we,

but a lot of people are trying to keep a lot of people happy.

And so unfortunately, there is some push and pull

with having something like eel grass out there.

So I won't say too much more on the subject

because I'm definitely not an expert,

but the last time I was out there,

there was a good amount of eel grass,

whether it will remain out there is to be seen.

It's fascinating how these lakes go through

these like ebbs and flows with everything,

where there's just too much nutrients,

too much fertilizer of lawns and things like that.

I see that in some lakes up here that we've had

big discussions on.

It's fascinating for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just like certain areas of the lake just have more.

And yeah, it really just depends on where you're at

in the lake.

And we'll see Hyglla pop up in random locations.

We'll see Lingbya pop up in random locations.

We have a lot of more like the homeowners have a big push

to not, you know, they would like a sandy bottom

of clear water if it was up to them.

So yeah, there's a lot of different feelings

about a lot of different things at like moment.

Multiple shareholders, it really is.

And that's something.

Yeah, absolutely.

I can't remember.

There's too much more.

I think I just had, you know, we can discuss anything else,

but, you know, the commission has, you know,

again, a website, tons of information

at sewildlife.gov search bar.

You can type in anything you want in there.

There's a map on there for where to fish.

It's like interactive.

You can play around with it.

You can see like what is available at the facilities.

We've tried to put even pictures up

of all the boat ramps and locations

where you can go fishing or pictures appears.

As I mentioned, you know, Google and see fish biologists.

You can see that map.

Our phone numbers are on there.

I can't remember if email addresses are on there or not,

but a lot of us also have cell phones.

So, you know, pictures and text messages

are also welcome as well.

That's definitely a great option to reach out to us.

We have a YouTube page.

We have a podcast better fishing with two bald biologists.

And then of course, our regulations digest.

It's online.

And as well as that, go outdoors.

At Fettner Fun has, that's also a great resource

for our anglers.

So, a lot there.

And I do have my contact information.

You know, please feel free to reach out to me

for those that are listening.

K-C-C-A-S-E-Y.J-O-U-B-As-N-Boy-E-R-T-At-N-C-W-L-I-F-D-D-O.

Please reach out any time.

If I can't answer your question,

I will try to put you in touch with who can.

That's so cool.

I think guys, as always, I'll put a link

in the episode description down below,

so you can just click on the hyperlink there.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I got two more things.

One is, a person wanted me to ask this about you.

Do you guys have an issue with the snake head down there?

Is that ever become a problem?

No, no, no, is the quick answer.

So, I think they've been found prior to my time

with the commission a couple were found.

I think it was widely, but they've never

had a foothold, we've never seen more come up.

But yeah, please make yourself, if you're out fishing,

please make yourself familiar with the difference

between snake head and bofen.

Those are often confused.

Please don't just be out killing those fish.

But if you have a snake head, please kill it.

And give us a call right away,

or even call the NC Wildlife, they have a tip line.

You can always call them.

And as I mentioned, a lot of us do have cell phones,

so take pictures if you're ever unsure

and send us a picture of something

and we'll try to give you an idea as fast as we can.

But no, thankfully, no.

Let's answer to that.

Please do not bring those fish either into our waters.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, and that is a whole other thing, guys.

Go check out the snake head episode to do,

because that is an issue where that gets the media attention

and people can't distinguish between,

will we have snake head?

It's like, no, it's bofen that you actually have.

Please, yeah, make sure you understand the difference there.

And bofen are so cool, please don't kill them.

I mean, they're really cool.

Yeah.

What else do you get coming up this year?

You got any other projects that you'll be working on?

Oh, man.

So yeah, I was telling you earlier,

I was up at 5.30 this morning, tagging Walleye in like Gaston.

So that was outside of my district,

helping out district three, a couple of relatives there,

doing that work.

We've already sampled a tournament,

we sampled an MLF tournament on Valentine's Day.

So I pulled my co-workers out to like Norman

on a Saturday on Valentine's Day.

We sampled largemouth there.

So if you're out at those tournaments,

you might see us, we're going to do a couple more

of the springs, we've got those.

We've got our electric fishing coming up,

our routine surveys as well as I mentioned,

that annual like Norman survey we're doing every year.

So we'll be out doing electric fishing.

We sometimes also help out like local,

like small community parks and ponds with their work.

So if it's public water,

we can, you know, assess those ponds and lakes.

And so we get out and do that work sometimes.

And then we can help them with, you know,

determining if they need to do need to stock fish

or if they need to change any harvest regulations,

anything like that.

We definitely help with that work.

Tomorrow I'm going to New Orleans for a conference.

So I think this comes out later.

But so we do some scientific conferences.

We're able to just like learn a ton of information

from other states.

So it's cool.

I'm in Reservoir Committee.

So I'll be meeting with other Reservoir Committee members

from all the southeastern states.

So that's how, you know,

I'm able to learn about what Texas is doing in Virginia and Tennessee.

And so we're able to get in a room together

and learn about the projects that other states are doing,

which is just a really great opportunity

to collaborate, ask questions, you know,

have those contexts in other states.

So there is collaboration there between other states.

And, oh man, vegetation work will start up.

We have a new greenhouse that's just being finished over in Mebbin.

So that greenhouse is dedicated to producing

not the SAB that you mentioned.

Really?

Sumerge and emergent vegetation.

So we'll be doing, you know, plantings.

And we put out a call for volunteers to help us do some of that work.

Because it's pretty tough work going out and planting these plants.

We kind of have to do it here after year after year

before they really get, you know, that foothold in our reservoirs and lakes.

And so we'll be doing vegetation work.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but yeah, that's the bulk of it.

We also, anytime we do stock fish,

we have to go out and catch the parents.

So that's called the root stock.

And so those baby fish don't just always magically appear.

We have to go out and get the parents.

So that's some work that we do helping out our hatchery folks.

And yeah, that's just something else I'll mention, you know,

as fisheries biologists and research coordinators.

But there's a whole another group.

We've got land and water access folks that, you know,

make our boat ramps, you know, pristine forest.

They keep those in check, game lands.

They do tons of other work.

We have our law enforcement out there.

You know, we can make as many rules as we want,

but if no one's enforcing them, it doesn't matter.

So they're out there doing awesome work.

We've got our hatchery folks across the whole state.

That's a big topic.

Trout, I'm sure I think you're going to be talking to one of our other folks about that.

So our hatcheries across the state, all the way from the coast to the mountains,

they do a huge amount of work for us.

It's just like an awesome group of people that we're all busy doing things all the time

across the entire state.

So yeah, keep them busy.

Okay, so yeah, I mean, I really, really appreciate your time today

and talking about one of the biggest icons of North Carolina, which is like Norman.

And then guys, as always, I put a link in the episode description to everything here.

Please go support them on YouTube, go check out all the information.

Please drop some comments.

If you have any questions, again, if you see it in a Vase of Species, please take a photo

and report it so we can help stop the spread.

Feel free to, feel free to harvest Alabama Bass out of like Norman.

Feel free to harvest them.

You're not my fish.

That, yes, please, please, please guys, because that's a big issue in Virginia as well.

I'm bogged in places like that of this spread of Alabama Bass.

So, but yeah, and we'll see you guys next time on Fishing the DMV.

Bye.

You're listening to Fishing the DMV with your host,

Thomas Sarons.

Fishing the DMV is brought to you by Jake Spate and Tackle, located in Winchester, Virginia,

Tactical Fishing Company, and Fishing ProTech, located just outside Williamsburg, Virginia.

That doesn't get you jacked up.

I don't know what will.

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I don't know what will.

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I don't know what will.

I don't know what will.