Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991 TAG: 9103120063
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C/12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
You can send a fly great distances without having to worry about your backcast snagging brush. And even a long cast that unfolds across sparkling water with skill isn't enough to reach some pools.
The Jackson, from Gathright Dam to Covington, is a stream of western dimensions flowing off the slopes of Virginia's Alleghenies, and it is ripe for fishing this season.
That fact has fly anglers buzzing with anticipation where ever they gather: at fly shops, on street corners, at Trout Unlimited meetings. Members of the Shenandoah Valley Chapter of TU had to bring in extra chairs, and even then people stood around the walls when the Jackson was featured on their program last week in Fisherville.
A decade ago, when the Gathright Dam project was completed by the Corps of Engineers, it included a $10 million mixing tower designed to release water into the Jackson at the best temperature and oxygen content for a tailrace trout fishery. But opposition from landowners along the stream kept the cold-water releases from occurring until late 1989.
When they finally were ordered, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries quickly stocked trout, even on a morning when state fish officials said it was 20 degrees below zero at the hatchery in Bath County.
"It didn't matter how cold it was," said Larry Mohn, a state fishery biologist supervisor.
The stocking that took place the winter of 1989 was followed by additional releases last summer. The two-year totals include 57,000 browns and 30,000 rainbows of sub-adult size.
"The first-year class is up in the 14- to 15-inch range," Mohn said. "Then we have the smaller fish that are running 6 to 8 inches."
Under restrictive catch and release regulations, fly fishermen began savoring the fishing last season, and their number is expected to increase significantly this year.
Even so, there are matters to be resolved.
For one, is the Jackson going to be a brown trout or rainbow trout fishery? The early predictions were that the heavy volume of limestone water, with its riffles and deep pools, would be prime brown trout habitat, but now it looks as if rainbows will have the edge.
"The rainbows have done better than we expected," Mohn said, reporting on data from electric-fishing surveys done last August.
The rainbows sampled had small heads and deep bodies, the configuration of fish that have grown rapidly on the stream's rich insect life. The browns, which are flesh eaters, hadn't done as well, and fish officials were surprised to uncover almost no forage fish for them to eat.
"There is very little in the way way of baitfish in the river, and that is kinda necessary in order to have a tremendous growth rate in brown trout," Mohn said. "There is a tremendous insect population. It may be more of a rainbow trout stream than a brown trout stream. We are going to be keeping an eye on that."
Anglers who have anticipated a fishery of leg-long trout may be disappointed, Mohn suggested. "I don't look for a lot of monster trout. I have heard of trout up to 7 1/2 pounds, but this isn't going to be a White River in Arkansas. We don't have the fish-forage base to produce that here."
But that doesn't mean the fishing isn't going to be as spectacular as any in the Eastern Untied States, Mohn said.
"I think the fishery here is going to be a whole lot of 12-, 14-, 16-, 18-inch fish, with an occasional big fish. "You are going to see nice populations of 16-and 17-inch fish."
You also are going to see some problems, at least during the early going. A number of landowners along the river's 20-mile course remain adamantly opposed to the public trout fishery and are asking fishermen to leave the stream. Some say they trace their property back to a king's grant that conveys ownership of the river bottom and the fishing rights as well as the land along the stream.
"You can legally float the entire river," Mohn told the crowd at the Fishersville TU meeting. "Nobody can say anything to you about floating the river. Whether you can fish the entire river is still a question mark. We have never had a clear opinion from the attorney general's office on what the fishermens' legal rights are on the river."
The challenge for fishermen during the settling-in period is to determine who has king grants and who doesn't. Mohn said three-quarters of the stream is clearly owned by the state of Virginia.
"We just can't locate it all. We know most of it is public ownership, the problem is putting that on a map and showing it."
Under no circumstance can a fisherman go onto riverbank property unless the landowner wants him to be there, Mohn said.
There are six public access points, from immediately below the dam to the Clearwater Park area. The one in the shadow of the dam has been developed by the Corps of Engineers. The other five are owned by the George Washington National Forest and are yet to be developed.
"They are a little bit hard to find," said Mohn. "We have an agreement to go ahead and mark those sites this year. At least two will be fully developed this year, hopefully three."
Not all of the landowners are hostile.
"I would say 80 to 90 percent of them are highly favorable toward this fishery," said Mohn.
Some say they plan to take advantage of it economic potential by offering services to anglers, such as lodging, canoe rentals, parking fees and fishing rights.
Mohn said fish officials want to determine how well the trout are adapting and if they will spawn successfully before permanent regulations are established. This season, the river is strictly fish for fun, and no trout can be kept.
Future regulations likely will allow anglers to keep some trout, but the emphasis will be on a wild-trout fishery, one where natural reproduction keeps the stream replenished.
"Part of the river might have restrictive regulations and part of it not so restrictive," said Mohn, indicating that the desires of anglers and landowners will be considered.
There are no plans for the stream to become a put-and-take fishery, with the kind of opening day and in-season stockings that attract large crowds.
The river is expected to be most attractive to fly anglers who wade or canoe it, and it will be fishable year-round, Mohn said. It does not ice over in the coldest weather, and the flow remains excellent throughout the summer, thanks to controlled releases from the dam.
During the summer, the water temperatures are expected to be 58 degrees just below the dam, and they will warm to about 70 at Covington.
by CNB