The Lakes
Lake Anna
Lots of nice largemouth are finding themselves being weighed in on the Anna Point Marina scales. On June 22, Larry and Lee Martin weighed a five-fish bag totaling 16-4. The big fish went 4-13. The Martins used top water baits and drop shots. Four-year-old Hunter Wine caught a 2-10 largemouth on a small minnow.
Summer patterns are emerging for largemouth as the bass begin to move deeper. Deep crankbaits, Texas rigs, and Shakey Head rigs are effective, along with top water baits early and late.
Striper anglers are advised to come early and beat the increasing boat traffic. Jet skis, you know. Large live shad is the most effective for bigger stripers, but trolling tactics with Red-Fins, and umbrella rigs are producing fish. Crappie are also moving deeper but are still biting.
Buggs Island
Water is dropping and fishing is picking up at Buggs. Crank baits and C-rigs are working very well. Crappie are moving to deeper water. Catfishing is steady.
Lake Orange. Good action for bass on topwater early on. Catfish are on fire throughout the lake. Some big crappie are showing up on the weigh-in scales.
Chickahominy Lake
Capt. Art Conway of Conway’s River Rat Guide Service out of Ed Allen’s Boats and Bait reported that Chickahominy Lake mid-day water temperatures ranged from the low to mid 80’s in the lower lake and slightly higher in the backs of the major creeks on Monday. The lake level was about eight inches above the top of the dam. The water was medium brown and slightly cloudy in the lower lake.
Blue cats and a few channel cats were widely scattered in a variety of depths in the lower main lake and in the creeks and were hitting live minnows. A mix of sizes of crappie were scattered on submerged wood cover, along channel edges, near some lily pads, and on weed flats near shoreline cover in the main lake and creek mouths. Crappie were hitting live minnows, Roadrunners, Kalin crappie scrubs, tubes, swim baits, and Wright Bait Co. and Southern Pro curlytail grubs. Larger bluegill and shellcrackers were in loose clusters on many shorelines in the main lake and in some areas up the creeks and were hitting flies (especially wet flies and nymphs), small tubes and jigs, and live worms. A few bass were around creek mouths and on flats in the main lake, and were hitting flyrod bugs, topwaters, crankbaits, jerkbaits, and plastic worms, particularly early and late in the day.
Fishing with Capt. Conway, Becky and Jimmy Bogese had 32 bluegill, 5 shellcrackers, 4 crappie, and 5 yellow perch. Robert Harmon and Stephanie and Nathan Castle had 25 bluegill. Mickey Cleveland had 27 bluegill, 1 warmouth, 18 crappie, 1 yellow perch, 1 white perch, and 1 bass.
The Rivers
Upper James/New River
High, muddy and unfishable.
Shenandoah
Still high, but dropping. Should be fishable by this weekend.
James River(Richmond)
Elite series pro Randy Howell won the Bassmaster Northern Open on the James River with a 3 day total of 47-lbs, 11ozs. Green Top pro and local angler Steve Colgin of Lanexa finished 10th. Many presentations were effective, but Senkos and crank baits were two of the more commonly used baits.
Potomac River
Capt. Steve Chaconas said it was tournament week on the Potomac.
“The Everstart Series tournament was last week and the Potomac River was crowded. I took the opportunity to go out with one of the FLW Tour pros, Kellogg's Ranger pro Dave Lefebre. Dave showed me a prototype lure coming soon from Storm Lures. It was interesting to see how he approached the Potomac. Fishing only once a year, he really understood the tides and where to find fish. He targeted grass and deeper wood cover. Using an array of medium diving crank baits for the wood and soft plastics pitched to grass clumps, he loaded the boat.”
“On Tuesday, VDGIF biologist John Odenkirk and Field & Stream writer Steven Hill joined me for a snakehead hunt! John had one on first thing, but it escaped his frog hooks. The weird thing was after it got away, it swam to the boat and stared us down. Later that evening, Chef Doug LaPorta, from Loporta's Restaurant prepared a 4-course snakehead dinner for us. My favorite was the Snakehead Tempura with a horseradish orange marmalade sauce.”
“I fished on Wednesday with a regular client and we caught a bunch with a Mann's Baby 1-Minus in the morning. Later on we pitched Texas rigged MIZMO tubes to marsh clumps and pads.”
“I took the tournament days off to cover the event for WFLS radio. It was a great event. Next week I'm booked with bass and snakehead trips.”
Staunton River
“I finally got back on the water Thursday and fished with Dave and his son Reed,” said Guide Matt Miles. “We fished the Staunton/Roanoke River because it was closer to normal levels than the New and James river. The day started out well, as the fish were eating poppers and cicada imitations. Reed pulled in a 17-inch smallmouth bass and a 15-inch largemouth bass on the fly rod. They were the two biggest bass of the trip. We had a mixed bag of species -bluegills, redeyes, smallmouth bass and largemouth bass all caught on poppers and flies. The water ended up rising right much by mid-day and messed the fishing up for the rest of our trip. The rivers are coming down from all the rain the past two weeks thankfully. Hope to see some stable water conditions soon.”
j44brewer@gmail.com
