Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tucked-away treasures: Few fish, but beautiful scenery
The water level is down about 40 feet at Mills Creek Reservoir because of utility work on a dam.
SAM DEAN I The Roanoke Times
Roanoke Times outdoors editor Mark Taylor trolls for trout in the Mills Creek Reservoir. The water was low because of work on the dam.
Roanoke Times outdoors editor Mark Taylor displays a nice brook trout caught at Mills Creek Reservoir. It was the only trout of the trip.
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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STUARTS DRAFT -- It seemed fitting to end it as we started it, at a small lake filled with trout and reachable only by foot or bike.
So on a cloudy morning more than two months after photographer Sam Dean and I began our summer-long exploration of some of Virginia's small public lakes, we packed up our fishing gear, climbed aboard our mountain bikes and started pedaling.
We were headed to Mills Creek Reservoir, a 14-acre lake tucked among the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge not far from Stuarts Draft.
Like Lexington Reservoir, where we started in early June, Mills Creek is managed as a put-grow-and-take fishery.
Because Mills Creek's deep and cool waters can sustain trout year round, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries stocks the lake and nearby Coles Run Reservoir -- which are both Augusta County water supply reservoirs -- with fingerling brook trout each spring.
Sampling efforts have turned up brook trout to 14 inches, a trophy size rarely found outside waters stocked with trout reared their entire lives in hatcheries.
I'd heard that Mills Creek had been drawn down to facilitate some utility work, and some bear houndsmen we met that morning confirmed that it was still down.
We considered just moving on to Coles Run, but then decided that the low water might actually prove to be an advantage by concentrating the fish.
Our approach would be similar to what we'd done on our two previous trips to trout waters, first Lexington Reservoir and then Skidmore Lake.
We would get on the water and troll with a rig that uses flashing spinner blades to attract fish, which then hit a small lure or bait trailing behind the attractor.
So we lashed my float tube onto a bike trailer and headed off up the trail, which is actually a decent road that is blocked by locked gate.
The trek in is nearly level until the very end, when the road shoots up steeply to reach the top of the dam that forms the reservoir.
Cresting the hill we could see that the lake was probably 40 feet below full pool, and maybe covered five acres.
Tucked-Away Treasures
Map
From today's paper
Previous stories in this series
- Holliday Lake, 'a little piece of heaven'
- Tucked-away treasures: Boating Hungry Mother's muskies no easy task
- For better or worse, Lake Witten attracts locals
- Action plentiful, but trout small at Skidmore
- Ponds produce nice fishing spot
- Gatewood small, but possesses plenty of fish to catch
- Bass opportunities abound at Fairy Stone
- Lexington Reservoir is worth the effort
If 14 acres worth of fish were concentrated in that little pond, it seemed we were due for some good action.
Sure enough, my ultralight fishing rod was bouncing not 15 minutes after I started kicking around the deeper water near the dam.
After a good fight I pulled in a pretty brook trout that was just a tad under 12 inches long.
But my visions of smoking a bunch of butterflied brookies turned out to be just that: fantasy.
Sam and I continued to get hits but were having trouble hooking fish. When I finally connected with one I was chagrined to pull in a 5-inch golden shiner.
This is how it went for another couple of hours.
Earlier this summer on a trip to two small lakes near Amherst we had stubbornly stayed at the first lake too long despite slow fishing, and that cost us when we found better action at the day's second stop.
We didn't want to do that again, so it was time to head back down the trail.
As we were packing up our gear I spotted a sign post in the distance and decided to check it out before we left.
Once I got close to the sign I could see that one of the bullet-riddled placards showed the universal slash symbol over a swimmer, with another slash over two paddlers in a canoe.
Oops.
"What was it?" Sam asked, when I got back to the bikes.
"It says no canoeing," I joked. "So it's a good thing I was in the float tube."
The trailhead to Coles Run is just a few miles north on the Coal Road.
The route in is less than a half-mile, so Coles Run gets more angling pressure.
A large sign on the trail in says swimming is off limits, though we found a rope swing that indicates some visitors are not following the rules.
While kicking around in a float tube isn't exactly swimming, it's close enough. So, not wanting to break the rules again, I didn't bother with the float tube.
Fisheries biologist Paul Bugas had said that Coles Run is beautiful, and he wasn't exaggerating.
The water is crystal clear and the setting is spectacular, with the 11-acre lake surrounded by craggy peaks, and a view of the valley from the dam.
Clear water isn't necessarily a good thing because it can indicate a general lack of fertility. However, sampling has found that the stocked brookies still do pretty well in the lake.
Could we catch them from shore, though?
At least on this day the answer was no.
Nothing we tried worked.
That was OK, though.
When we embarked on this quest we expected to have some slow days. You can't fish and not have them.
But more often than not we had days that were great, finding fun fishing in beautiful settings.
Those were the days when a willingness to explore was rewarded with the discovery of one of Virginia's little tucked away treasures, of which there are many more out there still to be found.
