Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 4, 1990 TAG: 9005040049
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Reports of above-average catches of these popular panfish have been spreading from Tidewater region to far Southwest Virginia. Among them is a potential state record.
Officials of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries are checking out a 4-pound, 8-ounce crappie landed at Kerr Lake by Howard Huddleston of Chase City. That is 5 ounces more than the state record, a Gaston Lake fish caught in mid-April 1987.
What's more, that weight would tie the world record.
Here's a look at the crappie map:
\ KERR LAKE: Excellent catches. Two-pounders are common.
\ GASTON LAKE: Fishermen working boat docks with minnows or small, red-headed jigs are doing well.
\ SMITH MOUNTAIN: Best catches in recent years, especially around docks, downed trees and brush piles in the Blackwater and Roanoke arms. Minnows or small jigs are the ticket to success.
\ MOOMAW LAKE: Some crappie are pushing past the 3-pound mark. Fishermen often are dealing with the lake's clear water by working small minnows under lights after dark. Best area is the upper end.
\ PHILPOTT LAKE: Fishermen are docking with their finest catches in recent memory. One 25-fish stringer weighed 15 pounds, and that wasn't an uncommon average. Adjacent Fairy Stone Lake also is yielding jumbo catches where state officials have provided cover with Christmas trees.
\ CLAYTOR LAKE: Catches are good on minnows and jigs.
\ CARVINS COVE: The excellent early-spring action, when some boats docked with 50 to 60 fish, has slowed sharply. The crappie are deeper and harder to catch.
\ LEESVILLE LAKE: Crappie striking well on small minnows.
\ LAKE ANNA: Small minnows and a variety of crappie jigs are working well around docks and other structures.
\ Striped bass appear to be going on a nighttime feeding cycle in lakes and streams.
Fishermen at Smith Mountain Lake are enjoying their best action several hours after dark, when the stripers move along the shoreline and points to feed on baitfish coming into the shallows.
Spawning fish in the Roanoke River at Brookneal are being taken after dark by fishermen who anchor their boat and let lures, such as Red Fins, trail behind them in the current. A few stripers are being caught in the early morning and just before dark.
Crews from the state hatchery at Brookneal say they haven't been locating huge schools of fish; rather, the stripers are scattered. On Wednesday, hatchery crews captured two 20-pounders at the U.S. 501 bridge.
A few stripers have been landed in the tailrace of Leesville Dam, but the peak action there appears to be a week or so away.
The Kerr Dam tailrace also is an action spot for stripers, but it is best avoided on Mondays. That is the day biologists from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will be collecting fish during May to be used as brood stock. The stripers are captured with electrofishing gear, a procedure that disrupts the efforts of hook-and-line fishermen.
Once the captured striped bass are spawned, they will be returned alive to the water, North Carolina officials say. Some 100,000 of the fingerlings produced are expected to be stocked in Lake Gaston. Virginia officials also are scheduled to stock 100,000 in Gaston.
An 18-pound citation bluefish reportedly was caught in the Reedville-Deltaville region of the Chesapeake Bay this week; still, a single fish does not a season make.
The bay remains void of large schools of blues, and this has bay anglers concerned. Impressive schools of blues are reported 12 to 20 miles off the coast. In another week or 10 days they should move into the bay or head up the coast as they did last year.
\ David Bousman of Blue Ridge is delighted with the 23-pound, 4-ounce tom turkey he killed, but the experience would have been better had the old boy had gobbled.
Bousman made a couple of soft calls expecting to hear a gobbler sound off. Instead, the bird walked in silently, closing to a distance of 20 yards.
"At least he could have gobbled just once," said Bousman.
by CNB