BY BRIAN BOOG
What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to Small Waters.
This month my ‘86 Coleman Crawdad and I took a few trips to check out the electric-only waters of Lone Star Lakes Park (401 Kings Highway, Suffolk, VA).
This public park has a series of 12 small lakes that vary in size from three to 50 acres, totaling 490 acres, as well as 1,063 acres of all sorts of other things to do. More on that in a minute.
The park is open from sunrise to sunset, has parking everywhere, and there are no entrance or launch fees. There is a 3D archery range, hiking trails, a radio control flying field, picnic areas, fishing piers, a four-mile horse trail, a playground even crabbing. It’s also a kayaker’s dream, with quick and easy access from lake to lake.
The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources website states that the fish present in the park are bluegill, crappie, redear, largemouth, spot, white perch, stripers, channel, and white catfish. At times bluefish, croaker, flounder and blue crabs also come into the lakes via Chuckatuck Creek.
The lakes in this park are all a little different – clear or stained water, fresh or brackish, shallow or deep. The main ones are Crane, Fingers, Butlers Tract, Lake Annette, Crystal Lake, Rainbow Lake, Cedar Lake, Lake Wahoo and Southern Lakes. They all have boat ramps close to parking – some are dirt, some steep, and some shallow.
The three lakes I fished were Annette, Butlers Tract and Crane.
I’ll start with Annette. This lake has a nice dirt ramp with parking above. It has relatively clear, clean water with steep shorelines that drop into the 20 + foot range and there is lots of wood in the water to skip a jig to. It has a small waterfall that was creating lots of current, so I threw a Crush City Freeloader into it and let it drift a bit and had a few bumps, but no fish to show for it.
There’s also a machine platform that has quite a few supports in the water with another small waterfall that looked very, very fishy, but on this day, there was nobody home. There was another boat out there, so it made this small body of water even smaller. I threw a drop-shot around different wood and bounced it down the shoreline. I saw a couple of humps out in the middle that most likely hold fish at some point in the year. Nothing seemed to be doing, nothing showing on my Lowrances, so I made my way across the dirt road to Butlers Tract.
Butlers Tract is way bigger than Annette and has a mellower shoreline. The boat ramp is really nice, as is the parking area and fishing pier. It has a few different islands to go around and all sorts of laydowns to throw at. The average depth is around 10 feet.
Late August/early September is a tough time for largemouth anywhere, so I downsized here and was throwing a ZOOM Trick Worm on a shakey head, a Robo-worm on a drop-shot, a Senko, a Crush City Freeloader and some small crankbaits.
I fished around Butlers Tract and caught eight small largemouth – nothing over 2 ½ pounds. All came slow-dragging a shakey head by a group of rocks straight across from the boat ramp. That day, they didn’t seem to want anything moving. I saw a lot of submerged wood on my side imaging and some bait pods. There were always other boats and kayaks out on that lake when I went, so it seems like Butlers Tract is the place to be in LSP.
Next, it was on to Crane Lake, which is brackish. Up north, we just don’t have this. The concept is completely foreign to me. What a weird thing to see. Catching largemouth while a school of skate swim by? Crazy!
Let me start by saying that I’ve never seen so much bait in a small lake than here. Maybe Lake Murray in October? (Shout out Aunt June.) This entire lake was full of bait. Bonkers! I love it.
Crane also has very steep shorelines and depths up to 30 feet. The street side is deep, and the far side of the lake is shallow. I got out there early in the morning and figured I’d start with a Megabass Popmax Poppin’ the shoreline. Within 10 minutes, I started getting blasted by three-pound largemouth. All the while behind me, as far as you could see, fish were exploding on the surface chasing bait. I had no idea what kind of fish, but I’d soon find out.
As the shoreline bite died off, I eventually moved offshore and started casting a Jackhammer and Freeloader to these fish chasing bait. Every cast with the Freeloader, I’d catch a two- to three-pound striper or catfish. The cats destroy Jackhammers, but the schoolie stripers and cats are a blast on a 6’ 8” medium spinning rod, eight-pound flourocarbon and the Freeloader on a 1/8-ounce head.
My Lowrance screens were just loaded with bait until I left. I left Crane with a bunch of largemouth, stripers, catfish and another catfish-destroyed Jackhammer, feeling both happy and confused at what I had just witnessed. Skates swimming by? Virginia rules! Crane Lake is small, but well worth the trip.
Earlier in the month I stepped on and broke my Brecknell scale. I had BassPro points to burn and used them towards a Bubba scale. It’s state of the art, Bluetooth capable, yadda-yadda, but I now have the new scale curse and can’t seem to catch anything over three pounds. Brutal. I have to go somewhere and break it in proper. At least I’ll try.
Lone Star Park is beautiful, and with easy access to all 12, you can lake hop all day. Check it out if you’re in the area or take a drive and make a day out of it. See you on the small water.
If you have suggestions of small waters that I should check out, email: woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
