BY BRIAN BOOG
ello again everybody and welcome back to this month’s Small Waters. This month I took the two-hour drive from Williamsburg to fish at Nottoway Lake, a.k.a. Lee Lake in Blackstone, Virginia, Nottoway County. With a two-hour drive, I probably could have gone to Sandy River or some other lake in between, but I liked the look and size of Nottoway Lake on the map and I was intrigued by “above average largemouth bass” that the DWR studies stated the lake has. There’s nothing wrong with the chance of an above average largemouth bass!
Nottoway Lake is a 188-acre impoundment that opened for fishing in 1980. Most of the standing timber that’s there, and there’s a lot of it, was left at the time as cover for fish. DWR states that there’s largemouth bass, bluegill, redear sunfish, black crappie and channel catfish.
The lake has a 10 hp outboard limit. The boat ramp is located on the dam end at State Rt. 606 in Blackstone. I followed the GPS and ended up on a one lane dirt road in someone’s backyard. Interesting, but not cool. It was “close” to the boat ramp, but not quite. The address above takes you right to the boat ramp.
There’s also a couple of boat ramp signs on the roads leading to the lake. The boat ramp’s a single wide with a small dock. The parking lot is surprisingly spacious. It can handle quite a few trucks and trailers. There’s also a separate kayak launch near the boat ramp and another fishing pier that you can access from the parking lot. I’m still confused by the groups of what look like electrical cables poking out of the water near the boat ramp. I’ve never seen anything like that before. The ramp is open 24 hours a day so if you’re into night fishing, this is your kind of place.
As I said before, the shock studies concluded that the largemouth size is “above average” and they weren’t lying.
Nottoway Lake is a small, narrow lake with a dam on one end (boat ramp end) and shallow, marsh-like water on the other end. It has a handful of coves to check out and it’s loaded, and I mean loaded with standing trees. Plenty that are visible, and a whole mess throughout the lake that are right below the surface. These trees will keep you on your toes. Go slow on that trolling motor!
The shoreline of Nottoway has laydowns, stumps and plenty of lily pads to fish. I’m sure as the summer progresses, the frog and flipping bite are awesome. There are endless trees in the center section of the lake. The average depth out in the middle by the trees is about 10-13 feet with the shoreline ranging from two to eight feet. The deepest part of the lake that I found was by the spillway by the dam and that was 15-18 feet.
On to the fishing… The first day I fished, I got there at 7 am and there were already five boats on the water and as I was putting in, two more arrived after me. Busy place. The fishing must be good.
I put the Crawdad in and went left. The first cove on the left already had two kayakers in it fishing, so I kept going getting a feel for the color (slightly stained), depths of the water and a general vibe of the place.
Like always, I brought my confidence baits that I feel like will cover most bases on a new lake. A variety of jigs, Jackhammer’s, Senko’s, my trusty 9” white M.S. Slammer wake bait and a shakey head.
I started covering water throwing a half ounce Jackhammer in Brett’s bluegill w/ a Crush City Freeloader avoiding the submerged trees and stumps. About 50 yards in, I caught my first keeper of the day, a two-pounder. I continued throwing the Jackhammer all the way down to the very shallow end of the lake. I caught three more keepers around the same size. As I turned the bend to fish the opposite side back towards the ramp, I switched to a Bizz Baits 3/8-oz Skip N Flip jig with a Crush City Creature Craw and started skipping all the laydowns seeing if the fish were also on wood. I made a bad skip up into the dirt and popped it back into the water and it was crushed by a 3-9 largemouth. It was so shallow her back must have been out of the water.
I came up to a set of lily pads and started flipping holes in them with my jig. On my third or fourth cast, I caught a solid two-pounder. I purposely avoided all the trees in the middle on day one just so I could get a feel for the shoreline. I made a couple more laps around the lake switching between the Jackhammer and the jig. I eventually finished the day off with 11 fish. One over three and the rest in the two-pound class, give or take a few ounces. It was a solid day at a new lake. I’ll take it.
On my next trip to Nottoway, I focused most of my time on all the trees in the middle of the lake. I picked up a Rapala DT-10 in shad and casted at every tree that I could see above and below the water hoping they would be stacked up around them. The depths varied between eight and eleven feet.
I started catching fish right away from under a pound to three pounds. I was getting hung up on a tree limb every tenth cast, but that’s why I brought two Knockout Fishing Ott-O-Retrievers. It’s by far the best design I’ve ever used. I only lost one crankbait.
There were fish all around the trees. You just had to get lucky and bounce off a tree and not get hung up or hook up before you got hung up. That’s crankbait fishing. It seemed at one point I fired up a school, because I caught six fish on six casts to the same spot. That day, I probably caught 20 or so fish on the DT-10 before the bite just died off completely.
I returned the next week and I decided that it seemed like a perfect time of year to throw a popper around, focusing on all of the laydowns and the edges of the sets of lily pads. I still only throw two poppers – the half ounce Yellow magic and the Megabass Pop Max. They are two different styles of poppers, but when you figure out which one they want it can be lights out. Both of these are available at Pro-Tech Fishing in Toano.
The fish at Nottoway decided that the Yellow Magic popper in Japanese Shad was what they wanted and started exploding on it. I mean angry explosions.
I was throwing it up shallow near and around laydowns and anything else that looked fishey. The key for me was long pauses. Try to make a great cast, let it sit, another pop or a quick walk the dog, let it sit…wait for it….and BLAMOOO! A 4-3! Kapow! A 4-9! 3-12! 4-15! At the end of the day, I ended up catching 12 fish on the popper and two on a jig.
Nottoway Lake was a bit of a drive, but worth it. The lake is perfect for Jon boats and kayaks. It has easy access, lily pads, laydowns and lots of solid fish.
Any suggestions of where I should fish next? Email: woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
Editor’s Note: Author Brian Boog lives in the Williamsburg area, works 9-5 M-F and fishes small waters out of a Colman Crawdad jon boat.
