Author Bruce Ingram holds a South Fork of the Shenandoah smallmouth caught before the fish kills began. The watershed's bass population has improved, but biologists don't know if the improvement is permanent. Photo courtesy of Bruce Ingram.

In a perfect world for smallmouth anglers, outdoor scribes would report all the wonderful places for Virginians to angle for our favorite sport fish. Sadly, matters have been somewhat less than ideal for most of this decade, with major kills on the Potomac and Shenandoah watersheds, and in 2007 and 2008, the James Watershed.

Scott Smith, fisheries biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF), relates that the James' woes manifested themselves in May of 2007 when dead fish from Iron Gate in Botetourt County (where the James begins) to Lynchburg began appearing.

From VDGIF sampling, approximately 30 percent of the fish that weren't dead had lesions, bacterial infections or fungal infections. Fish ceased dying in June and the lesions cleared up by late July. All species in the river were affected by this problem, not just bass and sunfish. The VDGIF estimated that 5 to 10 percent of the fish in the river from Iron Gate to Bent Creek died as a result of this kill event.

Smith said that the 2008 kill started in mid to late May -- a little later than it did in 2007, probably due to cooler water temps in the spring of 2008. The VDGIF had a few reports in April of dead fish, but matters didn't really intensify until late May. The spatial extent of the kill this year was shorter, basically from Iron Gate to the mouth of the Maury at Glasgow in Rockbridge County. There were a few reports of dead fish or fish with lesions below Glasgow, but not at the same level as seen upstream or compared with what was seen in 2007. The percentage of living fish with lesions and other ailments was identical to 2007 at about 30 percent. All species were again affected. Based on this, the biologist estimates that another 5 to 10 percent of the fish perished.

"We have still not determined a cause for these kill events," Smith said. "The most popular theory of the public has the kill related to the spreading of poultry litter on agricultural fields. This may indeed be at the very least a contributing factor (if not the main cause), as the kills are somewhat associated with areas that receive poultry litter. We are looking at the poultry litter theory with the same intensity as other theories: pesticides, pathogens, pH, temperature and other possible causes.

"However, there have not been kills in some watersheds that get poultry litter, and there have been kills in some that we don't think get much poultry litter. The data on the litter is incomplete, so it's hard to determine if there's really a link or not. It's a nice hypothesis, but that's all it is at this point. It could be a primary cause, or be completely unrelated. Until we get better info on what's in the litter and where it's all going, we won't be able to determine if it's a causal factor.