Need advice for Northern VA. Occuquan Resevoir , Fountainhead Park

Hello everyone. Rather new to fishing in VA and new to the site. Last week we were up in Pymatuning PA and we crushed them.

I just got a boat here in northern VA to take my 4 year old out and spent the weekend finding only 2 small Crappies and a few small bass on minnows picked up at the park the mediums(seemed too big caught only ) and smalls(seemed too small). Need some advice on where to find them in Occuquan trolling distance from Fountainhead Park. They weren't in the shallows and I figure with the warmer water they would be a little deeper where the creeks enter the reservoir but we didn't find any. Any reports or advice would be appreciated.

Any info in any other places in the Northern VA area that has access to launch a 12 foot boat from the back of a truck?

I did catch a stick fish that appeared to have very large brown balls(3-6 inches in diameter) that looked like had eggs on them. Does anyone know what would lay eggs in perfectly circular groups?

Thanks for letting me post. Lots of good info on the site.

Welcome aboard. We don't have a whole lot of members up north there but hopefully someone can help.

Thank you.

I didn't think I'd find too many crappie guys in this area on the site most of the folks I talked with at the lake were bass guys. But even the bass guys are dwarfed by the large numbers of yuppie kayakers on that reservoir.

backtocrappie is your guy. He lives in Purcellville, fishes OR, and has posted a number of suggestions about how & where to fish that lake.

Fountainhead is my home base for crappie. My advice? Get a good fishfinder and put your time in. Wish I had better advice for you, but I don't. It's a tough lake because it's so deep and gets so much pressure.

As for the minnows, I've caught em on mediums and I've caught em on smalls. Never go to that lake without a supply of jigs though. In my experience, the fish are almost always tight to cover. So vertical jigging is the ticket over casting.

Good luck and if you figure it out, let me know.

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Originally Posted by mottlet

it's so deep

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Doesn't it develop a thermocline in the summer? That would keep you from fishing all the deep water.

Thanks for the recommendation. I found some stuff posted by backtocrappie from a while back I will try out the next time I'm out there.

Thought I'd post one more reply here for the small contingent of NOVA crappie anglers...

Hit Fountainhead Saturday morning and started slow. Had one keeper and one catfish in the livewell at 10:00. Found a hot treetop on the graph and the fish were suspended at the top of it, five to seven feet down. Put the boat on the trailer for lunch because I was hungry and hot with ten keepers in the box, including my first VA crappie citation. Water temp was 80 at six a.m. and 83 at noon. They seemed to prefer minnows, but the big one ate a jig tied by a buddy of mine in Mississippi. (Rebelduckaholic on the Mississippi forum if y'all want some.)

The thing I'm figuring out about the reservoir is that most of the structure that we can see is about worthless. It might have some keepers hanging around, but usually not. Use your graph, find the stuff coming up from the bottom instead of stuff going in from the bank. Crappie seem to prefer vertical structure, something many blowdowns lack. My two pennies...

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._8335063_n.jpg

Nice fish Mottlet. How BIG was it?!!

Really nice one!

We don't see many white crappie in these here parts, (at least it looks like a white to me) especially a monster like that. How long? What did it weigh? It looks huge. You should of given it it's own thread entitled, "Monster caught at Fountainhead". Nice job!

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Originally Posted by TapOut64

We don't see many white crappie in these here parts, (at least it looks like a white to me) especially a monster like that. How long? What did it weigh? It looks huge. You should of given it it's own thread entitled, "Monster caught at Fountainhead". Nice job!

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Yep, she's a white. We catch both in the Occoquan. This year has been about 70/30 white/black. Other years, it's been about fifty-fifty. That fish looks bigger than it really was. 15.5 inches and only 1lb. 10oz. All the fish we caught were skinny. Even the ones that still had eggs. Just no shoulders.

Anyway, rounding out the weekend, I went back this morning and put 16 in the box with my Dad. Same pattern as before and right where I caught the big fish yesterday...I caught another one. My first two VA citations come from the same spot on consecutive days! Wild. Today's was definitely smaller and I had to streeeetch her a bit to get her to 15". But since I'm not actually sending it in, I figure I can call her a citation fish. Dad caught one that measured 14 and 3/4" after she'd been on ice a few hours. I have no reservations whatsoever saying that fish would have touched 15" if we had measured as soon as she came in the boat.

