Buggs Island Bass Fishing Secrets with the Army Core of Engineers

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Thomas Sarons.

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Good morning, everybody.

Welcome back to Fishing the DMV.

I'm your host, Thomas Sarons.

And this is something when I started this show,

I always like to try to have the imagination of a kid

and look at something and be like,

is this something interesting?

And I was driving past Keresivore

and looking at this massive dam.

And it's a simple question,

but I think it's overlooked.

It's like humans built that thing.

And what does it take not only to build it but maintain it?

And it almost reminds me of an old show.

I watched as a kid called Modern Marvels.

And but then really,

I wanted to actually get people on the show

who not only take care of the dam itself,

but can also talk a little bit about the lake

and its environment and how that's developed over the years.

And so I really want to just thank you to Michael

and Bill for coming on the show here.

I really appreciate you guys.

The problem.

Yeah, appreciate you having us.

And I guess based on our screen,

we'll start from my right, which would be Michael,

just like what is your role

with the Army Corps of Engineers in Keresivore?

Yeah, so my specific role here at John H. Carr

is Operations Project Manager,

which just essentially entails overseeing

all of the authorized purposes that the project was built for

from Congress and making sure that those purposes

are carried out as they were intended based

under the original authorization.

Okay.

How long have you been doing this for?

I've been working for the Corps for 27 years,

started out as a conservation biologist,

moved into a shoreline ranger position here at Carr,

chief of shoreline, and then advanced to the position

I'm in now as the Operations Project Manager.

Oh, wow.

And then, and then Billy, you're up.

Tell the audience at home.

Yeah, no problem.

I'm the chief of natural resources here,

and what I deal with basically is

fishing wildlife management around the project

and the forest management around the project.

We have 26 wildlife manganaries that we manage

and 50,000 acres of land that we manage

for wildlife and for timber.

And I've been with the Corps about 12 years

and I've been in this position about a year now.

Oh, wow.

That's so cool that I was able to get both you

and the show to be able to attack this from both sides

and really just because I'm so excited to get into this now.

Could you give just a little brief history,

and this is for either of you,

about the construction of the dams.

And was it just the vision to do the one

or was Rhona Grappitz and Gaston

was that all kind of packaged together?

Yeah.

And just to take a step back when I was talking about

our authorized purposes here at John H. Carr,

just so everybody knows that first and foremost

was flood control.

Hydra power was a secondary,

then recreation, fish and wildlife conservation,

water supply and low flow augmentation

down river below Rhona Grappitz.

So that's the authorized purposes for Congress

for the project to be here.

Now how it came to be originally is early on in the 30s

the Corps was tasked with doing a study

of the Rhona River and its tributaries to see

how we could control the flow,

but also generate hydroelectric power

in provide reliable cheap power to the region.

From that 1934 study, it went to Congress.

Funding wasn't authorized at the time

for the project construction, but in 1940,

there was a significant flood in the Rhona River basin

caused at the time, caused $5 million in damage

throughout the Rhona River.

And that spurred Congress to look at that study

that was done in 1934 again.

And under the 1944 flood control act at that point,

they authorized the construction of both John H. Carr

and Phil Potrezabor.

Now, originally, they had planned to build 11 projects

throughout the Rhona River basin.

Wow.

Yeah, so it was a significant number of projects

that they had planned for.

Only the two were funded.

Phil Pot and Bassett, Virginia,

and then John H. Carr, Reservoir here in Boyton, Virginia.

It is so interesting.

It was so interesting that's 1940, yeah.

Wow.

Gaston and Rhona Grappitz were part of that plan

by the Corps of Engineers.

But because funding wasn't authorized

and construction wasn't being carried out

by the federal government, the power companies,

lobbied Congress to say, if you are,

if you all aren't gonna be able to fund these,

we would be happy to construct these

from a private standpoint.

And that's what happened.

Gaston, both, of course, its dominion power now

wasn't dominion at the time,

but both Gaston and Rhona Grappitz

were constructed with private industry power companies.

