Need advice for Northern VA. Occuquan Resevoir , Fountainhead Park

[stillcity]

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.

[Barnacle Bill]

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

[stillcity]

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.

[Corker]

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

[mottlet]

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.

[Corker]

it's so deep

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

[stillcity]

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.

[mottlet]

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...

[fishman78]

Nice fish Mottlet. How BIG was it?!!

[Redy2Fish]

Really nice one!