July 16-Aug 9, 2023   Virginia Lakes Resort Fish Report

First report of the season, we opened mid July and very busy with all the fish that was stocked since June 28th. Fishing has been outstanding.

BFEF stocked 100 pounds in both lakes on Friday and not that many have come out.

It's been a very warm month to date with temps running in the high 70's and that brought a bit of moisture to the area last week then another week of very warm temps, and today the 24th it's breezy and very comfortable with the breeze keeping the mosquitoes in the bushes, so avoid brushing bushes unless you want to donate blood.

We have a large black bear roaming the lake around 6pm and he's quite healthy.

BAIT: Micetails, and powerbait are at the top with worms, power worms, and pinched crawlers are all getting the job done, especially Mice Tails and light green garlic powerbait.

LURES: Smaller Red/gold Buoyant, gold/red Kastmaster, black yellow dots Panther Martin, Silver Super Duper 501, gold Mepps, and assorted small gold lures. Lots of jigs of all sorts are also doing a great job.

FLY AND BUBBLE: Green Body mosquito, Adams parachute, olive elk hair caddis, , grey hackle yellow, Griffith's Gnat and small dark midges. Also try tentwing caddis in sizes 16 and 14. First shot on any new water is to use a searching pattern which is an Adams parachute size 16, something to put in your brain's fishing arsenal.

FLY RODS:Try small streamers, dark and olive damsels, leeches, prince nymph, and emergers. Great hatches the last few days before the temperature dropped and the wind kicked up, and dark mayflies (duns). Matuka's, black crystal buggers will produce and try midges. Also some flashy buggers and leeches. Lots of different flies have been working and getting the info out of the "fly" guys is tough.

BACKCOUNTRY: Not much news probably due to the all the fish that has been stocked since we opened. A few ventured up yesterday but the rain came

NOTE: If the trout bleeds don’t throw it back into the lake, it will die. If you care about the resource please be careful when releasing fish back into the water and IT ATTRACKS BEARS. More bears are NOT what we need.