By Brian Boog
Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Waters. This month I fished Chickahominy Lake in Lanexa, off 60 along the New Kent/Charles City County line. In 1943, the U.S. War Department built Walkers Dam on the Chickahominy River, creating Chickahominy Lake, a 1,230-acre water supply reservoir for Newport News Shipbuilding and other military works on the Lower Peninsula.
It seems that everyone who fishes around here knows it and loves it.
Gavin and Oscar Allen at Ed Allen’s Boats & Baits told me that the biggest bass that they’ve seen in person come out of the lake is 13.06 pound, and over the years, lots of 10 pounders have been caught.
I used the launch at Ed Allen’s (1959 Allen Rd. Lanexa) where the jon boat/kayak fee is $5 and $10 a day for larger boats. Chickahominy Lake allows gas motors. Ed Allen’s also rents pontoons ($150 half day/$250 full day) and jon boats with or without motors ($20-$65 a day). They’ve got tons of parking, a tackle shop,and they are a Tohatsu outboard motor dealer. Their restaurant, Lakeside, with indoor and patio seating right on the lake is the perfect spot after a day of fishing. Every lake should have a Lakeside Restaurant. It’s dog friendly too. Make sure to say Hi to Gavin, Oscar and Willow.
There’s also Eagles Landing, another launch spot, up the lake. (2142 Landing Rd. Providence Forge, VA) I fished by it, but didn’t use the facilities.
There are tournaments year-round on Chick Lake. Ed Allen’s has two series a year, plus many, many other clubs have events on the lake throughout the year.
On to the fishing. Going into this month’s column, I knew that I picked the two toughest months of the year to fish Chick Lake. August and September traditionally can be tough, but if you keep throwing different baits for the conditions out there, you’ll eventually start figuring something out. It took me a few trips to narrow down my bait selection.
Chick Lake is mostly five feet or less with the exceptions of the dam area and the creek channel that runs all the way out. There are also a few holes on the flats that drop off into deeper water. This time of year there’s this black goo that covers the bottom of the lake. This makes jigs, crankbaits and virtually anything else that touches the bottom useless. This was the challenge. I had to find baits that covered the zone of topwater to 4-5 feet. I tried them all. Just covering water. From soft flukes to wake crankbaits to buzz baits and underspins. I tried all the shallow stuff. I did, however, eventually find what works for my style of fishing and went out a-casting.
I started fishing right at the fishing pier and continued straight out, casting at anything that looked fishy. Chick Lake has a whole bunch of cypress trees in the water. All over. Skipping a Senko near them usually did the trick.
The big flats section to the right after the fishing pier always seemed to have had a fish or three hanging out in the grass. I caught them here up to 4-5 pounds on my trusty white, 9” M.S.Slammer wake bait, Deps Buzzjet in silver/chrome and Jackhammer in Brett’s Bluegill w/ a Yamamoto Zako trailer.
I would say hands down that the Buzzjet was my most consistent lure on the lake, slow-rolling it a few inches down over the grass. I fish it on a 7’4” St. Croix Legend Tournament Heavy with 50-pound Sufix 832 straight braid. They absolutely hammer it – and try to rip the rod right out of your hands. I never seemed to have any luck in the front of the trees heading down to the creek arm opening. There’s a couple of pieces of wood sticking out of the water at the creek opening where I caught a few in the three- pound class on a Senko or Jackhammer.
Where I started consistently having luck catching them was the two sections of flats on the right, close to the entrance to the back lake. Depending on the day, they were stacked up in one or the other section. The water here was maybe 2-3 feet. This is where the big 9” M.S. Slammer wake baits came into play. I rotated three colors of the same bait. All white, bluegill and a custom color Mike did for me called Hot Sauce – red and orange with some chartreuse on the bottom. All three colors produced fish in the four-pound class, but again, the all-white out-caught them all. I don’t know if it’s a confidence thing, but I have no problem whipping that bait around all day knowing that at some point, a big girl is going to explode on it.
In my fishing in these two areas, I also caught many bowfin and an eight-pound catfish that Shark-Weeked my Slammer, coming clear out of the water exploding on it.
The last day I fished these two areas a Reaction Innovations Vixen in Flitter Shad outfished all the other walking baits I was throwing. It has a unique one-knocker sound – some days they want a very specific sound. The biggest fish I caught in these two flats areas was 4-15 on the White Slammer.
I did go all the way out to the back of the lake, and caught smaller fish here and there beating the bank on Senkos and Jackhammers going around the lake counterclockwise until I got to the area of what I’ll call the S.S. Minnow. The boat with the trees in it next to the docks. There was an afternoon when the wind was blowing right on that boat and I loaded up on 10 to 15 two-to three pounders on a Jackhammer in Brett’s Bluegill. I caught them on almost every cast for 20-30 yards.
My advice: just keep moving and casting at Chick Lake. Don’t stop — you’ll eventually find them.
In my month or so fishing at Chick Lake, I averaged between 13-15 pounds on my best five with my largest bass going 4-15. I caught a ton of smaller fish all over the lake, but my biggest fish all came from wake style baits over the flats areas.
Chick Lake is challenging, as it should be, shallow and so much fun to fish. There’s lots of different types of cover to fish. Cypress trees, a few docks, lots of grass, lily pads, the dam, a sea wall, a creek channel and large flats. There’s something for everyone. It’s a bigger body of water, but it’s still very kayak and jon boat friendly.
It’s a great place to fish and then grab a late lunch at Lakeside. If you haven’t fished here, you really need to.
See you on the Small Water. Any suggestions of where I should fish email: woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
