The weather forecast is for calm, overcast and 43 degrees on your day off and you are looking for a big fish. When you are deciding where to fish on one of those perfect few winter days for a trophy, you don’t want to waste your time, right? Well, here’s where our money is on for the best winter lakes in Virginia for largemouth, smallmouth, striper, wiper, saugeye and crappie.
Smith Mountain Lake
Upland reservoirs heat up slowly and cool down slowly. Virginia had two such lakes that will accommodate trophy seekers and today’s high tech fishing rigs. Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke is one of Virginia’s best winter fisheries and where we’ll start for great cold weather striper fishing.
Smith Mountain Striper Club president Chad Gilmore says fishing for big SML striper is one of his favorite winter activities.
“Once the water temperature drops below 55, I really enjoy vertical jigging. It is a simple, yet effective method for wintertime striped bass fishing.”
Gilmore says he relies heavily on his electronics for this method; utilizing traditional sonar and sidescan.
“You will probably need to cover a lot of water, I do a lot of scouting, mostly trying to find areas that contain bait. If the bait is in the area, the fish won’t be far away,” Gilmore told W2. “My search areas are usually where major creeks dump into the main channel and main channel swings.”
Gilmore also says he always has an eye an eye on seagulls.
“They will help you find fish. If the gulls are circling over an area, there are probably active fish nearby. If the gulls are diving on the surface, there are definitely active fish under them. “
The SML angler notes if the gulls are diving, a paddle tail swimbait is an easy “cast and retrieve” type of lure that anyone can use. The bait supplies all the action. You can buy swimbaits that integrate the weight into the body (Storm Wild Eye Shad) or you can use a ¼ oz jig head and attach your favorite swimbait body.
Gilmore says his swimbait setup is a 7’ medium heavy spinning rod and reel spooled with 20# braid and a 4 to 6 ft 15# fluorocarbon leader attached with the double uni knot.
The bait Gilmore uses most often is the 5 ¼” Zoom Fluke., and depending on the depth, he uses a ½ oz or ¾ oz jig head.
“If I find fish that are less than 40ft deep, I typically use the ½ oz jig head, any fish deeper than 40ft I typically use the ¾ oz jig head. The jigging motion that I prefer is a very light twitch of the rod tip, trying not to lose contact with the jig itself.”
We are fortunate a BASSMasters Elite Series pro calls SML home. John Crews has fished Smith Mountain for the past 30 years and says the lake’s smallmouth bass typically stay towards thee lower end of the lake and can be caught roaming in the middle or on deeper structure in the winter, mostly around bait with FFS. They can also be caught on crankbaits like a SPRO Rockcrawler 55 on rocky banks especially on windy days.
“I would throw it on 10 or 12 pound Sunline Crank FC, Daiwa Tatula 100 reel in 7:1, and a Cashion Square Bill Rod. The FFS fish are more likely to bite a Magic Worm on a drop shot if they are near cover or a Spunk Shad on a jig head if they are around bait in the middle,” Crews told W2.
The Virginia pro angler scheduled to appear at the upcoming Richmond Fishing Expo says the lake’s largemouth bass can still be in the backs of shallow areas on bait in December, but as the bait goes deep, so do the largemouth.
“They will also get more on rock. Rock and docks are a good combo in the winter. I like a Missile Jigs Mini Flip in brown craw with a Mini D Chunk for that. Typically I fish it on 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluoro using a high speed Daiwa reel and a MH Cashion 7’6” flipping stick. Work the jig SLOWLY when you feel the rock. Depths from 3 to 20’ might be good.”
Lake Moomaw Smallmouth
David Bryant is known as Mr. Moomaw. Living and working nearby have enabled him to spend a lot of time studying and fishing this 2,530-acre lake that backs up the Jackson River for about 12 miles. It’s deep and clear and drawn down in the winter, but it does have a good population of brown bass.
Alewives are the top forage fish here. They tend to stay deep, and a good depth finder is critical to catching fish on Moomaw in the winter (when weather conditions permit). If you find a school of bait off a point, it may very well be next to 80’ of water but they will come up for the right bait.
Bryant will use suspending jerkbaits, Damiki rigs for fish up in the water column, especially in the lower portion of the lake. Before the arrival of ice, he will fish jigs on rocks and channel drops in the upper portion of Moomaw.
Lake Anna
Anna attracts a lot of attention. While it’s not a great striper fishery it does harbor good numbers of 20-25” fish with the occasional 27” plus fish and the rare 15-pound-plus specimen. It does offer visiting anglers one of the best hybrid striper or wiper fisheries in the state.
Guide C.C. McCotter has been fishing Anna for over 35 years says, “Wipers fight harder than striper, often bite more readily and taste the same. We love ‘em here!”
