On August 23 techicians from a Tar Heel hatchery in North Carolina were on the road early and heading northwest to deliver some precious cargo to Lake Anna.
Onboard the specialized hatchery trailer were approximately 97,000 hybrid striped bass – a cross between a Roanoke River rockfish and a Tennessee white bass.
The stocking was arranged by Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources biologist John Odenkirk and is part of an ongoing effort to create a notable hybrid striper or wiper fishery at Lake Anna.
The effort began in 2014, resumed in 2018 and has been ongoing ever since. In fact, the wiper have been so successful in Anna Odenkirk now stocks as many of them as he does striper in the lake (usually over 100k combined).
Wiper are more tolerant of the higher water temperatures Anna sees in July and August and the hybrids tend to fare better than the striper that prefer, cooler, deeper waters.
The lake record wiper was caught this spring by Todd Lewis and weighed nearly 15 pounds. The state record is 15-13 caught from Claytor Lake in 2016. Odenkirk is hoping for a new state record from Anna in 2024 or 2025.
Wiper joins Lake Anna’s other popular fish species including striper, largemouth bass and crappie.
