Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 10, 1995 TAG: 9504110095
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When Kees fishes the New River for smallmouth bass, he chatters like an infielder on a baseball team.
"Come on, my brown-eyed darlings," he says, trying to coax a strike.
"Come on 5-pounder."
Impressive numbers of 5-pounders have been doing just that this season, coming onto Kees' jigs, spinnerbaits and pig-and-jigs. He says his New River Smallmouth Inc. guide service has accounted for a dozen smallmouths this season that weighed 5 pounds or more.
Slowly, almost quietly, the New River has become Virginia's top spot to catch a trophy-size smallmouth. For years, that title belonged to the James River. But no more.
Last year, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries awarded 33 citations for New River smallmouths that weighed 5 pounds or more. The James had 21, Smith Mountain Lake 16.
In the late 1980s, the James was producing more than 300 citations annually (the minimum size then was 4 pounds).
"It was fished hard up there," Kees said. "People don't realize you have to turn them loose."
Kees preaches the gospel that you have to put back the 3-pounders if you want 5-pounders; you have to turn loose the 4-pounders if you want 6-pounders.
"We've almost had to threaten to choke a few clients when it came to releasing their fish," he jokes.
Or is he joking?
``Last year, we had 31 smallmouths that would go 5 pounds or better,'' Kees said. ``We didn't kill none of them. Every one of them we turned loose. The highest was a 6-3.''
Catch-and-release, Kees hopes, will save the New's big-bass population. Also certain to help is fear. Not fear of being choked. Fear of the river, itself.
Kees guides on the lower section of the New in Virginia, where the stream gathers size, volume and strength as if in training for the big punch it will throw later in West Virginia, where it was called "the river of death" by the Indians.
The other day, Kees and a buddy, Darrell Sartin, were floating a remote section from Glen Lyn down toward the West Virginia line. Mike Cook would meet them a few miles downstream, where Kees' rubber raft could be slipped onto a sandbar.
"Last Sunday, we caught 30 bass through here," Kees said. "Twenty were 16 to 21 inches."
Even with that kind of success, Kees and Sartin would spot only one other craft on the river.
"We get fishermen up here from North Carolina," said Kees. "They have a lot of good smallmouth water, but they tell us there will be 10 boats in front of them and 10 behind them. They will get out here, look up and down the river and say, 'Where are all the boats?' As it turns out, they like our solitude as much as they like our fishing."
The early spring fishing pressure, what there is of it, is an occasional knot of local anglers who have traveled rutted roads that parallel the river to reach spots where they prop their rods on forked sticks, build warming fires and cling to each other like cockleburs.
One such group watches Kees approach in his 14-foot rubber raft. The wind is blowing out of the north, which means it is whipping up the river, catching the beefy sides of the raft and shoving it rudely back the way it came until Kees reaches out crablike with the oars and digs into the current.
"You going down through Shumate Falls in that thing," one of the bank fishermen asks.
Before Kees can answer, the bank fisherman adds, "I wouldn't for all the fish in the river."
But Kees would, just for one fish, for a 5-pounder. And he will take you with him for $150.
The same riffles and falls, boulders and ledges, deep holes and sunken trees that keep some fishermen an arm's length from the river also provide food and protection for the bass. Bronze in color, they are chunky fish, with a lot of girth for their length, their bellies swollen with eggs and crawfish.
Kees tosses them lures designed to be hefty enough to discourage the smaller bass, hoping to attract the predator eye and the cavernous mouth of a trophy. He doesn't accomplish that every day, but often enough to grab national attention for a stream that has been better known for rafting than fishing.
"If I had to narrow my choices down to the two top trophy smallmouth rivers, the New River in Virginia and West Virginia with the Tennessee River would offer a lifetime of angling," said Tom Rodgers, founder of the Smallmouth Bass Foundation, headquartered in Edgefield, S.C.
In October, Rodgers was floating the New with Kees when a 5-pound, 4-ounce smallmouth smashed his Crippled Killer surface lure.
"Tom will be up here three days this spring," Kees said.
Kees can be contacted at 405 Virginia Ave., P.O. Box 458, Rich Creek, Va. 24145; 304-753-5912.
by CNB