I hope you all are getting used to seeing my Outdoors page in the Sunday paper, on the back of the Ticker business section. That’s a recent change from its longtime home in the Friday Sports section and, honestly, a change I’m also still getting used to. Online at Roanoke.com, the feature still lives in the Sports section.

For this week’s feature I took a look at some  classic bass lures, including the Johnson’s Silver Minnow pictured here. You can read the story HERE.

I wouldn’t claim that my list is the definitive list, but I think it’s pretty solid.

Anyone care to disagree? What did I miss? What’s on the list that shouldn’t be.

The annual Smith Mountain Lake fishing tournament, brought to us for 45 years now by the Roanoke Valley Optimist Club, ran Friday through Sunday at Smith Mountain Lake.

As I wrote in my story in today’s Roanoke Times, the event featured some pretty impressive catches, including a 35.32-pound flathead catfish pulled in my Christee Ayers (picture here) of Union Hall. This wasn’t just a lucky catch for Ayers. She is a catfishing expert who has been at this a long time.

As for the disqualification, which you can read more about in my story, they used to be rare at this event. In recent years they have become a regular occurrence. Tournament organizers pulled a number of anglers in for polygraph tests and that delayed the awards by a bit. When one of the tournament officials made an announcement apologizing for the delay due to the desire to ensure the cleanest tournament possible, the crowd cheered. One man shouted, “That’s the way it should be.”

Courtesy of FLW Outdoors

Out-of-towners took the top three spots on the pro side at the recent Everstart Northern Series tournament at Smith Mountain Lake.

On the co-angler side, Scott Howard represented the local crew well.

Here’s my column in today’s Roanoke Times about how Howard pulled off the win.

I was able to talk yesterday with Josh Nickerson, the fisherman who was disqualified from the Oakley Big Bass Tour event at Smith Mountain Lake.

Nickerson (pictured here) was leading the tournament and poised to win a $30,000 Nitro Z7 bass boat, plus a $1,000 cash prize, before he was kicked out for failing a polygraph test.

I also spoke with Mark Jones, who runs the tournament trail. Jones provided a basic statement, just as he did in 2011 and 2012 when the top anglers were disqualified. In the first two tournaments neither of those anglers completed the polygraph test. In Nickerson’s case, he got through the test but the examiner detected deception.

You can read my Roanoke Times column HERE.

It’s pretty unreal that this makes the third year in a row for this to happen at Smith Mountain Lake. Disqualifications aren’t unheard of in Oakley events, but Smith Mountain Lake certainly holds the record.

I’d be curious to hear from fishermen who have taken polygraph tests at other tournaments. What was the experience like?

Courtesy of Oakley Big Bass Tour

I didn’t get out to the final awards for the Oakley Big Bass Tour at Smith Mountain Lake on Sunday. I planned to write about it today for tomorrow’s column. Still do.

I see where Mike Ratcliff of Conrad Brothers Marine was the big winner. Funny, huh? Guy who sells boats wins a boat. Wonder if he’ll give me a good deal on that sweet Nitro!??

I am hearing rumblings that the tournament again was marred by a DQ. There were DQs the last two years and you’d think the streak would end, right? Anyone know anything? Send me an email if you’d rather not post anything here.

Here’s the list of the top 10. If you are one of these guys, or know one of these guys, I’d love to talk with a couple of these guys today. My office number is 981-3395. I’m running out for a couple hours of late-morning turkey chasing but will be in the office after about 11 or noon.

Congrats to all the winners!

Overall

Britt Stoudenmire is among the most passionate and concerned fishermen I know, especially when it comes to his home water, the New River.

Stoudenmire, who has built the New River Outdoor Company into one of the river’s premier outfitters, stays up on issues that impact the river. Among his concerns are the surges in water level from Claytor Dam releases.

In an email to a number of river stakeholders early last July, Stoudenmire included a graph of the up-and-down river flow, along with his assessment of the impact:

“This furthers the evidence that AEP is not taking into account river users, boaters, river related business on the New River below Claytor dam by subjecting them to nearly a 6″ increase/decrease during supposedly “run of river”, “levelized”, “recreational” flow during the busiest week of the year.

6″ of unwarned out of the blue inconsistent water jeopardizes safety and boating, ruins fishing, stresses fish, and makes running a recreational business on the New River extremely difficult.”

Stoudenmire has been providing info for my fishing report this season, for which I am really thankful. He and his guides are on the water pretty much daily, so they know what’s going on. Space doesn’t allow me to repeat his full reports verbatim, but you can find them every other week on the DGIF Outdoor Report. The short take is they have been catching some nice smallmouths — such as the big one Stoudenmire is holding here — on the New this year.