McCotter says to target Anna’s wiper (and striper) in the upper portion of the lake in December – above where you see the most seagulls. He advises anglers to pay close attention to their depth finders as well as what birds and bait are doing.
“These fish will feed heavily on threadfin shad in early December pretty far up lake, and they will be moving down lake day by day, depending on how quickly the water temperature drops,” the long time Anna guide says. “Fish for swirling fish using various subsurface offerings like swimbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits on jigheads, underspins and bucktails. There will be bursts of shallow activity (2-8’) in the morning and again as the sun sets. Once the sun comes up over the treetops, unless you have an overcast day, you’ll need to fish deeper and possibly differently.”
McCotter will also use flutter spoons, specifically a Toothache spoon, for wiper and striper during the middle of the day in 25-40’ of water.
He notes his G4 Humminbird Helix 10 units will show him where to fish. He’ll also use MEGA Live and Side Imaging to watch how the fish respond to lures and what direction they are moving in.
McCotter says Anna anglers should have a very good winter for largemouth bass. With several years of F1-N1 stockings that have grown to five to seven pounds now, there should be a number of 25-plus pound limits, even a dirty 30 or two in January and February.
By far the most popular lure for winter lunker bass on Anna is a suspending jerkbait. Fish are also caught on jigs, swimbaits, A-rigs and underspins. The lake has hordes of threadfin shad that the bass tend to gorge on during the cold weather months. They also like to feed on blueback herring in the lower end of the lake.
McCotter likes to use a Fitt River Darter on a jig head (not unlike a Damiki rig), retrieved slowly along the bottom for bass on bait. He’ll also use a Toothache spoon and a blade bait at times. In the mid and down lake region where the water temperatures often remain in the 50s for much of December, he’ll employ a suspending jerkbait like the Berkley Stunna +1 or MegaBass Vision 110 +1 Minnow.
Recently, Anna has developed a trophy saugeye fishery thanks to three years of DWR stocking. Anglers should be able to catch 18” keepers with some over the 23” citation mark. McCotter had four citations last winter including one four-and-a-half-pound 26.5” fish.
Most of these fish will be caught on suspending jerkbaits and swimbaits fishing around rocks. Vertical jiggers will also catch their share accidently fishing around schools of threadfin shad.
Sandy River Reservoir
Until recently, Sandy River Reservoir was lucky to see 15 boats on a winter day. That was until the news spread (we’ve been telling you for several years that Sandy River was one of our Best Bets For Big Bass based on state citation numbers) that anglers were catching five to eight pounders from the 740-acre lake located in central Virginia, near Farmville.
The boat launching facilities are excellent and the lake isn’t too big to fish with a trolling motor, though outboards not greater than 9.9 hp are permitted. Today’s modern bass boats equipped with forward facing electronics are helping anglers target big Sandy River bass holding on the lake’s standing timber.
The lake has gizzard shad in it now so you can look for bass on bait in open water or opt to fish structure like rocks, brush, standing timber and channel edges. A top winter bass lure on Sandy River is an over-sized glide bait like the Berkley Nessie. Angler also use smaller swimbaits, suspending jerkbaits, deep diving crankbaits, jigs and soft plastic stickbaits here for big winter largemouth bass.
Buggs Island Crappie
There’s no other public lake even close to Buggs Island/Kerr Reservoir for the title of best winter crappie fishery. Anglers here spend half the winter sinking brush piles and the other half catching crappie from them!
Many of the state’s best crappie anglers fish Buggs including the vastly talented duo of Bobby Whitlow, Sr. and Bobby Whitlow, Jr. They own and operate Bobcat’s Bait & Tackle at the lake as well as the VA/NC Crappie Trail. They have been Team of the Year and gone on to win national crappie fishing tournaments based on the knowledge they have gained from years of fishing the nearly 50,000-acre lake they practically live on.
A lot of today’s top crappie anglers are single pole fishing using forward facing sonar. On Buggs the tactic is to scope a brushpile, see a saddlebag and then drop a jig down it and literally see what happens. A local favorite lure is the ATX Flat Tail on a jighead.
In November the crappie begin to school up good on brush, roadbeds, bridge pilings and stumpy channel bends. By December the fish are fat and moving to follow bait around some, too. January brings more of the same prior to some movement shallow in February prior to spawn.
Honorable Mentions
Diascund Reservoir near the Town of Toano is a good place to catch a citation winter crappie. This is a 1,110-acre water supply reservoir for the City of Newport News situated along the New Kent and James City County line. It is a shallow, stump-filled lake that was created by damming Diascund Creek.
This fertile lake with plenty of forage in the way of herring and shad tends to produce some whopper crappie. There are plenty over 14” and enough over 15” to offer visiting anglers a very good shot at a winter trophy.
