Monitoring the path of 'Stu'---
THE DAILY NEWS, Friday, November 15, 1985
Gary Thompson, left, mortician and temporary fish surgeon, cuts a two-inch incision in his patient, a ten pound striped bass.  The opening is just large enough to insert a radio transmitter.  Raystown Striper Club president Vic John assists with the operation, which took less than 10 minutes.

STU THE STRIPER is returned to Raystown Lake at the Snyders Run Boat Launch by club member Gary Beck.  The stitches from the operation are visible on the lower left side of the fish.  The picture insert in the upper right corner shows the size of the implanted transmitter, which will operate by battery for a year.

VIC JOHN, JR. of the Raystown Striper Chapter, left, accepts the chapter of the year award from Stu Tinney, publisher of Striper Magazine.  The presentation was made during the Spring Striper Tournament held at Raystown Lake on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  The chapter was chosen a week earlier during the Striperama fish off.  The chapter was selected on the basis of its activities during the past year.

ENTRIKEN (AP)  When Nick Lambert isn't on Raystown Lake looking for the big ones, he's in the nursery looking after the little ones.  *  Like most babies, Lambert's little ones are always hungry and wet.  But this isn't the typical nursery.  No bottles here.  *  They're fish.  Striped bass.  *  Operator of a striper guide service and president of the 230-member Raystown Striper Club, Lambert has been taking big ones of the lake for years.  This summer, he and the club began putting some little ones into the lake as part of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission's Cooperative Nursery Program.  *  The co-op program itself isn't new.  Sportsmen's clubs have been raising fry and fingerlings to supplement the fish commission's stockings for more than 20 years, said Dick Snyder, chief of the division of fisheries management.  *  These clubs have been working primarily with trout, large-mouth bass, and on a limited scale, walleye.  *  But the Raystown group is the first sportsmen's club in the state to work with striper fingerlings, Snyder said.  *  The fish commission official said he supports such co-op programs because among its many benefits, "it's an excellent way for the fish commission to have a working dialogue with sportsmen's groups.  By them being involved in fish rearing operations, they can see the difficulties the Fish Commission has on a much larger scale and can understand what we go through to provide bigger programs in the state.  And it gives local anglers the opportunity to participate in another aspect of a sport that interests them."  *  Local fishermen organized the Raystown club in 1984 "to promote, protect, and enhance Raystown striper fishing, " Lambert said quoting from the charter.  "We're here for one lake, one fish."  And what a fish, Lambert said.  A saltwater game fish that can tip the scales at more than 40 pounds, the striper is Raystown's novelty.  *  The fish commission began stocking stripers at Raystown in 1973.  That initial stocking has 23,000 fingerlings.  By the middle 1980's the stocking had grown to 80,000 and by 1988 were at 100,000.  *  "The guys wanted to do something for the lake," Lambert explained.  "We thought we had too many bait fish  -- gizzard shad, alewife, and smelt  -- and not enough game fish.  So we wanted to supplement what the fish commission stocks."  *  The Entriken nursery is a system of stainless steel tanks and plumbing house in a building behind Lambert's house.  The club erected the facility, consisting almost entirely of donated materials, in March.  And once the fish commission inspected the system for water quality and ability to sustain the fingerlings, they were in business.  *  Lambert said the group invested about $1,000 in equipment.  The fish, however, were salty -- in July, the club handed over $2,500 to the Delmarva Ecological Lab in Middletown, Del., for 7,500 fingerlings.  The group hopes that next year the commission will supply the fish free as it does with nurseries raising other species.  *  Once this crop is successfully stocked, Lambert said, he will submit to an extensive project report to the commission, which he hopes will give credibility to the request.  At the end of July, Lambert said, the club graded the fingerlings, separating them according to size.  At that time, 4,500 of them had grown to the desired 4-inch stocking size.  *  "Our target is 4 inches," he said, "because between 3 and 4 inches is when they convert from eating plankton to little fish."  And by that time, he said, they're too big for other predatory fish to feed on them.  *  Raising them to that size required careful monitoring and time, Lambert said, explaining that water quality had to be maintained and its temperature kept between 72 and 75 degrees, the tanks kept clean and a regular feeding schedule maintained - 5 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and midnight  *  Hundreds of the iridescent fingerlings swam to the surface as Lambert tossed in a handful of tropical fish flakes into one of the 1,200 gallon stainless steel tanks.  *  "When the big guys were ready to go two weeks ago, we took them to the lake.  We didn't lose any of them (during the stocking).  This was the tank of the little weaklings," he said.  "And right now they're as big as anything that has been stocked in Raystown in the last eight years.  I'd say they have about a 90 percent chance of making it."  *  The project was not without its casualties, Lambert said, indicating about 800 fish died before reaching stockable size.  The system developed an ammonia problem that claimed some of the; that has since been remedied.  *  Another factor that reduced the mortality rate, he said, was supplementing the fish's diet with tropical fish flakes.  *  "These fish started out in ponds, eating the plankton of top of the water," he explained. "and some of them couldn't eat the trout pellets we were feeding because the pellets sink.  But we discovered that they would eat flake food that floats.  Believe me, you get concerned when you get a couple dead fish in the system."  *  He anticipates that the remaining fish will be ready to release soon.  And because fry and fingerlings are only available in the spring, he expect to have shut down for the year by mid-September.  By next year, he said, the club plans to buy another tank and increase its capacity to 20,000 fingerlings.  *  Of the fish the club is stocking this year, Lambert said, "In two years, they'll be between 20 and 22 inches long.  When they're young, they grow about an inch a month.  And they put on four pounds a year most of the rest of their lives."  *  And by then, the club's interest will be in looking for, not after them.

Photo caption:  NICK LAMBERT, president of the Raystown Striper Club, grabs a handful of little fish from a tank the club is using to raise striper fry.  The small stripers are released to supplement the striper population in the big, deep lake.

Photo caption:  SMALL STRIPERS like this one are raised by the striper club.  They were bought out of state.  Club members feel Raystown does not have enough striped bass, so they are trying to increase the population.  The Pennsylvania Fish Commission also stocks small stripers.

...Striper Club Accomplishments

I always appreciate receiving a Raystown Striper Club newsletter.  It's a great way to keep abreast of what's going on at our favorite impoundment.  What are some of the organization's recent accomplishments?  *  In addition to constructing fish attractors, the Striper Club assisted the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission to stock 115,000 agency striped bass, 20,000 Atlantic salmon, and 25,000 lake trout.  *  Additionally, the Striper Club purchased or raised among 20,000 other stripers which it stocked.  These transplants, when stocked, were all in the three and one-half to six-inch class.  The survival rate of these fingerlings will be higher than the smaller Commission offerings.  *  Other achievements included donating $5,000 to the Fish Commission for a year-long creel inspection and participating in a deep-water net survey.  Some 36 Striper Club members turned out for the lake clean-up day.  The group also constructed a rearing facility which utilizes a recirculating  system with a biological filter designed to rear larger and healthier striped bass fingerlings.  This active conservation organization also spearheaded numerous tournaments, including a youngster's panfish event.