And several reservoirs above us,

Lee'sville, Smith Mountain Lake, High Co-Lake,

that's the same thing with those reservoirs above us

were all private power company lakes

that did the construction.

It's fascinating to me when you look at that time period

where it really was like the big lake craze.

When you think about theodore Roosevelt

and the TVA system of lakes,

and this all happened, you said 1940,

that's when Germany was like marching through France too.

And so it really takes to put perspective

with the resources that was put into this,

what was happening around the globe at the time too.

It's just, it's fascinating.

Yeah, it's, yeah, they, you know,

and that was one thing was to put people to work

like many of the civil works projects

around the country at that time,

intended to put people to work,

but also provides stability

throughout the river basin for industry to develop

and provide that cheap, reliable power

that wasn't always available at the time.

As a kid, I would go to a creek

and I would always put rocks in the sand

to try to make a little dam.

And that was with no mathematical skill or geometry.

When you look at a lake like this,

and you know, you don't have to give us,

you know, a three hour lecture,

but I guess the mile high view, how do you,

how do they go about making sure

the dam is the correct size to where you do not have overflow?

And you know how far it'll back up

because I'm assuming while you're zoning the land,

people probably own that land, correct?

Yeah, that's, that's correct.

And I mean, to touch on it with, like you said,

without getting into, into it too deep,

you know, they, they based the construction

off of the historic inflows.

And specifically that 1940 flood,

they wanted to build a reservoir

that could handle that size flood event,

which is really a hundred year flood event.

You know, you would expect that type of flood

once every hundred years.

And so that's what they constructed the dam to handle.

And specifically where the dam is located,

the reason they chose that dislocation

is it was a narrow point in the river that happened to fall

between two sizable bedrock granite.

It was interesting.

Short or, you know, less construction

was gonna be necessary at this point along the river

than it might have been at other points in the river.

Even though the dam is, is pretty long compared to some,

it's 27, 2,780 feet long.

So just over a half a mile long concrete dam

and then we have another four miles of earth and dam.

So, but the concrete portion itself fell

in between two granite outcrops that they could tie into.

So that's how they determine not only the size of it,

but the location.

This was 1940 though.

And it'd be, again, I've talked about in the show,

it's fascinating if you were able to do that now,

just the red tape.

But where's there any, it probably wasn't

environmental impact studies then.

Like how did that work in 1940

when you think of like,

cause I think if, you know,

a homeowner's association on the Shenandoah River,

the river keepers are there like the next day.

I couldn't imagine this in 1940.

Yeah, that's, it was probably much easier to do it in 1940

than it would be today for several reasons.

One, to touch on the environmental, you know,

we didn't have NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act.

We didn't have these laws now that guide us and direct us

in the things that we need to be taken into account

in looking at.

So the construction at that time was probably smoother

to get it through and make it happen

than it would be today.

A project like this might not even happen

if it was proposed today.

And with that said, you know, we now take steps

to make sure that our impact to the environment

is minimized through how we operate

or water flows out of the dam

to include doing environmental assessments

when we take on any significant action,

we would complete those environmental reviews

at this point.

And really from the 70s moving forward,

that's when we really started focusing in on that

and making sure we took it into account

through any actions we were dealing.

What, has there been a return on the investment

for care when it's either hydroelectric

or any other variables?

Yes, definitely.

So the project, when it was initially built

in the late 40s and it was completed in 52,

the total project cost just under 100 million.

And the return on that investment happened within,

just a few years.

Generating, not between generating hydroelectric power

as well as the damage is prevented

from flood control.

So between those two, the return on the investment

was seen quickly.

And now we still see return on our investment even now.

Over 500 million dollars has been in property

has been protected from flood damages

since it's since the late inception.

That's crazy.

And power generation fluctuates into giving year

based on how much water we are sending

through the turbines, but that's millions of dollars generated

and cheap reliable power in a given year as well.

And with curates, always been about flood control.

And this is where also the fishing side of it comes in

because you always have the dock talk about what people,

they of course, fishermen believe this lake

was just built for them, of course.

And how dare you lower the level

so they can't flip the bushes in April.

And I've always found it fascinating

from your perspective, how does that whole system work?

