By Brian Boog
Hello everybody and welcome back to this episode of Small Waters.
Well, January was cold! Many of our small waters were frozen so I hope everyone got back out last month and caught some fish.
This month, I’m going to be talking about Swift Creek lake in Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield. Before I get into that, I’d like to talk about the Virginia Fishing Expo for a second.
I spent Saturday walking around the show and hanging out with the Woods & Waters crew. I thought it was a great show, with a good turnout and some great tackle I wasn’t familiar with. I’m always looking for something different.
Being the tackle junkie that I am, I picked up a few things. I loaded up for the upcoming season on my favorite skipping jig, the Bizz Baits ⅜ & 1/2oz Skip N’ Flip jig. Thanks for the BB Shwag. Nailed It Bait & Tackle’s 6” hand-poured swimbait in ghost purple and Pirate Bait Co’s Bounty Worm in Dirty Dawn were two other things I saw and really liked. I can’t wait to throw them. It’s Always good to see Lin, from Fishing Pro-Tech. Thanks for the t-shirt!
I spent a week or so in south Florida helping my mother out with my sick father. I broke him out of his rehab facility a few times and we went canal fishing. A friend of mine from Massachusetts (Thanks ScottB) sent me pins of a million spots to fish for a variety of different species. We got a bucket of shiners and fished a few of the canals.
I gotta say the giant iguanas are out of control! They’re everywhere! Dad sat in the car, and I fished. It was great to get him out so he could heckle me about my casts. The only problem was a giant cold front came through and it was 40 degrees out. Everybody knows that the fish in Florida hate the cold. They were shut down. I ended up with one two-pound largemouth and that made him happy. That’s all that mattered to me.
Let’s talk about Swift Creek Lake. This is a 156-acre, electric motor only, narrow reservoir located deep in Pocahontas State Park (10301 State Park RD. Chesterfield, VA). The park itself is massive. It offers camping, hiking and mountain bike trails and a pool. You can rent canoes, kayaks, paddle boats and Jon boats from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The boat ramp is in great shape and there’s plenty of parking. Fishing is open from sunrise to sunset. It’s $7 dollars to enter the park for the day.
The DWR website states that there’s 14 different fish species in Swift Creek Lake. Gizzard shad, bluegill, red ear, largemouth bass, yellow perch, black crappie, common carp, golden shiner. American eel, brown bullhead, yellow bullhead, creek chubs, white catfish and warmouth sunfish.
The first time I tried to fish at Swift Creek it was frozen solid. No chance of getting in. When I got back from Florida, I hit it again and the park ranger told me that the ice went away two days prior.
I launched the Crawdad with four or five rods. Like always, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
My first thought looking at what you can see from the boat ramp was: “Is this it?” It was a foot deep, and you couldn’t see much water. I pulled out my phone to look at the map and realized that if you go down and take a left it opens right up. The whole area to the right of the boat ramp was between ome and two feet deep.
I met a guy fishing out of a kayak and he told me that it gets a lot deeper as you follow it along. It did. He also told me that there are lots of lily pads in the summer and “not a ton of fish, but you do get an occasional six pounder.
Swift Creek Lake lays out very narrow and it’s a foot or so deep unless you’re following the creek channel which is 8-14 feet deep all the way down to the dam. It’s a very skinny channel. The bottom seemed to be a combination of sand and a little bit of whatever Chick Lake has in the summer – that black fuzz. There are large sections of one-foot flats in the middle of the lake that get you locked up. I had to turn around and go a different route to get to deeper water. There are a bunch of laydowns in shallow water lining the shore and a few shallow coves to fish. It’s perfect for you kayakers.
While I was learning the depths of the lake, I was trying to decide what to throw. Mid-January, just after ice out…I decided to start with a Lucky Craft LV150 1/2oz lipless in spring craw and a small glide bait (custom painted blank) I bought at the show, a Rapala DT 6,8 and 10 in root beer and a Rapala OG slim6 in classic craw. The water temps were in the mid 40’s.
While working my way down the creek channel toward the dam, I was looking for bait. Any signs of life. I never found any. I was casting at anything obvious on my side imaging, just waiting for the fish to give me a clue. Alternating between the baits, I was hoping to catch a fish, any fish.
As I got closer to the dam, it opened up a little more and the depths hovered around 12-14ft. I hoped there would be signs of life down there with the current. I wasn’t wrong. At least one fish was down there. After an hour or so of fan casting the area around the dam, I finally caught a four-pound even largemouth on the LV150. It felt good. Cold, but good.
Like I said before, the lake is very narrow and there always seemed to be people hiking, walking dogs and riding bikes by.
I continued to work the area by the dam and the walls on either side of the dam dragging my Bizz Baits jig and throwing my crankbaits. With a couple more hours of nothing happening, the sun going down, I called it a day and headed back to the boat ramp. One fish for the middle of January. I’ll take it.
Of all the places I’ve been to since moving to Virginia, Swift Creek is the best I’ve seen for you kayakers out there. It’s very small, narrow, and easy to maneuver around in. I can’t wait to see how it grows in during the summer. The parking (so much parking!) and boat ramp are excellent. You can make it to the dam and back in a few hours. Perfect. Swift Creek is a perfect example of small waters.
Any suggestions for where I should fish next email woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com.
