Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

The spawn.

Blame is always on the spawn.

Clearly, something else is going on -- especially up the Shenandoah Valley where they have a real, serious problem.

The “Shen” is toast.

Right now there are no smallmouth bass and thousands of dead smallmouth bass with unexplained lesions on their mouths.

The fishing guides -- the guys who know every ledge, every corner, and the time of day of every hatch -- also know in their heart that it’s gone.

Brian Trow, a Harrisonburg guide described a situation you normally see in Alaska after the salmon have died.

Like a scene from “The Birds,” there were flocks of ospreys feeding on smallmouth carrion.

You do not need to be a guide or Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries biologist to know that the Shenandoah River is a patient in critical condition.

As Trow recently commented, “It doesn't take long when you are used to releasing 80 fish a day to maybe picking off one or two.”

In a recent “fish-shocking”, where the game department gives the water a short, low voltage burst of energy to stun up fish, the numbers of smallies was pathetic, and only the suckers and sunfish seemed to be disease-free.

Unless it is Bhopal or the Exxon Valdez, most environmental disasters are low key, page 6 sort of stuff.

The smallmouth bass, suckers and brown trout that died in Virginia this spring because of chemical spills don't get the respect or attention because people aren't directly affected -- or so they think.

The crime was most likely caused by farm chemical runoff, and the farmer has more clout than the smallmouth bass that swim through his farm.

The Shenandoah River is the upper valley’s answer to the James and the New River, and there is a mini-economy of fly-fisherman and guides who base their living on what they do on that river every summer.

This situation has been part of major cover-up because no one wants to admit any culpability, which will never correct the problem, especially if the source isn't discovered.

When will people ever make the connection that dead fish drink the same water we do, and that a chemical spill that kills the fish in the Shenandoah cannot be good for any of us?

We are all connected, no matter if we guide, or spin fish, or just like canoeing down a slow green river under a canopy of oaks and sycamores on a gorgeous July afternoon.

In my mind, smallmouth fishing is off other places too.

Although I heard some people are catching good numbers on the New River, I am not one of them.

The area that I like near Fries, right at the New River State Park has always been of the most reliable smallmouth fisheries in this area. Wide, wadable, with some interesting ledges, it always holds tons of small mouth bass. Some years, the area fish may be smaller but they are always there.

Three years ago, I lost three foam disc poppers in a row as these brutes sucked them under and took off, all hooked up, jumping and rolling and eventually breaking me off.

This is usually 8-weight, 1X territory.

Not any more.

The only fish I have caught in the last three weeks were minnows and sunfish.

I am not so sure it is “just the spawn” down here anymore.

I had an e-mail from a reader from South Carolina this week, complaining about being blasted and ticketed by a Virginia game warden for taking an oversized bass without a fishing license in his possession

Unbelievably, he admitted and in his letter to laving a stringer of “legal” sized bass “in protest” to die in the sun.

To protest what? Not knowing the state's fishing laws?

Thinking back, I know what the warden was so upset about. He was upset because one of the few big fish we are seeing this season was taken by an out-of-state angler who acted indignant about our relatively new bass fishing regulations.

The game wardens know what’s happening, they are worried and, thankfully, very protective about their fish, their livelihood, and the land they love so much.

We all need to think like the wardens and pay attention to the slot limits, buy our licenses and make every contribution possible so that we can help these awesome game fish come back to the size and quantity that made these rivers famous in the fly-fishing angling, and kayaking world.

Our smallmouth bass is Virginia’s version of the salt water snook, which is one of the biggest tourist draws in Florida, and protected by a similar slot law.

For those of you anglers who are catching smallies on the New River this year, I applaud you, because I am waiting, still fishing, still looking, and still hoping that we can start taking some pictures of big bass instead of writing about the dead ones we have killed through our own negligence.