Aprils Past/Virginia
Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 8:49 pm
In 1983, my now ex-father in law got me involved with a rod and gun club east of Richmond Virginia. The club has 440 acres of land with access to another 600 acres, and three 30 acre lakes. The place is pretty much out in the middle of nowhere with the nearest town worth going to almost 20 miles away.
The club has 35 full members with about another 30 associate and fishing members. Everyone that wants to be in the club has to be voted in by the full members and you start out as a fishing member on recommendation of a full member. That happened pretty much immediately for me, though a few were hesitant because living in Illinois, I lived the furthest away. Most of the other members lived within 3 hours of the club. I got pretty involved with club matters right off the bat and by 1988, I was showing up to more events than most of the other wannabe members that lived nearby.
In order to become a full member, you had to wait for one of the other full members to drop out, which was rare, or die. In 1988 a couple of openings came up and because of my involvement and dedication, I was almost unanimously voted in despite my distance from the club.
Attached to the club was one of the Virginia state fish hatcheries. We let them access our lake water for their hatchery and in return they would help us manage our lakes and turn them into some of the finest lakes in the area. Over the years I became good friends with the hatchery manager. He not only taught me what I needed to know in order to keep the lakes in good shape, but I also helped out at the hatchery in the spring when they were raising a wide variety of game fish. I never seemed to make it out there in time when they would go out onto Chesapeake Bay to catch stripers for the hatchery. The only way to get the stripers was to fish for them and I had an open invite to go along if I was there at the right time. I never seemed to be there at the right time. They had to go when the stripers were running.
I don't know if it's still true, but back then the state of Illinois was buying stripers from them. They wound up in the cooling lakes around here. So if you catch any big stripers out of the cooling lakes, chances are they are Chesapeake stripers raise at that hatchery.
From 1987 to 1995 I was driving out there 3 to 5 times a year. I think I went 6 times one year. I spent from 30 days to the most of 50 days out there a year. There was nothing else much to do but fish pretty much all the time.
The first week of April every year most of the members would be out there to open up the club for the year. Clearing boat landings, cleaning out boats, fixing up the 2 club houses, which were nothing fancy, and making sure everything was running smoothly. Each lake had a hand full of boats on them that members could use first come first serve. Gas motors were not allowed, so the majority of the boats were flat backed canoes that easily accommodated electric trolling motors.
By the end of opening weekend, everybody was gone. For the next 5 to 7 days I had the whole place to myself. My big decision of each day was which of the 3 lakes was I going to fish that day. Sometimes I would spend the whole day fishing all three. Each one was more or less the same, but yet different. One lake had chain pickerel, the other two didn't. The one spring fed lake would some times get some rainbow trout tossed in. One was full of crappie, another had none but was loaded with blue gills. All had bass, some times quite large. The biggest bass ever taken out of one of the lakes was 12 pounds, but a 14 pounder was shocked up once and put back.
All of the lakes had woods right up to the shore. Years of trees falling into the lake created some amazing cover.
One of the reasons for the size of the bass was the size of the bait fish. One of the lakes had a few varieties of shiners. They got as big as the game fish. The other lakes had practically no shiners so the bass fed on the gills and crappie as well as a number of minnow species. There were times we would concentrate catching a bucket full of shiners like this.
Most of the time lures were used. Live bait was generally frowned upon at the club. The lures would get us some pretty nice sized fish that time of year.
But even the most staunch club members would break down and use the shiners for a chance at something bigger in April. We would put the shiners on a big hook and hang it under one of those big red and white bobbers. Toss it near anything that looked like cover and wait them out. I have practically no pictures of me with fish. Most of my time spent out there was spent alone. For a couple of years I got a couple of friends to come out. At least I could get some better pictures.
This one took one of the shiner rigs and weighed out a little over 8 pounds.
The next day while looking for more bass, a chain pickerel took the bait. Chains are relatively small cousins of pike. The following one measured out just over 24 inches and weighed a little over 5 pounds. That's rare for that fish.
No one remembers when the first pickerel were stocked into the one lake. Over the years they became more of a nuisance. There were times in April when you couldn't keep the damn things off your lure. Because there were so many of them, members were encouraged to take them for the table (excellent eating fish) or toss them up on shore if they could. We had plenty of hawks, osprey and a few bald eagles that would welcome the meals. Plus the animals wandering the woods would make them disappear over night.
When I got tired of fishing for bass, I concentrated on stocking my freezer with crappie. I would have to limit myself to taking 30 a day. Not because we had a limit on how many could be taken, there was no limit, but because I didn't want to spend too much time cleaning fish. I would mainly keep the bigger ones. They make for better fillets.
