Tomorrow (June 1) marks the opening of Delayed Harvest trout waters to general trout regulations.

The idea behind Delayed Harvest is that the catch-and-release and artificial lures regs during cooler months allow for a sustainable fishery, while the harvest rules allow fishermen to get the trout before they succumb to warm water of summer. It’s a good program and it works pretty well, but things may not be looking so great on some DH waters this year. Read more »

I headed out to Tinker Creek on Saturday expecting to find a good crowd for Trout Heritage Day. I wasn’t disappointed.

The creek didn’t look like some of those pictures from the “good old days” of the trout season opening day, with fishermen shoulder to shoulder. But at noon I think there were at least 100 fishermen on that mile-long section from the upper bridge down to U.S. 460.

As I wrote in my column Sunday in The Roanoke Times, the fishing wasn’t great. A few guys had a fish or two on a stringer, and I just missed seeing one guy pull in a 6-pound rainbow.

Wes Hensley at H&H Outdoors in Buchanan sent me several shots throughout the day of guys who caught some nice fish. The top shot is Barry Staton with 14.3 pounds of trout, the biggest the 7.3-pound rainbow.

The second shot is Roanoke’s Glen Campbell with a 7.75-pound brown. I’m guessing he caught it on a spinner.

Here’s some nice proof that a stocked trout stream can continue producing fish well after it is stocked.

Roanoker Don Johnson was fishing in the city section of the Roanoke River today when he hooked this 6.41-pound rainbow on a Joe’s Fly spinner. Johnson said he had to baby the awesome fish for 30 minutes on 6-pound-test line before he was finally able to land it.

Congrats to Don on a great fish!

Rumors started floating around a couple weeks ago that Sportsman’s Warehouse would be reopening its Roanoke location.

Those rumors were confirmed when the company recently added Roanoke to its map of store locations. Karen Seaman, the company’s chief marketing officer, left no doubt.

“We are returning to the area this spring and looking forward to reopening our store in Roanoke,” she wrote to me in an email earlier today.

According to the company’s website, the store, which is on Ferncliff Avenue near the Hersberger Road and I-581 interchange, will open on April 16, with a grand opening celebration on April 28.

I’m trying to connect with Seaman by phone for more details.

The Roanoke store was one of 23 the company closed in 2009 as part of  Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Fifteen stores were sold to a Canadian company. A cash investment from a venture capital company helped the company get back on its feet, and Sportsman’s Warehouse emerged from Chapter 11 in August of 2009.

Since word of the return of Sportman’s Warehouse has started getting around, I’ve heard from several people who were enthusiastic about the news. Even though the Roanoke store was open for less than two years, the store earned plenty of devoted fans.

I ran on the Roanoke River Greenway today at lunch and the river had a few fishermen out, so obviously it got a visit from the trout truck this morning.

Thanks to the cell phone network some of you no doubt already know this. For those of you who don’t and can slip out, maybe this tip will help you beat the post-work rush.

The river is crystal clear so it will be easy to see the fish. The question is, how easy will it be to catch them?

Some of you may know that the Jackson River tailwater is again the center of controversy.

In short, a property developer and some landowners who purchased a lot and built a home on the river are suing three anglers for trespassing. (Clarification added 4:10 p.m. Friday — The anglers got out of kayaks and waded. They never set foot on shore.) The plaintiffs are claiming that, among other things, deeds dating back to the 1700s from the King of England (including the above-pictured King George II) prove they own the river bottom. (I’m not getting into background here, but previous crown grant issues have been controversial, hence the term “again the center of controversy.”)

The anglers claim that DGIF signage and information about the river does not list the property in question as one of those where so-called Crown Grants have been established and, hence, stopping and fishing has been deemed to be illegal.

I’m working on a story on this, so yesterday afternoon photographer Sam Dean and I headed up there to float through the section in question. Read more »

Trout Heritage Day, on the first Saturday in April, is sort of like the trout opener of eras past. You know where the fish have been stocked. You have to wait until a certain hour to start fishing. Big crowds gather. Some partying occurs. Fishing commences.

The difference? It’s only on a handful of waters.

Today is a similar kind of day.

Delayed Harvest waters, which have been managed under catch-and-release rules since October, open for harvest. (A trout license is required through June 15.)

Opening DH waters for harvest makes sense. Most DH waters are unable to sustain trout through the summer so you might as well yank them out and eat them because they’re going to perish eventually anyway.

You know what might also make sense? Why not make the opening the first Saturday in June? That way school-aged kids could also participate.

That wasn’t my idea. It was pitched to me by a reader who has no shortage of opinions about how public officials could be doing things better. This one is tough to argue with, though maybe there’s a reason that it wouldn’t work that I haven’t thought of.

Is anyone planning to hit a DH water in the next few days? Or did anyone already get out there today?

The good news is the river and lake waters are at good levels so, despite this recent heatwave, so the water is still probably OK for trout. (At this rate it won’t be trout-worthy for long, though.)

I remember a few years ago when the Roanoke River was already so warm on June 1 that trout were floating around dead or dying. I guess that’s maybe one reason to not push the DH opener any later. So maybe have it on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Thoughts? Other ideas?

By the way, the trout above is not a DH water trout. It’s a wild rainbow, as evidenced by its spectacular coloration and perfect fins. I pulled this shot out of my archives and I honestly can’t remember where I caught it.

They say behind every good man is an even better woman. Or something like that.

Fortunately behind Tom Klatka during a recent trout fishing trip — next to him, actually — was a good woman who also happened to be really good with a landing net.

You see the woman — his wife and frequent fishing partner, Ferri Lockhart — in the picture above.  Now here’s Klatka’s full story: Read more »

Proud dad Tim McCord sent in this shot of his son, Kyle, with Kyle’s first trout — a really nice rainbow pulled from the Roanoke River on March 25. This kid has set the bar high right out of the gate!

I was on the Roanoke River Greenway yesterday and saw quite a few fishermen even though the water was really high on account of Monday night’s storms. That could mean only one thing: The river was stocked yesterday.

Both the Salem and Roanoke sections got fish. The river should fish pretty well for a while because that high water should have spread those fish out, plus the conditions made fishing pretty tough yesterday. Despite the fact that the river was up and the color of coffee with cream, I did see some folks with fish on stringers.

So, by the number of reports I’ve gotten about fishing in the Roanoke River, it’s clear that there are many more skilled trout anglers out there than I.

While I was getting skunked, as I admitted in my Sunday Roanoke Times column, everyone else (it seems) was roping them.

Matt Wimmer (with the rainbow) and his uncle, David Boothe, caught and released these great fish on Saturday and Wednesday, respectively.