Sunday, August 03, 2008
Resurrected Laurel Bed Lake still charms
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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SALTVILLE -- Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a project for a dozen years only to learn the results were going to be flushed away.
Literally.
Fisheries biologist Tom Hampton felt that sting this spring when he learned that the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries planned to drain Laurel Bed Lake, where Hampton had overseen the development of one of Virginia's most unique trophy smallmouth bass fisheries.
The dam holding back the 330-acre lake is in need of repair and the agency hadn't been able to come up with the money -- up to $2 million -- to make the fixes. As a safety precaution, the decision was made to drain the lake.
The agency lifted the catch-and-release regulations that had protected the bass and allowed many to reach trophy proportions.
Many anglers were upset.
"I don't know how many people I heard from who said it was their favorite place in Virginia to fish," said Hampton, who was bombarded with e-mails, calls and letters.
Two weeks later the agency was able to find money in its budget to pursue the repairs, and the original bass protection rules were implemented.
So when we arrived at Laurel Bed Lake on Wednesday afternoon the trip was a celebration of the lake's survival, not the farewell I expected when I decided early this summer to make the lake the fifth stop on my eight-week Summer Smallmouth Tour.
The only other time I'd fished at Laurel Bed Lake, in May of 2005, the lake was full. Wednesday it was down about 11 feet.
"It looks a little different, doesn't it?" said Hampton, a biologist who works out of the agency's Marion office. The larger shoreline is a change, but unchanged is the beauty of the area, with second-growth hemlocks and hardwoods covering the steep ridges surrounding the lake.
The lower lake level is only temporary.
The contract for repairs is due to be finalized in the next couple of weeks and work should be completed by late fall. Given normal rainfall the lake should be full again by next spring.
The best craft for fishing the lake is a johnboat (gas motors are not allowed), ideally one with a decent sonar unit for pinpointing underwater structure.
But due to the low water launching a trailered boat is impossible so we opted for canoes.
Hampton and fellow biologist George Palmer were in one. My brother, Greg, who was visiting from Oregon for a week, was with me in the other.
As we carried our gear toward the shoreline, a huge swirl erupted next to a shoreline stump. A big bass was chasing bait.
Given the cloudy conditions and the good wind chop, this day seemed to have great potential for topwater action.
But we had a backup plan.
Hampton and Palmer had shown up with about 100 fathead minnows, including some 6-inchers that seemed perfect for tempting 20-inch bass.
We launched and headed toward the south edge of the lake, a steep bank the men said consistently holds good fish.
On the way we passed by a hump covered with standing timber. I pitched a minnow toward a tree and got a quick hit. The fish turned out to be a stout rock bass.
Rock bass are actually responsible for the great smallmouth fishing.
Traditionally, Laurel Bed was a trout lake, and had been known for growing some big brook trout. But the illegal stocking of rock bass had hurt the trout fishery so 12 years ago predatory smallmouth were stocked to help control rock bass.
Protected by catch-and-release-only rules, smallmouth have flourished. Eighteen- to 20-inchers are not uncommon.
After fishing the hump we started drifting across open water toward the bank and Greg's minnow rod buckled.
A couple minutes later I was sliding the net under a 19-inch-long smallmouth, the biggest yet of this summerlong adventure.
Our excitement was tempered when Greg saw a horrific lesion on the smallmouth's flank.
Closer inspection revealed a line and swivel protruding from the fish's vent. The sore was caused by the hooks of a lure that had worked its way deep into the fish's system before perforating the fish's intestine.
The fish had either been hooked deep and released, or had broken off.
Greg released the bass, which seemed doomed.
By then Palmer had started throwing a buzzbait along the shore, and soon he hooked up with a stout 16-inch bass.
Greg, who is known to throw a big Zara Spook surface lure all day in search of one big bass, started down that road. And it soon paid off when a big smallmouth exploded on the lure, missed, and exploded again.
That fish was 18 inches long and weighed about 3 pounds.
Inspired, I started casting a frog-colored Devil's Horse prop bait and quickly hooked a 12-inch smallmouth.
By then we were toward the upper end of the lake and the weather was starting to look iffy.
That's not unusual up here at 3,600 feet of elevation, where weather conditions can be much different than in the lowcountry.
Hampton and Palmer started paddling back to their truck, their day done. We decided to make our way back toward shore just in case the weather got much worse.
That was a good call because lightning was soon filling the sky as we dug our paddles into the lake's warm water. All heck was breaking loose as we beached the canoe and took cover in the truck.
An hour-and-a-half later the rain finally eased enough to let us get back on the water. It was 5:30 p.m. so we still had more than three hours of fishing left.
For whatever reason, things had shut down.
So for more-than 200 miles of driving and hours of canoe paddling we got just six fish. But we also got to spend a day at one of Virginia's most beautiful high-elevation lakes.
And I'm already looking forward to my next trip.