I understand flow gauged and stuff,

living on the Shenandoah River and now the Upper Potomac.

Do you have sensors upriver to where it's like once

it hits a certain flow rate,

we need to expect the water level to rise?

How does that whole process work?

Billy, do you want to touch on that somewhere?

You want me to?

Well, I mean, I feel like you can go ahead,

but I mean, I can briefly touch on it.

We try to keep the lake level in the spring time.

We try to follow a guide curve and that guide curve

pretty much stays the same year to year, spring time.

We try to keep it at certain levels.

It was 300 now.

We try to keep it at 302 for several different factors.

One being the large mouth fast spawn,

trying to keep water levels up into the areas

where they would spawn.

And then have that extra two feet of storage

for the release of downstream for the striped bass.

So we try to follow a curve.

A lot of factors affect that rainfall drought,

things like that, but we try to keep it at that rate

in order to protect the fishery.

So it's based in one of many factors,

but it's more based on rainfall than just current flows

or things of that oak upstream.

Yeah, so our releases, we dictate our releases any given wheat

based on our inflows are weekly average inflows

to the reservoir or how we determine how much water

we're going to release downstream any given wheat.

So we don't base it on weather forecast.

We base it on actual inflows to your point a minute ago

and what Billy was touching on river gauges and so forth.

We base it on those inflows, make a declaration

of how much water we need to move through the system.

And then we coordinate that with several entities,

but it to include dominion power to make those releases

to get the water through the system.

And take into account all the things

we touched on a minute ago, flood control, hydropower,

fish and wildlife conservation, water supply,

and low flow augmentation down river.

So we take all those things into consideration

when we make our declaration to move water downstream.

That's so fascinating because I feel like a lot of people

just think it's like it's just a massive cartoon lever

that you hit and you can adjust it and it's not.

It's a huge system.

And I think that also factors into like how much water

it can absorb.

And so it seems like you have time to make decisions

if there was some kind of crazy El Nino thing that happened.

It's not like it's going to breach if you get too much rain.

Yeah, to your point, it's a 50,000 acres of water.

And then we have another 55,000 acres of land

that surround the lake.

So no matter where we are on our guide curb,

which is our target lake level for any given point in the year,

which does change, our target changes,

what we're trying to manage for changes throughout the year.

And I'm not sure that everybody understands that.

We don't try to maintain a steady lake level year round.

Because we have these different authorized purposes,

we our target does change to accommodate for those purposes.

But to your point, the size of the lake,

even a significant rainfall event for us to come up,

two feet in a day would be significant.

And that doesn't happen that frequently.

So we have time to plan.

We have time to coordinate with our partners downstream.

And ultimately, in those flood stages,

anytime we're in a flood stage,

our goal is to maximize our releases,

but make sure we're also preventing damage downstream

when doing that.

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Tell them I sent you.

Could you hit on that a little bit more

about communicating with your partners down the stream?

Because that's just, again, it's this web of things

that has to happen because just because you release water,

it is, you have two more dams

that has to be braced for that, too.

Yeah, that's right.

We work through many federal state partners.

We actually have weekly calls to discuss

what our releases are gonna be.

And it ultimately trying to hit the purpose

of while we're here, all those missions

that we've mentioned several times now,

we will, we determine how much water we need

to move through the system based on

whatever the given events are for that time of the year.

And then we coordinate through

Southeastern Power Administration.

And then with Dominion Power,

who we've mentioned before, the two dams

just below us, gas and a run of rapids,

to actually schedule those releases throughout the week.

And each day, each day,

we're a peaking power plant here,

which means we come online when there's the highest demand

for power at any given point during the day.

So being more like the afternoon,

I'm assuming like in the summertime it'd be big

because like AC units and people

trying to cool their homes,

but that's just me spitballing.

Yes, yes, summer time is the probably one

and winter time when it's extremely cold,

but winter time hot summer months like we're in right now,

we would usually when people start getting home

in the evenings, they turn on their air conditions,

their dryers, their ovens,

that's usually late afternoon in the summertime

is when we start generating to provide that peak demand power.

