Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003300011
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You get used to bright sunshine, warm air and the yeast of spring in your nostrils. Then, wham! Here come dropping temperatures, rain and sometimes even - Gad! - snow.
To succeed as an angler you have to outguess the weather and the fish. Neither makes the task easy, but some fishermen have been getting hits. Here's where:
\ PHILPOTT LAKE: "It was really turning on good until the last cold front came," Gary Rakes said of fishing on this 3,000-acre lake near Bassett.
Among the recent outstanding catches was a string of four largemouths weighing 18 pounds. The fish were caught on crankbaits by Mike Hundley and Roger Spaugler of Collinsville.
By the middle of the week, some bass were hitting on the surface. Garland Terry of Fieldale landed six, five on top-water lures.
The lake's walleye remain tough to figure, said Rakes, but Rose Turner and Glen Gillespie of Henry came about as close as anybody to doing just that. Using deep-diving Bomber lures, they landed nine that weighed 2 to 6 pounds each, said Rakes, who operates a business near the lake.
The Smith River, below Philpott Dam, gave up a 5-pound, 6-ounce brown trout to Danny Martin of Bassett.
\ CARVINS COVE: Striped bass haven't been stocked in this Roanoke City water supply impoundment for several years. Still, fishermen continue to come up with eye-popping catches. David Webb, who operates the cove concession, has weighed several of more than 18 pounds recently. The best was a 25-pounder landed by Gary Foutz of Roanoke.
"He had landed five [largemouth] bass, and he threw out one more time and he thought he had caught the lunker bass of the season," said Webb.
A group of three cove fishermen used small minnows to catch 62 crappie in the upper end of the lake.
One fishermen, in a creek cove at dark, saw something feeding on the surface and cast a minnow to it. He promptly caught a walleye. He released it and caught another, then another. Before it was over, he had hooked a dozen.
Webb said he soon expects to have a set of scales at his tackle shop, located at the cove boat ramp. He wants to provide fishermen the opportunity to weigh a catch for citation purpose, then release it alive.
Tony Stump of Salem caught a 5-pound, 7-ounce largemouth on a Rapala recently and had to haul it all the way to his home town to have it weighed.
\ MAURY RIVER: There's a 2-pound, 15-ounce brook trout finning around in this Rockbridge County stream waiting to make somebody happy - again.
The fish already has brightened the outlook of Robert Daniel of Roanoke, who caught it while casting a Joe's Fly this week.
"I was like a kid who got everything he wanted for Christmas," said Daniel, who had been searching for a big brookie since the season opened.
Daniel said he dumped all the drinks out of his cooler, filled it with water, then hauled the trout to a nearby store where it was weighed. He later released it.
"I felt like he belonged to the river," Daniel said. "Let somebody else have some fun catching it. That trout will mean more running around in the stream than he would eyeballing me from my wall."
\ OUTER BANKS: A couple of days after surf fishermen were wondering if the big bluefish had bypassed this North Carolina resort area, some fish showed up for a brief period on the north side of Oregon Inlet. Several 8- to 12-pounders were landed.
Fishermen in the region remain concerned that many of the blues already may have pushed north of the Outer Banks on their spring migration. The next couple of weeks should tell how good the spring sport will be.
The first week in April traditionally has been a peak time for catching these hard-charging fish.
by CNB