West Virginia features a variety of good quality angling options. One of the more overlooked ones is that provided by hybrid stripers. Hybrid stripers are a cross between a female striped bass and a male white bass. They are aggressive fish, eating machines that grow quickly in lakes that contain a rich forage base, which typically means gizzard shad in West Virginia waters.

Some good hybrid fishing is available in the major rivers of the state, but the same is true on a few impoundments.

Being a hybrid, quality-fishing opportunities rely on the state's stocking program. The supply of hybrid stripers is dependent on the numbers of fish available from out-of-state sources. As with natural fish reproduction, conditions vary from year to year, which equates into a fluctuation in the quantity of available young hybrids. When supplies are low, certain waters are not stocked each year, thus missing year-classes are common. This is not something unique to West Virginia. Many states with hybrid striper programs experience similar holes in the hybrid populations in stocked lakes.

The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) utilizes the Palestine and Apple Grove hatcheries for the production of warmwater species, such as hybrid striped bass. Fry are obtained from outside sources, and then raised to fingerling stage before being stocked in state waters.

Many of the state's hybrid waters have received stockings the past two springs. Before this there were some lean years production-wise. As a result, many waters received sporadic stockings during that time period. In general, many waters now have populations of large fish, but relatively low numbers of big ones overall. The future is brighter, however, as fish from recent stockings grow and move into the population of adult fish.

Here's a look at the hybrid striper fishing on four of the state's best hybrid striper reservoirs.

BLUESTONE LAKE
(1,040 Acres In Summers County)
"Bluestone is a riverine reservoir," said Mark Scott, a DNR regional fisheries biologist. "What goes in one end goes out the other. Basically, it's just the New River backed up the river channel. It does have one arm, the Bluestone River Arm. It's just a straight shot off the main lake, a flooded river. There's not much in the way of coves or bays."

Unlike many state flood-control reservoirs, which are typically steep- sided and deep, Bluestone features more moderate depths.

"Bluestone is fairly shallow," Scott continued. "The deepest water is about 30-some feet. There are many mud flats in both arms."

Food-wise, hybrid stripers have plenty to fatten up on in Bluestone Lake. Scott reports the lake has both alewives (a member of the herring family) and gizzard shad. Hybrids are eating machines, rarely far from their food sources.

"The hybrid fishery seems to shadow the shad population," Scott said. "When the shad population is good, the fish stay in the lake. When the shad population is down, they leave the lake and move on down. They are sometimes caught in the Kanawha River."