Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406240012
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Just before dark, you will see more boats headed for clear-water lakes such as Smith Mountain, Philpott and Moomaw than you will see leaving.
The lunchtime crowd at Orvis will be gathered around the dry-fly rack rather than the wet-fly/nymph section.
Launching sites on major streams, including the James and New, will be jammed with so many pickup trucks and vehicles with roof racks on weekends that you may have to park in poison ivy if you arrive later than 8 a.m.
Nighttime striped bass fishing is beginning to pick up at Smith Mountain Lake, but many of the fish being caught are of modest size.
Most of the bass tournaments at Philpott Lake are being held at night. Top-water baits and twitch lures, such as the Sluggo, have been productive.
Decent numbers of trout, weighing 3 to 5 pounds, are being caught by after-hours anglers at Lake Moomaw. Most of the trout are browns.
Quality trout streams, such as the Jackson River and Mossy Creek, are the scene of prolific aquatic hatches. Dry-fly fishermen can enjoy excellent sport casting to rising browns and rainbows.
Smallmouth bass and sunfish action is peaking on the James and New rivers, as these two streams, along with the Shenandoah and Rappahannock, reach excellent fishing condition. Tiny Torpedoes and plastic grubs are productive lures on the James. An often selected lure on the Shenandoah is the Fat Bomber in crawfish, gold-yellow or gray-green patterns.
DEATH IN THE WOODS: For three days in late April, it appeared a madman was stalking the woods of West Virginia.
In Wood County, Thomas Odle, a visitor from Illinois, was sprayed with shotgun pellets in the arm, face and chest.
Two days later, the body of Orlo Ware of Sutton, W.Va., was found in Braxton County. He had been struck in the head with a rifle bullet. The same day, Jeffery Milhoan, 28, of Parkersburg, was enjoying a morning in the spring woods along the border of Wood and Wirt counties when a small-caliber rifle bullet tore through his left arm.
What was going on?
It was opening week of the spring gobbler season. The sport has a history of being bloody in West Virginia, and 1994 was no exception, with two fatalities and seven injuries - all but one of them occurring the first week of the season. There were two fatalities and 12 injuries during the '93 season.
What has officials of the West Virginia Divisions of Natural Resources particularly concerned this time is the fact that the shootings of Odle, Ware and Milhoan are unsolved. That means a cowardly hunter apparently shot them and left the scene without offering help or assuming responsibility.
``Negligent shooting because of failure to properly identify a target is bad enough,'' said Charles B. Fleton Jr., director of the division. ``Failure to take responsibility for that negligence is entirely unacceptable.''
The agency is offering a total of $10,000 in rewards for information on the incidents, but a spokeswoman for the division said Wednesday the cases remain unsolved.
BY THE POUND: Sometimes the fish an angler reels in can appear to cost as much as $1,000 a pound, considering the expenditures in time, travel and equipment. For a group of Lynchburg anglers, the payoff was that big in the recent Swanboro North Carolina Rotary Club King Mackerel Blue Water Tournament.
The fishermen managed to catch a mackerel even larger than the name of the tournament. It weighed 28.98 pounds, and netted them the first-place prize of $28,500
``That's about $1,000 a pound, the way I figure it,'' said Steve Reynolds, who landed the fish. His companions were Lynn Williams, the boat's owner; Wayne Wood; and Tim Bell.
The two-day tournament attracted 277 boats.
GOOD CATCHES: Roy Price of Bassett landed an 11-pound, 14-ounce brown trout in the Smith River while casting a Joe's Fly. ... Edie Poole of Roanoke caught a 60-inch, 51-pound wahoo on a trip off Hatteras, N.C.
... James Elkins of Haymarket leads the bluefish division of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament with a 21-pound, 2-ounce Chesapeake Bay catch.
Keywords:
FATALITY
Memo: ***CORRECTION***