By Brian Boog
Welcome back to another edition of Small Waters. I hope everybody’s getting out and doing some fishing at their favorite ponds and lakes. I mentioned at the end of my last column that I would be writing about the canals of South Florida this month. I did make the trip but couldn’t find time to explore the canals – Mom and Dad are just more important.
I did get out and fish Little Creek Reservoir in Toano when I got back. The boat ramp has finally re-opened and Little Creek is back in business. I’ve been coming here for the past few years.
Little Creek is a 996-acre reservoir that was constructed in 1981 and is owned by the city of Newport News. It’s electric motor only, and the boat ramp is brand new, very long, and wide enough for one truck.
Located at 180 Lakeview Dr. in Toano, the gate is open from 7 am to sunset, has a giant parking lot big enough for 30-40 trucks and trailers and a small store that rents out Jon boats (but has been closed for at least a year). Payment is by honor system – $3 a day for kayaks and $5 a day for putting in trailered boats for residents. Non-residents are a couple of bucks more. There’s a mailbox w/envelopes at the top of the ramp, so don’t forget to bring exact change. Fishing from the shoreline is not allowed, but they do offer a 140-foot fishing pier at the boat ramp. There are also hiking trails around the reservoir.
According to the DWR app, Little Creek has largemouth bass, walleye, saugeye, striped bass, black crappie, yellow perch, pickerel, channel catfish, bluegill and red ear sunfish. In all my time fishing at Little Creek, I’ve yet to catch a walleye, saugeye or striper.
I love Little Creek. I really do. It’s big enough to take off and go to the end of the many creek arms or you can pick any random turn and just get lost in the back of the endless coves. Everything sort of looks the same and there are very few targets to throw to on the bank. A few patches of grass maybe, too.
It’s a bigger body of water, but doesn’t fish big, if you know what I mean. You are always close to the shore. There’s always a turn you can make to fish somewhere new. I love it because there’s nothing up in Massachusetts even close to the depths and ever-changing bottom contours that Little Creek has.
There’s not much in the way of structure to be found except for the fishing pier at the boat ramp, the small dock near the boat ramp and the two pump houses. I highly recommend that you have at minimum, one depth finder unit. At least 2D sonar. You need to at least see what the bottom is doing. There are depths up to 50 feet, and if I had to say, it averages in the 20 or so foot range. The shorelines have some pretty quick drop offs. It’s fun to be able to bring out the deep diving crankbaits.
If you’re fishing out of a small boat like I am, this place can humble you. The wind can pick up out of nowhere and come on strong, quick! I’m talking white caps and foot-and-a-half waves. It gets serious before you know it.
There are some shallow areas you can fish. There are some humps that come up to a foot or so, and I’ve found a couple that come up from 25 feet to 10 that always have fish on and around them. Again, it’s very helpful to have electronics.
The water is clear. Really clear. Some days you have visibility up to six-seven feet. It’s awesome for swimbait fishing because you can see and adjust your retrieves as your bait is coming in. It’s also great for seeing anything that might be in the water. A stick, rock, tire etc. Something to throw at.
The reservoir has a long dam with a pump house that drops into 25 feet or more with tons of rocks to fish. You could spend a whole day sitting at the dam fishing. There’s a flat to the left of the dam that sits in six to eight feet of water. When the wind is blowing into it, the fishing there can be lights out. I’ve had a day or two there, alternating between a Jackhammer and a Revenge half ounce spinnerbait, catching five or six, four pounders in five or six casts.
Little Creek also has tons of cuts and coves to fish and explore. There are coves inside of coves. They all seem to be set up similarly, like little bowls bottoming out at 18-20 five feet. My biggest fish was caught at the back of one of these – a 5-10 that was caught on a 10”, smallmouth bass color JDM swimbait that the name escapes me.
But the thing that Little Creek is known for has to be its points. Hundreds of points all over. Every 50 yards there seems to be another point, every kind you can think of, like a mini Lake Murray. Shallow, long tapering, wide and every one is different. They’re so much fun to fish because you can pick what you want to throw and most likely catch one. I’ve caught many a bass on these points dragging Biffle heads, shakey heads and big worms to big 12” swimbaits and wide array of crankbaits. It’s up to you to figure out what you want to throw.
I’ll share a few of my most memorable experiences fishing Little Creek since coming to Virginia. The first day I fished there, it was in late October, I was 10 feet from the boat ramp and I made a cast to the shore line to clear my reel. I had a River to Sea S Waver 200 in bone tied on. I was clearing my reel and winding my line back in and a 4-8 hooked itself and was swimming away. I thought “This place is awesome!” What a first cast!
You really can start fishing anywhere, but the first place I start every time out is the area around the corner on the left from the furthest-most point as you enter the main lake from the boat ramp. I always seem to catch a bass here dragging a Zoom ZCraw, Lucky Craft LV500 or a Rapala DT10. It’s probably a two hundred yard, shallower stretch of water. I find that fishing that first point gives you a lot of information about where on the points the fish are going to be.
Using that information, I then try to create a pattern to use on all the points to come. I’ve had a couple epic days with a shakey head with a Zoom trick worm in green pumpkin. You can catch the heck out of them if they’re set up right.
I’ve had days at Little Creek that I caught 20 plus pounds on my best five fish and days like most recently, where I caught 30 fish in a day, but none were over 2.5. Unlike a lot of places, it’s very hard to get skunked.
I cannot recommend Little Creek enough. It has everything that makes a fishery great: multi-species, clear water, depths, points, coves, and even when there’s a lot of boats out there, no one seems to be close to you.
If you have any Small Waters suggestions of where I should fish next email: woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
