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American Fishing Holidays

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SPECIES INFORMATION, HABITAT PREFERENCES, SPAWNING DETAILS AND THE BEST BAITS TO USE Continued

Common Sucker

Common Names: White sucker, Black sucker (male during spawning), mullet.

Best Fishing: Rivers: South Fork Shenandoah, North Fork Shenandoah, Clinch, North Holston, South Holston, Powell. Lakes: Rivanna Reservoir, and Lake Moomaw. Actually can be found in numerous other mountain streams and lakes.

Fishing Techniques: Many river anglers catch them on hook and line using either cane poles or light rods, with small hooks baited with worms, cut up fish or mollusks, and dough balls left laying on the bottom. However most are caught on their spawning runs upriver by dip netting, as well as spearing, bow and arrow, snagging or firearms (on Clinch River in Scott County during spring season only.)

Identification: Named for its mouth with the protrusile lips situated on the underside of its head. Back is a basic dark olive-green or dark gray-green, fading to silvery white belly. Male in breeding colors has a dark, lengthwise band with a band of pink below it. Fins are all soft-rayed, head is scaleless, body scales are large, and it has pharyngeal teeth for crushing mollusks. Seldom reach 18 inches in smaller streams, but capable of getting much larger. Average is 12 to 16 inches.

Feeding Habits: Feeds off the bottom by siphoning small mollusks, aquatic insects and vegetable material from the bottom. Finds much of its food by taste and touch.

Habitat: Prefer clean waters of rivers, smaller streams, creeks and lakes. Look for them over stony, gravelly or sandy bottoms. Basically a shallow water fish but will descend to 40-foot levels, and they can tolerate a certain amount of turbidity.

Spawning Habits: Runs up rivers to gravel bottoms in shallow waters or in shoals of lakes. Migrate upstream in huge schools. Eggs are laid at random over the bottom and resultant fry are on their own. They provide forage for numerous other fish.

Rainbow Trout

Common Names: Rainbow, silversides.

Best Fishing: Well-established in streams of the southwestern region of the state and they inhabit a myriad of mountain streams in western Virginia from southwest to northeast. Lakes: Moomaw, Philpott. Rivers and Streams: Smith River, Elk Creek, Dan River, Potts Creek, Cripple Creek, Roanoke River, Little Reed Island Creek, Jackson River, Crooked Creek and Big Tumbling Creek, and many others on both sides of the Blue Ridge. Some good wild streams are Whitetop Laurel, Fox Creek and the South Fork Holston River.

Fishing Techniques: Hits dry flies, wet flies, streamers, nymphs, small spinners and spinner-bucktails, spoons, as well as worms, live nymphs, minnows and salmon eggs. Hatchery trout readily take kernel corn and colored marshmallows. Berkeley Power Baits that give off a scent and can be shaped on the hook, are used extensively by anglers.

Identification: The variety of rainbows has resulted in a variety of colors, hues and markings. Normally the back is olive-green with a silvery cast on its sides fading to a silvery white belly. A pinkish or light rosy red band extends from its cheek to near its tail. Normally, they are well spotted with black spots, but vary from large spots to tiny specks to no markings at all.

Feeding Habits: Eats a variety of aquatic and terrestrial life. Large rainbows will eat small fish, but their main diet is invertebrates. In very cold climates, they ingest minute aquatic organisms through fine gill-rakers.

Habitat: Originally native to the western slope of the Rockies. Successfully introduced into eastern streams including those in Virginia. Most Virginia rainbows are stream fish and constitute the backbone of the Department’s stocking program. Fast flowing, larger streams mainly, but it can thrive in lakes where it grows faster and larger.

Spawning Habits: Majority of rainbows in Virginia are stocked fish. There are a good number of wild fish in the Mount Rogers area streams. When spawning occurs it is at the lower ends of pools or in riffles where the female digs out a spawning bed or “redd.” Rainbows in their natural state spawn in spring.

Brown Trout

Common Names: English brown trout, Brownie, German brown trout, European trout.

Best Fishing: Lakes: Moomaw, Philpott. Rivers and Streams: Little River, Mossy Creek, Potts Creek, Back Creek, Jackson River, Smith River and a wide array of others on either side of the Blue Ridge and in Southwestern Virginia.

Fishing Techniques: Will rise to dry flies as well as hitting wet flies, streamers and nymphs. Worms, live nymphs, minnows and salmon eggs are good too. Brown trout tend to be bigger “meat eaters” in that they’ll take larger live baits more readily and will hit spinners, spinner bucktail combinations, as well as small crankbaits and spoons. Live baits and wet flies are normally fished downstream while dry flies are fished upstream.

Identification: Colors vary widely. Natural wild browns are olive-brown on the back, lighter on the sides, brilliant yellow-gold on their underside, with yellowish-green, unspotted fins. They have numerous black or dark brown spots on their sides, along with a sprinkling of red spots encircled with light blue rings. Hatchery-reared browns tend to be more silvery with dark brownish above with light yellow undersides and spots of a lighter shade.

Feeding Habits: Aquatic and terrestrial insects, mollusks, small fish, crayfish, salamanders, frogs, even small mammals or birds. Fish and crayfish are the main diet of larger browns.

Habitat: Usually in larger waters with plenty of rock structure, submerged logs and overhanging banks.

Spawning Habits: They spawn naturally in fall. Females fan out up to four different nests. They spawn in tributary stream or shallow shoal waters.

Brook Trout

Common Names: Native, brookie, mountain trout, speckled trout.

Best Fishing: Over 400 streams or portions of stream contain brook trout. Many of the streams and ponds in the Shenandoah National Park and the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest have native brook trout. Rivers and Streams: Crooked Creek, Little Stoney Creek, Rapidan River, Rose River, Hughes River, Jeremy’s Run, Laurel Fork and Dry River. Lakes: Laurel Bed, Coles Creek and Mill Creek reservoirs, Lexington City Reservoir and Switzer Lake.

Fishing Techniques: For the purist, dry flies, wet flies, streamers and nymphs are used. Nymphs early in the season, dry flies when the natural insects hatch. Live bait anglers use garden worms and caddis, mayfly and stonefly nymphs also early in the year when these aquatic larvae are available naturally. In deep pools small minnows may be effective year round.

Identification: Most colorful of our trout. Back is a dark olive-green with light wavy or wormy markings. Sides are lighter, sometimes with a bluish cast, yellowish spots and red spots with a light blue halo around them. Belly is white with bright orange fins. Fins have outer edges of white with a black line separating it from the orange. Ten to 16 inches and 1 to 2 pounds is a good sized brookie. Native brookies seldom grow beyond 12 inches in Virginia streams.

Feeding Habits: Feed mainly on insect larvae for most of their lives, including caddis and mayfly nymphs, but also on small fish and crayfish. Tend to be mostly daytime feeders.

Habitat: Colder, cleaner waters and smaller creeks and beaver ponds. Does best in water temperatures of 68 degrees F. or less.

Spawning Habits: Spawns in October and November in the headwaters of small streams, usually the tail of a pool. Female excavates a spot in the gravel and releases her eggs and the male releases milt over them at the same time. The female will fan a lose covering of gravel over the eggs to protect but not smother them