When I got tired of catching crappie, I would start to stock up on blue gills for the freezer. All the lakes were good gill lakes in April, but one in particular was outstanding. Unless the blue gill was 8 inches, there was no point in keeping it. Why kill yourself cleaning little gills.
The club has 35 full members with about another 30 associate and fishing members. Everyone that wants to be in the club has to be voted in by the full members and you start out as a fishing member on recommendation of a full member. That happened pretty much immediately for me, though a few were hesitant because living in Illinois, I lived the furthest away. Most of the other members lived within 3 hours of the club. I got pretty involved with club matters right off the bat and by 1988, I was showing up to more events than most of the other wannabe members that lived nearby.
In order to become a full member, you had to wait for one of the other full members to drop out, which was rare, or die. In 1988 a couple of openings came up and because of my involvement and dedication, I was almost unanimously voted in despite my distance from the club.
Attached to the club was one of the Virginia state fish hatcheries. We let them access our lake water for their hatchery and in return they would help us manage our lakes and turn them into some of the finest lakes in the area. Over the years I became good friends with the hatchery manager. He not only taught me what I needed to know in order to keep the lakes in good shape, but I also helped out at the hatchery in the spring when they were raising a wide variety of game fish. I never seemed to make it out there in time when they would go out onto Chesapeake Bay to catch stripers for the hatchery. The only way to get the stripers was to fish for them and I had an open invite to go along if I was there at the right time. I never seemed to be there at the right time. They had to go when the stripers were running.
I don't know if it's still true, but back then the state of Illinois was buying stripers from them. They wound up in the cooling lakes around here. So if you catch any big stripers out of the cooling lakes, chances are they are Chesapeake stripers raise at that hatchery.
From 1987 to 1995 I was driving out there 3 to 5 times a year. I think I went 6 times one year. I spent from 30 days to the most of 50 days out there a year. There was nothing else much to do but fish pretty much all the time.
The first week of April every year most of the members would be out there to open up the club for the year. Clearing boat landings, cleaning out boats, fixing up the 2 club houses, which were nothing fancy, and making sure everything was running smoothly. Each lake had a hand full of boats on them that members could use first come first serve. Gas motors were not allowed, so the majority of the boats were flat backed canoes that easily accommodated electric trolling motors.
By the end of opening weekend, everybody was gone. For the next 5 to 7 days I had the whole place to myself. My big decision of each day was which of the 3 lakes was I going to fish that day. Sometimes I would spend the whole day fishing all three. Each one was more or less the same, but yet different. One lake had chain pickerel, the other two didn't. The one spring fed lake would some times get some rainbow trout tossed in. One was full of crappie, another had none but was loaded with blue gills. All had bass, some times quite large. The biggest bass ever taken out of one of the lakes was 12 pounds, but a 14 pounder was shocked up once and put back.
All of the lakes had woods right up to the shore. Years of trees falling into the lake created some amazing cover.
One of the reasons for the size of the bass was the size of the bait fish. One of the lakes had a few varieties of shiners. They got as big as the game fish. The other lakes had practically no shiners so the bass fed on the gills and crappie as well as a number of minnow species. There were times we would concentrate catching a bucket full of shiners like this.
Most of the time lures were used. Live bait was generally frowned upon at the club. The lures would get us some pretty nice sized fish that time of year.
But even the most staunch club members would break down and use the shiners for a chance at something bigger in April. We would put the shiners on a big hook and hang it under one of those big red and white bobbers. Toss it near anything that looked like cover and wait them out. I have practically no pictures of me with fish. Most of my time spent out there was spent alone. For a couple of years I got a couple of friends to come out. At least I could get some better pictures.
This one took one of the shiner rigs and weighed out a little over 8 pounds.
The next day while looking for more bass, a chain pickerel took the bait. Chains are relatively small cousins of pike. The following one measured out just over 24 inches and weighed a little over 5 pounds. That's rare for that fish.
No one remembers when the first pickerel were stocked into the one lake. Over the years they became more of a nuisance. There were times in April when you couldn't keep the damn things off your lure. Because there were so many of them, members were encouraged to take them for the table (excellent eating fish) or toss them up on shore if they could. We had plenty of hawks, osprey and a few bald eagles that would welcome the meals. Plus the animals wandering the woods would make them disappear over night.
When I got tired of fishing for bass, I concentrated on stocking my freezer with crappie. I would have to limit myself to taking 30 a day. Not because we had a limit on how many could be taken, there was no limit, but because I didn't want to spend too much time cleaning fish. I would mainly keep the bigger ones. They make for better fillets.
When I got tired of catching crappie, I would start to stock up on blue gills for the freezer. All the lakes were good gill lakes in April, but one in particular was outstanding. Unless the blue gill was 8 inches, there was no point in keeping it. Why kill yourself cleaning little gills.