Fisheries biologist Ed Bettros urges fishermen who catch a tagged striper to return the tag. Bigger fish are hard to sample, so tagging is the best way they can monitor the growth rate of the fish and the success of the program. Help the state keep up with the stripers by returning any tags in the fish you catch.

Habitat was a concern at Russell due to the cold, low oxygen content of water coming in from the bottom of Lake Hartwell and the cold, low oxygen content of the water being pumped back from Clarks Hill. Oxygen injectors have been added to some of the turbines at Hartwell, and others are planned. Oxygen is being added to the water at the Russell dam, too.

With that injected oxygen, the layer of water that is suitable for stripers should stay wider, allowing them to grow better even during the summer when growth rates normally slow. The survival rate should also increase.

Both states are looking at a change in the numbers of stripers you can keep at Russell. By lowering the limits that fishermen can keep, they hope to increase the number of bigger stripers. That change has not been made yet, but watch your regulations. Any change will affect anglers from both states.

Stripers are harder to catch than hybrids. And the bigger they get, the harder they are to hook. You will have to change your tactics to catch stripers on Russell. Use the tips from Rabern's studies at Hartwell to locate the best areas and times to catch them. Then use big artificial or live bait. Live blueback herring seven inches or longer will usually catch more stripers than other baits.

Concentrate on the lower lake below the railroad trestle and drift live herring at the depth where the water temperature is best for stripers. Make sure you find baitfish schools near flats and points before dropping your bait down. Use stout tackle! Big stripers will head for one of the many patches of underwater timber and wrap you up if you cannot turn them.

CLARKS HILL
Clarks Hill is the oldest lake, on the lower end of the chain. At 71,535 acres, it is also the biggest, and has had stripers and hybrids stocked in it for many years. The lake varies a lot, from the upper ends of tributaries where water is more stained and gets warmer, to the lower half of the lake where the water usually stays clear.

As on Hartwell, blueback herring abound in Clarks Hill and are a favorite food of the linesiders. The increase in bluebacks over the past 10 years has led Georgia and South Carolina to increase the stocking here to 15 per acre, as at Hartwell. The states coordinate their stocking so that each year about eight hybrids and seven stripers are put into the lake.

That's up from the 10 fish per acre stocked up until 2001. Those stocking levels put into the lake three stripers and seven hybrids per acre. There were a lot more hybrids than stripers.