January 30, 2004

CHESAPEAKE, Va. - Dominion and Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World joined Friday with The College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to catch, tag and release 40 gamefish at the Chesapeake Energy Center.

The partners put on a one-day tagging event using the expertise of more than 100 volunteer anglers who endured the cold to catch fish at the power station's warm-water discharge canal. VIMS and Dominion biologists tagged each fish caught with an orange numbered tag and released them.

"By tagging fish over a short period, we will be able to determine information about their movements," said Jon Lucy, a VIMS Marine Recreation Specialist and co-director of the Gamefish Tagging Program. "For example, do the fish stay all winter in a school or do they disperse and go their own way?

"While fishing was not as good as we would have hoped, we were still able to introduce more than 100 anglers to our tagging program," he said.

The fishermen and biologists tagged 24 puppy drum, 10 black drum, four speckled trout and two flounder.

Chesapeake Energy Center draws water from the South Branch of the Elizabeth River to cool steam used in the electric generating process. During the winter months, game fish such as puppy drum and speckled trout seek shelter in these warm waters. The area is famous among local anglers who seek trophy speckled trout during the winter months.

Over the years, volunteers participating in the Saltwater Gamefish Tagging Program sponsored by VIMS and VMRC have tagged several thousand drum caught at the canal. The one-day tagging event sponsored by Dominion and Bass Pro Shops marked the first time a concentrated effort had been conducted.

"The conditions here at Chesapeake Energy Center are usually ideal for winter fishing," said Preston Sloane, station director. "It provides an excellent opportunity to study their movements through tagging."

"This is an exciting project," said Doug Smith, promotions manager for Bass Pro Shops' Hampton store. "We fully support all conservation efforts in Hampton Roads and Virginia. Bass Pro Shops is proud to be involved in this project."

This marks the second year that Dominion and VIMS have conducted a tagging rodeo. Last March, anglers and scientists gathered at the company's Yorktown Power Station to tag more than 400 puppy drum wintering in the station's warm-water canal. The project was moved to the Chesapeake station because typically the South Branch of the Elizabeth River near the power station's warm-water canal attracts even larger numbers of fish.

"One of the things we hope to accomplish through this event is to make more anglers aware of the tagging program and to educate them about what they should do when they catch a tagged fish," said Claude Bain, director of VMRC's Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament and co-director of the Saltwater Gamefish Tagging Program.

Anglers that catch a tagged fish should record the tag identification number and call the phone number on the tag. They will be asked to provide the ID number on the tag, where and when the fish was caught, how big it was and how it was caught.

Since its start in 1995, anglers participating in the program have tagged more than 65,000 fish. About 10 percent of those fish have been caught later, some after traveling hundreds of miles from where they were tagged.

"While we know people enjoy eating fish, we encourage them to release unharmed tagged fish," said Bain. "The information becomes more valuable the more times we have records of where and when it was caught."

Many of the volunteers fishing in the event were members of the Great Bridge Fisherman's Association. Other supporters of the event were Fly Fish the World, a fly shop in Richmond, Va., and Shorty's Bait and Tackle in Chesapeake.

Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with a diversified and integrated energy portfolio that includes 24,000 megawatts of generation and 6.1 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas reserves. Dominion also serves 5 million retail energy customers in nine states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.

Bass Pro Shops, a major Internet and catalog retailer headquartered in Springfield, Mo., will have 27 locations across the United States by the end of 2004. Bass Pro Shops destination retail stores attract some 54 million people annually.

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