Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003091701
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The lengthening days and rising water temperatures are magnets that begin to pull bass toward the shallows.
It is a time of transition. You might find a largemouth or a smallmouth in 1 foot of water one day and in 8 feet the next. Changing temperatures can have a yo-yo effect.
Only rarely can an angler expect to catch a bunch of bass in early March. But the one, two or three strikes of a typical day can turn up something really special.
"I look for one big fish," said Roanoker Daryl Alba, who recently landed an 8-pound, 7-ounce largemouth at Smith Mountain Lake. "I got him and went home."
Michael Wood of Roanoke recently caught a 5-pound, 2-ounce smallmouth at Smith Mountain. The fish was in shallow water.
"He was holding to rock," Wood said. "He was right up against the bank."
Alba's largemouth also was in the shallows.
"He was up in the brush on a sunny day in 1 foot of water," Alba said.
The water still is so cold that most largemouths don't like to do a lot of chasing. A slow presentation with a jig-and-pig or spinnerbait often is most productive.
Alba landed his largemouth on a spinnerbait. Wood was using a pumpkinseed-colored jig-and-pig.
The state may want to change its famous slogan to "Virginia is for walleye fishermen."
Newly developed spawning runs have been attracting anglers from miles around.
At the Roanoke River, in the Brookneal-Leesville region, fishermen have been showing up from New Jersey, Maryland, Tennessee, West Virginia and other states to go after spawning fish from Kerr Lake.
A couple of fishermen who had been going to Canada for walleye have switched to the Roanoke River, said Michael Guthrie of Brookneal Farmstore, a major hangout for walleye anglers.
It is much the same on the South Holston River near Alvarado, where spawning walleye are pressing upstream from the South Holston Reservoir.
"We have had a big response from people coming from Kentucky and Tennessee," said John Jessee, a Virginia fish biologist.
"The times I have been down, there have been as many vehicles or more as during the white bass run."
That's saying a mouthful, considering the big draw white bass have been through the years.
The walleye action in the Roanoke River has slowed the past week or so, but Guthrie said he expects it to pick up around the next full moon, which occurs Sunday.
The fish definitely are larger this year, about the fourth season of the run.
"The first couple of years, we felt like if we weighed a 6-pounder that we were doing well," Guthrie said. "Now, 6-pounders are fairly common. There are many more 8- and 9-pounders."
Although a record 13-pound walleye was taken from the South Holston River in early February, most of the fish being caught there are in the the 2- to 3-pound range, Jessee said.
Florida now requires fishermen to purchase a saltwater license, a fact that has brought a mixed response. Bill Murdock, a Blacksburg angler visiting the Sunshine State, was asked about the license recently on "Good Morning America."
Around Sebastian Inlet, however, Murdock is better known for something other than his TV exposure.
While bicycling in Long Point County Park, Murdock came across some fishermen casting to a school of redfish gobbling up shrimp beneath mangroves. He didn't have his rod and reel, so the guys hooking the redfish let him use their equipment to land a hefty fish.
"He placed the redfish in the bicycle basket with its head and tail extending beyond both sides and pedaled back through the campground," said Tom Haynes at Whitey's Bait and Tackle.
"He's still telling fish tales how he caught that fish without a rod and reel."
One of the better white bass catches of the season was a 3 1/2-pounder at Smith Mountain Lake by guide John R. Jones of Vinton.
by CNB