That's interesting.

One more question that one of my fans

when I mean to ask is on the TVA system of lakes,

you have the ability to transverse

from one lake to the other.

And because this was built back in the 1940s,

was that ever in the blueprints of having something like that,

so you could go from the sea all the way into Kerr and beyond?

No, I don't think that was ever,

it was never in the original plans or intent.

To your point earlier,

with looking at our environmental impact

and how to lessen that with the dams we have in place,

we have been looking to see how we can accommodate the fishery,

migrations upriver, how we can get fish

from one side of the dam to the other.

And so we have looked at fish ladders

and those kind of things,

dominion power has taken some steps in that regard.

So that has become a consideration more so in recent years,

the last couple of decades,

than it was ever considered for navigation

or for environmental aspects years ago

when they were originally constructed.

That is interesting because, yeah,

I mean, that is becoming more and more of an importance now,

especially with the fish ladders.

And I know the conno-wingo dam on the Susquehanna

is having some litigation right now about their fish ladders.

I can't imagine that process because let's say,

yeah, you're going to green light that tomorrow.

It's not happening in a week.

Like that's got to be a massive project to go from

Roanoke to Gaston, then there, that's insane.

Yeah, and Billy may be able to touch on this some more,

but there's very simple systems that require a lot of manpower

and then you've got the construction of actual fish ladders

which would be a significant investment

and change to the structure in and of itself

that would, you know, you would have to evaluate.

And then you said it perfectly.

And then I get to pick on you, Billy, a little bit.

Kerr is, I mean, you had the bass open there,

the bass master open.

Kerr has been a vaunted bass like that people go to years

and years.

And now you have some invasive species.

I've had, you know, Mr. Dr. Brunarski

head of Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

I've had David Sikorski on to talk about

different invasive species.

But I think right now there's blueback,

Alabama slash spotted bass,

and maybe some aquatic vegetation.

Your job is not easy.

Yeah, and, you know, that's the Alabama bass

is definitely the one that's going to be

probably the most impact to the bass fishery.

Alcompetent, the large mouth and all

and, you know, the stunning growth and all.

You know, the bass fisherman love them

because they're so aggressive, but, you know,

it really takes a toll on the large mouth

which obviously get a lot bigger.

So, you know, the Creole size probably going to drop.

And, but they're going to, you know, catch the fish.

So it's one of those things, but, you know,

how do you fix that is impossible.

But yeah, that's definitely a challenge.

And then, you know, as far as the invasive species,

we've done a lot of work with invasive species.

The biggest one was Hydrilla, you know,

the bass fisherman, the duck hunter's loved it.

You know, but it is an invasive species.

That we spend a lot of time trying to control

and in actuality, we control it so well that we,

you know, went from, I don't know,

14 or 1500 acres of Hydrilla on the lake,

which...

Oh, Dean and Dr. Knox, you know,

coves and all into pretty much zero right now.

So we're still in a process of controlling that.

And it's been a challenge,

but it seems to be working well at this point.

It's so hard.

Like everyone, I've been blessed to talk to every biologist

and they said, if they could have one silver bullet,

it's like how you can specifically manage vegetation

and get it to grow where you want it

and where not to have it grow.

And because it's either that or you just nuke it.

Like there's no in between.

And it's so frustrating from what your job is

because there is no magic bullet to just say,

you can stay here, but don't go over here

to this guy's dock.

That's right, that's right.

You know, and the challenge here with the fluctuation

and you know, the loss of substrate in all is trying

to get the natives back into the system.

It's been very challenging.

Some things we've done with the Virginia Division

while at resources as we've working on,

trying to reestablish water willow in different places.

That seems to be able to take hold

and become established real well.

And it does provide, you know, good habitat anyway

for the fisheries.

So we're working on things that way

to try to get, you know, some to offset the loss

of the hydrolyph.

Is there any other S A V sub aquatic S A V

that is either in the lake right now

or may be introduced that is native?

Well, we're doing some work within C state

who have done the hydrolyphs surveys

and they've done some test plots around the lake

to try to establish some aquatic vegetation

through some immersive devices where they're put

in the plants in substrate and lowering it down

to see if it can become established

and they're not having a lot of success with that.

