Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303180080
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BLIZZARD MAKES A MESS FOR OPENING OF TROUT SEASON
The most important piece of equipment for opening day of the trout season Saturday won't be a secret lure or a seductive bait. It will be a four-wheel-drive vehicle.Many of the mountain roads that lead to trout streams and lakes remain clogged with snow. Some are so bad the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has been unable to reach them with a hatchery truck.
Other waters were stocked before last weekend's storm, but they remain locked in a vault of snow. Still others will have single-track access, which means there will be virtually no place to park once you get there. And where the snow has melted, high water could be a problem.
"It is just not a good time. We are advising people to wait a week," said W. Terry Smith, the public affairs officer for the George Washington National Forest.
However, telling fishermen to put off opening day is like telling kids to sleep late on Christmas morning. The show will go on, but it will be anything but a normal first day.
The state game and fish department announced Wednesday afternoon that nine streams, portions of streams and lakes will not be stocked for opening day. They are Hale Lake in Grayson County; Comers Creek and Hurricane Creek in Smyth County; the special-regulation's section of the Jackson River in Bath County; Houge Creek in Frederick County and Upper Passage Creek; Peters Mill Run; and Tomahawk Pond in Page County.
Ten other areas are on questionable status.
"Questionable means that we are going to stock them between now and 9 o'clock opening day if the roads are opened up and we can get into them. Right now, we can't get to them," said Gary Martel, assistant fish chief for the game and fish department.
These streams are Back Creek in Augusta County; North Creek in Botetourt County; Stewarts Creek in Carroll County; Hawksbill Creek in Page County; Mill Creek in Shenandoah County; and Gullion Fork Creek, Gullion Fork Ponds, West Fork Reed Creek, Cripple Creek and Stoney Creek in Wythe County.
One of the harder-hit areas has been the northern end of the George Washington National Forest, where Ranger John Coleman is suggesting anglers stay home.
"Forest roads have not been plowed and most state secondary roads are only one lane with no parking possible," he said. "There are no camping spots up here."
The road into Sherando Lake south of Waynesboro is closed; however, west of Hot Springs, the roads to Hidden Valley, Blowing Springs, Poor Farm and Pads Creek are passable, Smith said.
Road conditions also are poor in many sections of the Jefferson National Forest around Roanoke and to the west, said Gretchen Merrill, wildlife staff officer.
"I would just generally say that access is going to be very, very poor," she said. "There probably will be a lot of areas that are just inaccessible."
The Jefferson is expected to have a status report available Friday morning for those who call the Roanoke headquarters at 982-6270.
While nine streams and lakes won't be stocked and another 10 are questionable, there are 140 streams, ponds and lakes that have been stocked, some at great effort.
"The hatchery managers, their crews and wardens are doing an outstanding job of juggling their schedules and getting the trout out," said Capt. John Heslep, a state game warden.
Workers, in some instances, have been hand carrying buckets of trout through 3 feet of snow. At the Crooked Creek pay area near Galax, a tractor was used to pull the hatchery truck.
In some instances, the weather has made it impossible to scatter trout in streams as completely as in the past. It will be impossible, for example, to get a hatchery truck into the Glade Creek bottomland of Roanoke County when that stream is stocked Friday, Heslep said.
"We will take the truck down the railroad bed and bucket them over," he said.