SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

Two fishermen enjoy a midmorning fishing trip to Stonehouse Lake in Amherst County.

MARK TAYLOR The Roanoke Times

During a slow day of fishing at Stonehouse Lake, photographer Sam Dean caught the smallest fish of the series, a two-inch bass.

Photos by SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

After a slow day of fishing on Stonehouse Lake in Amherst County, Roanoke Times outdoors editor Mark Taylor found better action and mountain views at neighboring Thrasher Lake.

Though the fishing was slow, abundant wildlife lined the shores of Stonehouse Lake in Amherst County.

Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.

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Mark Taylor

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AMHERST -- There had to be a day like this.

When you hit 10 small public lakes over the course of a summer, it seemed inevitable that there would be a day when the fishing would be just brutally tough.

And this was turning into the day.

For nearly four hours Sam Dean and I worked our way around Amherst County's Stonehouse Lake, a small reservoir that was the most recent stop on our summer exploration of some of Virginia's out-of-the-way smaller public lakes.

We'd caught only a handful of fish, most of them bluegills. The only bass that we'd gotten in the boat was a 2-inch fingerling that had smacked a nymph Sam was fly-casting for bluegills.

We couldn't say we hadn't been warned.

That morning we'd made a pit stop at the Amherst Hardee's, where we ran into Bill DeWald, who lives in nearby Clifford and is a regular at Stonehouse, and its nearby mates, Thrasher Lake and Mill Creek Reservoir.

The lakes can offer pretty good bass fishing, he said, but it gets tough this time of year.

DeWald, who was with his friend John Wright of Amherst, suggested we hit Mill Creek, the bigger of the three.

But state fisheries biologist Dan Wilson had told me that Mill Creek gets quite a bit of angling pressure.

And since the point of our series is to visit lakes that can be under-utilized, it seemed more appropriate for us to focus on the smaller waters.

We planned to hit both, so it really was just a matter of where to go first.

DeWald said Stonehouse was his next favorite.

"Thrasher is boring," he said. "It's just like a round bowl."

But that wasn't the end of it.

As we were walking out, Wright grabbed my arm, leaned in close and whispered, "Don't listen to him. Go to Thrasher."

Since DeWald had made his suggestion first, it's the one we went with.

Stonehouse Lake is about 15 minutes from Amherst, and we were soon launching my 15-foot johnboat into the lake's murky green waters.

With woods lining most of the shoreline, a boat is pretty much a necessity here. Gas motors aren't allowed, but you don't need them on the 41-acre reservoir.

One other boat was on the lake, and it appeared its two occupants were fishing for panfish with bobber and bait rigs.

Working along a shaded bank, we started out targeting bass, Sam with a fly rod popper and me with a wacky-rigged Senko.

Thirty minutes of effort didn't produce a sniff.

We had worked our way into the shallow upper end of one of the lake's arms. The sandy bottom looked like a moonscape, dotted as it was with dozens of bluegill spawning nests.

The nests were empty, though, as the spawning season is over. We spotted a good number of fish swimming around the clear shallows. Most were tiny bluegills, but we did spot one bass that might have gone 2 pounds.

Moving back into deeper water, I changed approaches and started dragging a piece of nightcrawler along the bottom.

That produced the day's first fish, a hand-sized bluegill.

A few more decent bluegills fell for the technique, but the action was slow.

The most exciting moment came as we buzzed between fishing spots, and Sam was allowing his fly line to trail behind the boat.

"Oh, I just had a hit," he said, dejected that he hadn't connected.

But then he pulled in his line and found that he had connected -- with a largemouth bass the size of his pinkie finger.

"That's the smallest fish I've ever caught," he said, somewhat proudly.

Finally, we gave up and loaded up the boat.

With another assignment back in Roanoke, we had only about an hour to check out Thrasher Lake.

That wasn't enough time to bother with the boat. Fortunately, as we pulled into the empty parking lot we saw that the dam area was mowed, offering a couple hundred yards of easy shore fishing access.

We grabbed some gear and made our way to the lake.

Unlike Stonehouse, Thrasher was quite clear.

That made it easy to see the dozens of small bass and bluegills swimming in the shallows.

Seeing lots of fish was encouraging, but it wasn't the best sight.

The lake itself may be a fairly non-descript shape, but its backdrop is a spectacular view of the Blue Ridge Range. In fact, it's one of the more dramatic views I can recall seeing from any lake in Virginia.

And while the fish should have been wary in the clear water, they weren't.

The bluegills and small bass attacked the small popper Sam was using and blitzed the tiny 1-inch Berkley Gulp minnow I had on a small jig head.

In 30 minutes we caught more fish than we'd boated during our four-hour effort at Stonehouse.

But maybe it worked out for the best.

Had we started at Thrasher we might have never gotten to the other lake.

But, having experienced both, we'll know where to start next time.