I heard from Stoudenmire this morning, in reference to my naming the James the best trophy smallmouth river in the state. As I wrote in the post below, I expected to get some feedback. I hoped for it. Today’s piece — and here’s the link again — was my opinion. But I have to say that it wasn’t like I just was making stuff up, or basing it on my own fishing experiences. I referred to data, and I considered the regular feedback I get from my sources.

Stoudenmire included some really interesting points in his note, and I don’t want to simply paraphrase them. So here it is:

“read your article in the paper today and i’d like to add several comments if that is ok:

1. the james river runs nearly 300 miles in the state of VA, with 200ish being smallmouth water. not counting claytor lake, there is roughly 100ish miles of new river in virginia. big difference there. i’d say there are still even even if you are looking only at citation registrations.

Read more »

Actually, this isn’t a poll.

For a feature on today’s Outdoors page in The Roanoke Times, I listed what I believe are some of Virginia’s best fishing spots. I suspect some might argue with a few of my choices.

Is Smith Mountain Lake really the best lake for trophy largemouth bass? What do you think?

I referred to data from the Virginia Angler Recognition Program, info that tells things like that if you want to catch citation yellow perch like the one pictured here, Claytor Lake is a good bet.

But a lot of this is subjective. Also, length restrictions kept me from going into much detail. It would be possible to write a book on Virginia’s best fishing.

Anyway, let’s hear your thoughts.

As a one-time fishing guide, Sam Rorrer has spent plenty of time on the New River.

Using muskie tackle he’s had exactly one muskie. Using bass tackle his encounters have been plentiful. (Granted, he’s spent a lot more time with bass tackle in hand!)

Anyway, here’s his latest muskie-while-bass-fishing catch, pulled from the New on a jig this past weekend. From his expression I think it’s fair to say he didn’t mind the encounter!

Nice catch, Sam!

The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is participating in the Governor’s Regulatory Reform Initiative.

Here are the basics, from the DGIF website:

“The Governor of Virginia has directed that the Commonwealth’s regulations be reviewed for possible improvements. This site solicits your suggestions pertaining to Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF)-administered regulations currently governing

-fishing
-wildlife diversity (wildlife species that are not hunted or fished)
-boating

…that would help to achieve the following results:

Repeal regulations that are unnecessary or no longer in use; and
Reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on individuals, businesses, and other regulated groups.”

Hunting and trapping aren’t  included above because they are already being reviewed as part of the DGIF’s bi-annual regulations review process. So, suggestions are welcome on hunting and trapping, too.

The DGIF website page on the issue includes information on how to submit suggestions.

I’d like to write a column about this process to better get the word out about this. I’d like to include examples of regulations that Virginia’s hunters, anglers, boaters and other outdoors enthusiasts would like to see addressed. (Though Sunday hunting is a legislative issue, I don’t suppose it could hurt to include it in your comments.)

I will be disappointed if frequent contributor Walt doesn’t quickly chime in because I know he’s got at least one beef with the current deer hunting rules!

I’ll start: Current regs don’t allow me to take a “conventional” firearm with me when I am muzzleloader hunting for deer. I’d like someone to explain to me why I shouldn’t be able to take a shotgun with me when the muzzleloader deer and firearms turkey seasons overlap. (It would actually be me taking a muzzleloader with me while turkey hunting, but you get the drift.)  I don’t want to shoot a turkey with a muzzleloader, and it’s not like the shotgun is going to give me some kind of advantage in deer hunting. It seems any concern about using buckshot or a slug shotgun can be addressed by rules regarding shot size, etc.

In addition to Walt I’d like to hear from readers about what regs you’d like to see addressed.

My feature on the Outdoors page in today’s Roanoke Times was a short piece on my recent long weekend trip to Cape Charles, a little town on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

This was a family trip, but I managed to sneak out for a little fishing. OK, quite a bit of fishing. It helped that the fishing was great around the rocky breakwaters right off the street where our rental cottage was. (It was Monroe Street, but there are breakwaters all along the public town beach.)

I had heard that the Chesapeake Bay is flush with immature red drum, aka puppy drum. For once the reports didn’t exaggerate. Those fish were everywhere. They were small — 12 to 17 inches. But on light bass tackle — actually I was using a G. Loomis “walleye” rod —  they were an absolute hoot. A 17-incher will TEAR YOU UP! My daughters got in on the action, too. They always want to kiss the fish, and they didn’t get that from Jimmy Houston, either. Not sure where they got it.

As I wrote today, the great fishing this year bodes well for next year, when these puppies will be back as 18- to 26-inchers. That the “keeper” slot, but I’m less interested in keeping these fish than just catching them.