You know, there is other vegetation around the lake

and some names chara, spike rush, spatter dock,

but it's very limited.

What seems to be working is the water willow,

which is probably the least beneficial,

but at least it's providing some type of habitat.

For, you know, when the hydrolyph dropped off

the water willow really exploded around the lake

and it see if we're doing well around the lake,

went out with the biologists from the game department here

or the division of wildlife resources recently

and they were telling me about them.

They took the aggro price down through the different

while the water willow sections

and they just amount of aquatic life that was there

was encouraging anyway, so.

And with my limited knowledge,

water willow also helps with bank erosion too, correct?

So it has a secondary benefit.

Yeah, absolutely, you know, it helps control erosion.

It acts well, it acts well to, you know,

the deer will actually, you know, feed on it some too.

So it has really, yeah, they will.

It does have a larger benefit,

but definitely bank erosion and structure

for the fisheries, so.

How, how hard is it with the,

with the different primary reasons for the lake's existence,

but then you factor in this annoying subset

that is bass fisherman like myself,

when you deal with like the fish, the fishing spawn

and you deal with the water levels they want

and then from your, your place,

how do you balance that?

Because I know with, there was a large mouth virus

if I'm not mistaken, 20 to 30 years ago, in Kerr.

Yeah, it was around 2010.

Is it 2010?

Oh, yeah, 2010, right around 2010

is when it really impacted and not say it's gone,

but it's definitely, you know,

we definitely have rebounded from that significantly

here in recent years.

So that's a, I guess, a positive thing.

Who, with that like splitting Caroline and Virginia,

how does that work for stalking or habitat?

Or like, is that a coalition between the two?

Like for example, on the title Potomac,

it's really wonky how it's split into like four or five

different sectors.

How does it work for the lake?

Yeah, we have fishers meeting every year here

where we get together and discuss things

and, you know, different topics from hydrilla

and how to control the hydrilla to limits set on the,

set on the fishery and you're licensing

how that works in both lakes.

So we kind of come together and they collaborate a lot

on many of the decisions that happened here at the lake.

But the actual fishery is managed by the two states.

So we don't deal with the biology

itself of the fishery on, you know,

stocking limits, career limits and things like that.

But we do, you know, assist with that

and help out with different surveys

and things that they do here on the lake.

That's fascinating.

Is there anything coming up then

that you guys have meetings for or you're trying

to get done this year?

We just did some native vegetable tasting planning here

last week.

They typically do gill net surveys in the fall

to where they're, you know, looking at age

and weight of the Sprite Bass mainly,

but they do take into account a lot of different fishery

of fish.

They do those every year and then they do large mouth bass

and shed electric shock surveys here in the summertime.

So those are coming up here as well.

So we, you know, we work with them and, you know,

get the information.

They provide a lot of the data to us

to where, you know, we least keep in, you know,

keep in up to speed on how things are going here as well.

It is fascinating.

You know, you mentioned several times the hydrilla

and the issues with that.

And I know on a couple of TVA lakes,

one reason they do the drawdown is for the hydrilla issues.

And then of course, the fishing community,

there's like a cult.

And so their, their thought is keep it low

and that will help with some of the dock owners.

Is that one of the bigger issues now

is with the homeowners and the hydrilla.

What is the main concern for just people

that are listening that aren't aware?

Yeah.

The main concern is that, you know, is exotic species.

You know, it wasn't here.

It doesn't belong into lake.

The drawdown, you know, I asked several of the biologists

about their thoughts on why it took so long

to become established year.

Did it draw down impact?

Did it not?

And, you know, I've never really gotten a good clear answer.

The places where it impacted the lake the most

was into clear water.

The water, the state real clear,

didn't really get up into the river systems that much

until recently.

So there's a lot of different factors.

Was it the clear water?

Was it the fluctuation?

Is it the substrates?

A lot of different factors as to why it took so long to get here

and why it exploded during that time period.

But the impact to the dock owners is, I guess,

it's a smaller factor.

