SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

Jim Barnette (left) lands a crappie while fishing with his wife, Brenda, at Gatewood Reservoir near Pulaski.

Photos by SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

Mark Taylor holds a pair of bluegills caught simultaneously at Gatewood Reservoir by Taylor and fishing partner Sam Dean.

Gatewood Reservoir regulars Jim and Brenda Barnette fish from a johnboat for crappie and bluegill.

Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.

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PULASKI -- For many fishermen, nirvana can be found north of the border.

In Canada's lakes and streams swim vast schools of hungry game fish, many eager to provide excitement for fishermen who are also enjoying the remote and wild settings.

Jim Barnette of Dublin gets a taste of that without having to travel far.

"This kind of reminds me of Ontario," Barnette said Wednesday morning as he and his wife, Brenda, bobbed in a johnboat on Gatewood Reservoir not far from Pulaski. "You have no houses. No docks. Not a lot of boats running around."

And pretty good fishing, too.

Anchored just a couple of hundred yards from the lake's boat dock area, the couple were enjoying fast action on crappies.

"Oh, I just missed one," said Brenda Barnette as her bobber momentarily dunked under the water's rippled surface.

Jim Barnette got luckier on his next strike, reeling in a hand-sized crappie, which went into a bucket.

Having enjoyed our conversation with the Barnettes, Roanoke Times photographer Sam Dean and I wished them well and headed off for a remote corner of the reservoir, the third of 10 small, lesser known lakes we will visit this summer for our Tucked Away Treasures series.

Built 50 years ago as a water supply lake for the town of Pulaski, Gatewood is surrounded by picturesque wooded hills and covers about 162 acres when it's at full pond, as it is now.

The lake has an excellent bass population, according to biologist John Copeland of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and those fish command a lot of angler attention.

Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Gatewood Reservoir regulars Jim and Brenda Barnette fish from a johnboat for crappie and bluegill.

Mark Taylor holds a pair of bluegills caught simultaneously at Gatewood Reservoir by Taylor and fishing partner Sam Dean.

That probably helps contribute to another of the lake's intriguing offerings -- big sunfish.

In many lakes, the prolific sunfish become overpopulated and stunted.

At Gatewood, hungry bass help keep bluegill and redear numbers in check. Those that remain have more to eat.

And, because so much recreational fishing pressure is focused on bass, the big sunfish don't get hit too hard by anglers.

Those hand-sized prizes would be our targets on this breezy day in late June.

For a small water supply reservoir, Gatewood Reservoir has impressive recreational facilities and offerings, including lakeside camping (for tents and RVs).

Johnboats are available for rent, for dirt cheap.

The cost is $2 for the first hour; $1.20 for each additional hour.

Electric trolling motors and batteries come with the rental, but a sign at the boat house warns that renters use the equipment "at your own risk."

While the 40-pound-thrust motors get heavy use and show plenty of wear, they work fine.

The batteries aren't quite as reliable, as they are heavily stressed by the constant use and recharging. It's not an accident that each boat rental comes with two paddles.

Boaters who put their faith in the use-at-your-own-risk batteries and venture too far from the boat house stand a chance of putting those paddles to use.

To be on the safe side, I brought my two personal deep cycle marine batteries, a decision I felt extra smug about after we spotted two anglers paddling their johnboat into a stiff headwind about midday.

The best time to target Gatewood's bluegills and redears is in May and early June, when the fish are spawning and can be relatively easy to find in the shallows.

As summer progresses, the fish move into deeper water during the day, though they can be found in the shallows in the early morning and late evening.

Redears, which tend to stay deeper and feed on or near the bottom, can be especially hard to locate.

We were on the water by 7:30 a.m., but even by then the bigger bluegills had moved away from the banks.

After picking up only a couple of small bluegills around some shoreline woody cover, we knew we'd have to go deeper to find better fish.

Finding a cove sheltered from winds that grew more intense throughout the morning, we anchored off a gradually sloping point, and that turned out to be our best spot.

I worked a half-nightcrawler along the bottom at a depth of about 10 feet and quickly started connecting with half-pound bluegills.

To keep the worm off a bottom that was covered with weeds, I fished it on a drop-shot rig, with a size 6 Owner Mosquito hook tied to the line about 16 inches above a ¹₈-ounce sinker.

Sam was casting a small fly rod popper, and the water was so clear he managed to draw a couple of nice bluegills up to the surface.

When the surface action shut down and I kept having steady action with nightcrawlers, Sam switched to a subsurface woolly bugger streamer.

When that didn't get any action, Sam asked himself a question.

"I wonder what a better fly fisherman would be using right now?" he wondered.

I couldn't resist.

"I would be using a small nymph," I said, hooking another bluegill.

He switched to a bead-head hare's ear nymph and on his first cast smacked his best fish of the day.

A few casts later he caught another.

"Well, you got that one right," he said.

There was no reason for me to hog all the fun.