Tuesday, April 28, 2009
DGIF to tout Virginia's best fishing holes on Web site
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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Virginia tourism and fisheries officials took advantage of a big crowd at the Bassmaster Elite Series to make an announcement about a new initiative they hope will bring more attention to the state's fishing holes.
Fish Virginia First will be a fishing trail in the spirit of the popular Crooked Road music trail and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' Birding and Wildlife Trail.
The trail will not only be a service for anglers and their families, but is hoped to provide an economic boost by attracting anglers and their money to the region.
Unlike the DGIF's Birding and Wildife Trail, which features glossy guide books, the Fish Virginia First trail will be primarily Web-based.
The site will list waters that will be connected among various themes. For a fee, counties will be able to participate by including listings of businesses that might appeal to visiting anglers.
"The concept is it's one-stop shopping," said Bud LaRoche, the DGIF regional fisheries biologist who helped select the waters that initially will be included in the program. "There will be the specific kind of trail you can follow. Where you can stay. Where you can eat. What your family can do if they don't want to fish."
The initiative, which is similar to projects in Georgia and Alabama, has been in the works for about two years, and is still under development.
But tourism and fisheries officials wanted to do what they deemed a "soft roll out" at the tournament because the big crowd at Sunday's final weigh-in for the Blue Ridge Brawl was too good an opportunity to pass up.
The program committee has produced a slick little internal brochure that lists the waters, which are in Western and South Central Virginia in the watersheds for the New, Tennessee, Roanoke and upper James rivers. The waters are broken into categories that include reservoirs larger than 500 acres, smaller lakes, major rivers, coldwater trout streams and lakes.
The same information is available on the Web site (fishvirginiafirst.com), which will expand as the program develops.
Even though the Web site is just basic, it has already generated 70,000 hits, said Scott Martin, director of Commerce and Leisure Services for Franklin County.
A committee that includes fisheries and tourism officials, along with volunteers from groups such as Trout Unlimited and the BASS Federation Nation, will now get to work planning the specific trails.
Possibilities are many.
A trout trail could link coldwater fisheries, while a smallmouth bass trail could connect waters such as the New, James and Maury rivers with good smallmouth lakes such as Claytor, Moomaw and Smith Mountain. A trophy trail could include waters that consistently produce high numbers of fish meeting award qualifications for the Virginia Angler Recognition Program.
So far, 18 counties have paid $500 each to participate in the trail. A total of 46 counties will be given the opportunity to opt in to promote businesses that might appeal to anglers.
The participation or non-participation of a county won't affect the listing of waters.
Optimists tournament on tap at SML
Now that pro anglers have had their crack at Smith Mountain Lake, amateurs will get their shot.
The 41st annual Optimist Club of Cave Spring's fishing tournament will be held Friday through Sunday.
This year's contest features no significant changes from last year's derby.
Eligible species remain smallmouth, largemouth and striped bass, catfish, crappie and muskellunge.
Saturday's Bill Cochran Youth Tournament, now in its fifth year, will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is open to children age 12 and younger with a paying adult. The youth tournament will feature small fish (sunfish) and large fish (carp) categories.
Tickets are $40, and will be sold at participating businesses until Thursday evening. Last-minute tickets can be purchased at Foxport Marina, the tournament headquarters, until 7:30 a.m. Friday.
Christine Crewson at Roanoke's Minnow Pond bait and tackle store, always a top seller, said ticket sales have picked up the past few days.
"It's going real well," she said. "We've probably sold 70 or 80."
For more information on the tournament, call Foxport at 721-2451.
Spots still open for SML triathlon
As usual, the annual Smith Mountain Lake Triathlon will fall on the same weekend as the Optimist Club's tournament.
The Saturday race, which features a 750-meter swim in the lake, a 12.4-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run, will be held at Smith Mountain Lake State Park.
As of late Monday afternoon, 118 open spots remained for the race, a popular event among novice triathletes.
Registration, as well as more information, is available online at setupevents.com.
