BY BRIAN BOOG
Hello everybody and welcome back. The small waters are getting cold! This month I fished Lake Smith in the city of Norfolk. This 193-acre lake is separated from Little Creek Reservoir by North Hampton Blvd. which is somehow connected to Lake Whitehurst. Quite a title!
I thought it was in Virginia Beach, but I can’t really get a clear answer. The park, ramp and lot are in VB, but the lake is in Norfolk? The Lake Smith fishing station is located at 1400 Locust Cres, Virginia Beach, VA 23455. At its deepest I found six feet. The whole lake averages 3-4 feet. You do need a city of Norfolk boat permit to fish here. I bought mine from Ocean’s East Bait & Tackle, a mile up the road. It was $40 and it’s good from January-January.
At Lake Smith you can use up to a 9.9 HP outboard. On the DWR website, it states that they’re citation-sized largemouth, white catfish, crappie, white perch, bluegill and flathead catfish. I have to add that there’s some monster shad in there as well. In the mouth of one cove, I snagged a ton of them throwing a square bill. This is great to know if you throw big swimbaits.
The boat ramp is a double wide – perfect in every way. This is the cleanest boat ramp area I think I’ve ever seen. There’s plenty of truck and trailer parking. Everything looks brand new. There’s also a handful of fishing piers. The city of Norfolk or Virginia Beach has done a great job with this lake. Do all the lakes in VB look like this? I might have to check out another one next month!
Onto the fishing… I have to admit that I had a family emergency in Florida mid-month, so I only got to fish Lake Smith four times. I will have to do a full redo in the near future as this place is worth it. Lake Smith is the perfect size for a see-the-whole-lake in one day trip. Lake Smith is kind of perfect in a bunch of ways. It really has everything. Shallow water, tons of laydowns, coves, sea walls and it’s loaded with docks and points. Did I miss anything?
I found the ramp and launched my tired and leaking, 86 Coleman Crawdad (I need to get a new boat) knowing once again, nothing about the place. This is the exciting part. The first thing I saw was the wall separating Little Creek and Smith under North Hampton Blvd. I started pitching my black, Bizz Baits jig and Crush City Clean Up Craw around for a bit but nothing doing. Looking around all I saw were laydowns and docks. Yes!
The water was in the mid 50’s, so I just started covering water with a black and blue Jackhammer with a watermelon/black fleck Yamamoto Zako trailer, fishing the mouths of the coves and working my way in to the backs. I was waiting for the fish to give me a clue. This took longer than I thought. After a few hours. I caught my first fish off a wind-blown point on the Jackhammer; a 3-6 on the Bubba scale.
Alternating between the jig, Jackhammer, Deps Buzzjet and Deps Slide Swimmer 175 in crappie, I fished everything in sight for hours. No fish would cooperate until I found a wide protected pocket, barely a cove, way in back on the right. My side scan showed that there was a full debris field of random building materials. I fan casted the whole area with the Jackhammer and caught two more; a 3-8 and a 3-2. That’s more like it. Three fish for the day. Could be better, could be a lot worse. Everything here looks fishy. The whole place.
I went back out the next day with a slightly different plan. I was throwing a micro Alabama rig with 3.8 Keitech, A Nichols ½ oz spinnerbait, a jig, a square bill, a ½ oz Dirty Jigs Biffle head football jig with a Zoom Z-Craw in green pumpkin and a Spro Chad Shad.
I fished the heck out of the place. I hit every laydown, cove point and anything else I could cast at. I found an area, off a point that dipped into a solid six feet. I dragged the Biffle Head around the area for a long time but came up empty. At the end of the day, I only had one small fish to show. I just couldn’t figure out where they were. I tried my best.
My third visit was very similar to Day 2. The wind was whipping about 20 mph, so I focused on wind-blown banks trying to find where they were all hiding. I left the jig at home and even put a smaller trailer on my Jackhammer. I switched out my Hog Farmer Spunk Shad for a Crush City Freeloader hoping to get one of these lock-jawed fish to bite. Not the case.
Again, at the end of the day, I ended up with one small largemouth. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. I should have brought some finesse rods and fished a Ned rig, jerkbait, shakey head, etc. Maybe that would have made a difference.
On Day 4 I went out knowing the weather was going to get real bad. It did. Real fast. 20-25mph winds, thunder, and heavy rain. I had to empty out my iced coffee to use my cup to bail water. At least it was warm. I made it a few hours without a bite. I was only throwing a Deps 250 around seeing if I could get a big bite or at least a follower. No dice. Once the lightning started, I was gone fast.
This is an A+ spot for all you kayakers out there. Easy load in and out. It’s also the perfect size for paddling from one side to the other.
Not every place you go to will result in a four, five or six pounder or a ton of fish. When the fishing is not going great for any number of excuses, I at least try to get better with a certain lure, master a retrieve or seeing what else I can do with a big swimbait. I like to find something that you can use the next time out in catching that big one. You’re not going to catch them every time, so try something different out there. You never know what might work.
I know I’ve said this about a few other lakes, but Lake Smith is the perfect small water. 200 acres is the perfect size. It has so much perfect cover, perfect depth, and plenty of forage. I know there are monsters in there and I’m going to go back in the late winter/early spring to give it a proper beat down. Stay tuned for round two.
Dad, get better so we can go fishing again.
If you have any suggestions of where I should fish, email woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
