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Anglers
in Virginia:
From
Roanoke Bass to Green Sunfish
While
the sale of fishing licenses has dropped about 12
percent nationwide in the past half-dozen years,
even a recent increase in fees doesn’t seem to
thwart the Old Dominion’s enthusiastic anglers.
More than a half million fishing licenses are issued
each year for the state’s 176,000 acres of public
lakes, 27,300 miles of streams, and its saltwater
coasts.
Freshwater
fishing spots range from tidal rivers for largemouth
bass, blue catfish and shad; float fishing areas for
smallmouth bass in rivers across the state;
reservoirs known for largemouth bass, striped bass
and crappie; as well as small ponds and family
fishing lakes with bass, sunfish and channel
catfish. There are also stocked and wild trout
fishing areas in the Blue Ridge and Allegheny
mountains.
In
all there are about 38 species of freshwater game
fish ranging from largemouth and smallmouth bass to
white perch, walleye, chain pickerel, brook trout,
flathead catfish, American shad, carp and long nose
gar. A look at the Virginia
State Record Fish List reveals some fairly big
specimens caught in Virginia waters. An l6 lb., 4
oz. largemouth bass was caught back in 1985 and
still holds the record. The smallmouth bass (8 lbs,
1 oz) record only dates from 2003. A record 95 lb.,
11 oz. blue catfish was caught in the James River in
2006.
Don’t
forget saltwater fishing regulated by the Virginia
Marine Resources Commission. Some saltwater
game fishing records in these waters include: an
8-lb. 11-oz croaker caught on August 17, 2007, which
broke a 25-year-old record, as well as a 65-lb.,
8-oz. snowy grouper caught on June 22, 2007,
breaking a record that was only six weeks old.
Non-anglers
may not realize that Virginia has its own migrating
species of fish similar to the salmon and steelhead
in the northwestern part of the U.S. The American
shad is an adadromous fish, meaning it lives most of
its life in saltwater, but migrates to fresh water
to spawn. These shad spawn in the rivers near the
Chesapeake Bay, then exit those waters near Cape
Charles and Cape Henry and head far north to the Bay
of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. The roe of such shad
were a delicacy before the arrival of the Jamestown
settlers.
However,
by the early 1800s, dams had been built along the
Fall Line (a low east-facing cliff paralleling the
Atlantic coastline, notable for its waterfalls) to
produce water power for the state’s factories and
mills. There were seven dams along a stretch of the
James River as it passed through Richmond. By the
end of the 20th century, the loss of fish habitat in
Virginia was serious enough that efforts were made
to build ladders and open fishways around dams, or
in the case of the Embrey Dam near Fredricksburg on
the Rappahannock, actually remove the structure. In
2004, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working with
the City of Fredericksburg and a volunteer
organization, the Friends of the Rappahannock River,
dynamited a 130-foot hole in the dam and opened 100
miles of spawning ground for shad and other fish
that stretches all the way to the Blue Ridge.
For
some anglers, particularly charter outfitters in
recreational areas like Smith Mountain Lake, the
sport has gone high-tech, The 41-mile lake and its
500-mile shoreline was formed 40 years ago when an
inhabited area was flooded. Writing in the Washington
Post in April, 2006, Mary Ellen Slayter
described an excursion on the lake with an outfitter
whose 21-foot Hurricane was “so high-tech it could
have been the marine version of KITT, the tricked
out car on the ‘80s TV show ‘Knight Rider.’
” The boat had onboard sonar, but the guide also
wore a wristwatch remote control to steer the
electric trolling motor.
But,
there’s room for the more low-tech fly fisherman,
as well. A website called VAflyfish.com reports on
the conditions on 78 rivers and creeks throughout
Virginia ranging from Buffalo River in Amherst
County to Roaring Run in Botetourt County and Lake
Accotink in Fairfax County. Saltwater anglers can
find similar information on fishing conditions in
the Saltwater Review.
Whether
it is a hook and line, a bass bug, a gaff or some
other sort of tackle, most Virginia anglers probably
agree with film director Robert Altman (who must
also drop a line once in awhile): “I love
fishing.” he says. "You put that line in the
water and you don't know what's on the other end.
Your imagination is under there.”
NEXT:
Who Was the Bunnyman? Urban Legends of Virginia
--
October 15, 2007
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