Maybe the pieces are coming together after such a disappointing, muddy year last year on the Res. Now if we can just get the good people of northern VA to QUIT LEAVING THEIR GOSH-DANG KAYAKS ON THE BOAT RAMP. I'm also looking at you Mr. Bass fishing guy who feels the need to strap everything down immediately after pulling out and still on the ramp AND cop an attitude when I suggest you perform your sissy fifty-points-of-contact strap ritual elsewhere. If you read this, know that you cannot win. My boat is an indestructible piece of welded aluminum garbage covered in fish slime and last season's duck blood bought to run the big river in the dark in January. Just saying...I ain't that attached to her good looks. So that crunching sound you hear next time you're blocking the ramp for no other reason than the fact you cannot comprehend your own rudeness and stupidity will not be the breaking of my heart over another scratch in this year's coat of olive drab.

Moral of all this drivel....you gotta love the Occoquan!

I've been told there are nice crappie there, now there's proof, good catchin'!

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I ain't that attached to her good looks. So that crunching sound you hear next time you're blocking the ramp for no other reason than the fact you cannot comprehend your own rudeness and stupidity will not be the breaking of my heart over another scratch in this year's coat of olive drab.

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And I love your attitude, although, may be a losing battle there.

Must be somethin' with the angle of the dangle, but you coulda sold me if you said that fish was 3 lbs.

The mouth looks huge

awe at the size of them lips/////////////good un right there

Mottlet beautiful fish. I think you might be right about the structure. I've been out about 6 times in the last month. Back in PA we killed them in the shallow structures but here I'm only catching sunfish in the shallow structure but I don't have a depthfinder to find the deep stuff.

I went out on Sunday until before thunderstorms rolled through. I fished the nests in the inlets. I saw a ton of year old crappie schooling at the surface in the shallows but I only pulled up a couple sunfish, a small perch and a tiny bass on the live bait. Not a single crappie. Just enough to keep my 4 year old from getting bored and wanting to go home.

The guy at the shop said something similar that they were getting them in structure where the inlets meet the main channel in somewhat deeper water.

By the way I second the complaint about the kayakers. The mats for hand launch were littered with kayaks just left there for a while. I use those mats to launch my boat from the bed of my truck. I was forced to hand launch on the concrete ramp by myself which isn't as easy as launching with the mats. Unfortunatley when loading I gouged my hull since i had to load on the concrete while grown kayakers stood and watched while i struggled to load on the concrete. If they moved their kayaks I wouldn't have had a problem loading it alone. Being a guy who worked at a marina for years I know boat people would have offered to help just as I do when someone else is trying to launch alone. The yuppie kayakers do nothing but make me angry.

On the other side a nice older fisherman did offer to watch my boat when i went to park the truck on the way in.

My hat's off to you. I believe if I had to deal with that ramp (and most ramps in this area) without just backing her down, floating her off and pulling out, I sincerely believe I'd have had a stroke by now. Kayakers are annoying, but I really do believe they just don't know any better. It's other boats and trailers that block ramps that really get me going. Probably nice folks that would never dream of slowing up a grocery line, line at the bank, etc. But I'll be damned if most boat owners in NoVa aren't convinced that if they drive a foot without the boat COMPLETELY strapped to the trailer, it'll come off and bounce into the lake. This has to be the only logical reasoning that could lead to as many folks parking on ramps as I see here.

I'm not workin' on a family budget and understand my priorities ain't other people's priorities. But I'd seriously consider saving some jack and getting a good graph. I can't tell you how much it's helped to unlock some of the secrets of that joint. Places I would have sworn HAD to have fish on em show nothing and most of the spots I hit nowadays, I found by accidently driving over and having the fish alarm start cussing at me to slow down. Just my two pennies.

I'll make sure to lend a hand if I see a guy trying to load a boat into a pickup bed while cussing at kayakers. If you see a black Toyota pickup with DU tags pulling a 1648 Tracker, say hello.

It wasn't nearly as bad on Tue after work. Looks like I should invest in a finder. I was fishing deeper structure I found on a snag but no bites. I have thought that finders scare fish with the pings. I'll need to find one that works well on a Jon boat.

I'll look out for you.

Has anyone been fishing Fountainhead lately?
Does anyone have much success in long line trolling there?
I have an extra transducer for my Helix 9, I plan on rigging it on my jon boat and mapping out the structure with Autochart in order to get a better idea of what is under there :)