Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.

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Photos by Mark Taylor | The Roanoke Times

Jerry Hughes works the shallows of Holliday Lake with his fly rod. In about an hour, Hughes had boated more than an half-dozen nice bluegills and one keeper largemouth bass.

A great blue heron hunts for fish in the shallows at Holliday Lake on an August evening.

APPOMATTOX -- Its shoreline shaded by overhanging trees, its shallows littered with submerged trees and brush, Holliday Lake seems a warm water fly angler's dream.

A little popper plopped into this cover on a warm summer evening will pull up eager sunfish and bass, which is the intent of the fly angler sitting in the front of the small johnboat, gracefully casting toward the shore.

This early-August excursion is the ninth of 10 stops in an exploration of Virginia's small public lakes Roanoke Times photographer Sam Dean and I started in June.

At most stops Sam has stuck with his fly gear, even when it put him at a disadvantage. This lake is ideal for his approach, but he's not going to be enjoying it.

He's on vacation, his normal seat at the front of my boat occupied on this evening by my 7-year-old twin daughters, Elisabeth and Madeleine.

The fly angler who is staying busy boating bluegills and the occasional bass is Jerry Hughes, a retired police officer who lives just a few miles from this 145-acre lake, the centerpiece of tranquil Holliday Lake State Park.

"This is my way of unwinding," says Hughes, his complexion ruddy from the hours he's spent out here in the sun this spring and summer. "There are no phones, no honking horns. Just peace and quiet.

"It's a little piece of heaven."

Hughes' gear isn't fancy.

His aluminum boat is dinged and worn from years of use, the cowling on the old 5 horsepower outboard motor -- which can't be used here -- faded from years in the elements.

He has two fly rods, and each is outfitted with a classic Martin automatic fly reel, which automatically retrieves the line at the pull of a trigger.

"If you can't catch it on a fly rod, I don't fish for it," Hughes says of his approach to angling.

His chosen popper is a chartreuse job with scores of dangling white rubber legs.

"It's a Round Denny," Hughes said. "It's my favorite fly.

"You can only get them at Dashield's in Suffolk. I just ordered four dozen."

The Round Denny is working.

In an hour or so of plying the shallows, Hughes has about eight fish in his basket. One is a smallish largemouth bass, the others beautiful bluegills, all at least as big as a man's hand.

Just a few minutes before we connected with Hughes, we'd also connected with one of those bull bluegills, the three-quarter-pound fish nearly yanking Elisabeth's little spincast rig out of her hands when it slammed the nightcrawler she was slowly dragging along the bottom.

"It's actually been kind of slow," Hughes said. "But I wanted to come out tonight because this is supposed to be the coolest day we're going to have for a while."

The fishing is best here in the spring and early summer, Hughes says. On a good day it's possible to boat a couple dozen nice bluegills.

Evidence backs him up, too.

Because the water is so clear it's easy to spot many bluegill spawning areas where the bottom is dimpled with saucer-shaped nests, which were probably last occupied in late June.

If the fly fishing is good now, it must be outstanding when the fish are on those nests.

Hughes says the lake offers good crappie fishing in the spring.

It's also come on strong in recent years for yellow perch, which were illegally stocked and which Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologists say have hurt the bluegill population.

I thank Hughes for his time and wish him luck, and the girls and I go back to bouncing worms.

The action had been slow for us, but as the sun drops toward the horizon it picks up. Something pops my nightcrawler and I hand the rod to Madeleine after setting the hook.

She reels in a redear sunfish just as big as her sister's bluegill.

Then, she announces that she will continue using my rig, a spinning outfit.

"Do you even know how to cast it?" I ask, knowing that she is more accustomed to spincast gear.

She gives me a look that says, "Of course I know how to use it" and promptly fires a 40-foot cast toward the bank.

A few minutes later both girls say "I got one" almost in unison and connect with their first double -- a small bluegill for Madeleine and a little flyer sunfish for Elisabeth.

Rules require anglers to be off the water by dark so I tell the girls we're going to have to wrap things up and head to the ramp.

"A couple more casts," I tell them.

Madeleine, who is now using the tiny spincast rig again, starts slowly reeling in her worm.

"I got one," she says.

The rod is bent almost double and the drag is screaming.

"Don't horse it," I urge, not really thinking that she probably has no idea what that means.

She deftly works on the fish as I scramble for the net.

Then it goes under the boat and the line snaps.

"Oh, man," Madeleine says. "What was that?"

"I really don't know," I tell her.

Losing a fish like that is not really the way you want to end a trip. Fortunately, kids are better at handling that kind of thing than many of us adults.

But Madeleine can't let it go too quickly.

"I really wonder what that was," she says as we're rolling toward the ramp.

I tell the girls that mystery is part of the fun of fishing.

"We'll just have to come back and try to catch it next time," I say.

The girls nod.

They like the idea of coming back.

And so do I.