It's more that it wasn't a base of species,

and we wanted to try to control it.

We didn't realize that we were going to eliminate it,

but we definitely wanted to control it.

And, you know, you did.

You did.

Yeah.

In a perfect world, then, like, would you want like 2%

lake coverage, or 3% if you had your magic wand?

In a perfect world, I'd like to have all native vegetation

around the lake, or have it at least mostly native.

Not to say, somehow drill it would be bad,

but our stance is definitely an exotic invasive species

that we would need to be able to control around the lake.

So I don't know about a percentage.

You know, dock owners love it.

Like I said, the bass fisherman liked it.

So it's difficult to explain to people

that it is overall not beneficial.

But you're going back to the, you know,

just saying that it's an invasive species

and trying to get rid of it, because it can take over a lake

if it's not controlled.

That was the main goal was to control it,

so it wouldn't explode any more than it did.

And then that's what you guys are with the University

or trying to re-plan inside Drilla,

or is it a different vegetation?

No, we were trying different vegetation,

not having a chair, char, just trying different things

to see what would work different lake levels and all.

And with limited success.

That, I'm going to have to ask off the stream

to see if I can get those people on from the University,

because that would be fascinating.

I've always been fascinating why you can't just grow it.

It's easy to kill it, but it's a pain

to make any vegetation grow back.

And so that would be a fantastic study to get into.

When it comes to any dam maintenance,

this thing was built in the 1940s.

How long does it last?

How do you maintain it?

How does any of that work?

Yeah, so there's not necessarily a set life expectancy

for a dam, but we do annual maintenance,

annual inspections, as well as more in depth,

periodic assessments and inspections

that happen once every five to 10 years.

But to your point, it's a large piece of infrastructure

both the concrete and the earthen dams,

that we receive an appropriated amount of money

from Congress every year to carry out

not only the inspections, but any maintenance

that may need to be done to include some recent money

for under the infrastructure bill

that is allowing us to take care of some maintenance needs

both on the concrete, but as well as the earthen structures.

Because they do require constant,

constant, vigilant inspections, as well as maintenance

to make sure that we maintain the dam

in a safe and operable condition.

How long does the inspection take?

I know, I think it was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge's famous

is like, you started at the beginning of the year

and by the time the year is over,

you have to start right back up again.

It takes so long, like, how long does it take you guys to do that?

So, we have staff here that is looking at things

on a daily basis, so that's key to note as well.

We have around 25 staff members here in the office

that Billy and I work in that are biologists,

foresters, park rangers.

And then we have about another 25 or so people

that work at the powerhouse that are mechanics, electricians

that are looking at for those facilities down there.

So, between our team, we're looking at things

on a daily basis, so it's always ongoing,

but when we have an outside team come in

to actually perform the inspections,

usually we can knock those out within a week.

That's the only thing we're focused on for that week

is going through doing the inspections,

seeing what prior year reports.

So those annual inspections

and those that come up every five or 10 years,

we can usually knock out in a week

and then oftentimes the follow up to those,

takes more time, some research

to make sure we're looking at everything

correctly and appropriately.

That's insane, that's insane.

And then I think that ties into like really the thing

we talked about earlier with the fish ladder thing.

Is that something that is still being,

I guess, talked about heavily as something in the future?

Not saying that it will or will not,

but it's still a contested subject.

Yeah, it hasn't been a focus put it that way.

It's been something that gets discussed,

really for us, what Renault-Gravitz would do

and what Gaston would do would be heavily dependent

on what we may ultimately do here,

because obviously if they're not able

to get past those first two dams,

there's not a whole lot of reason for us

to be investing the money here at Carr.

So that's a big part of it.

But more so than looking at fish ladders,

we've always taken steps to try to improve

the fishery downstream through our water releases.

So the striped bass spawn in the spring,

from April to June,

we are releases from this dam focus heavily on that spawn,

the fish coming up river as well as the transport

of their eggs.

So our releases focus on that during the spring,

we focus on dissolved oxygen during the summer,

trying to make sure we're maintaining that

inadequate level below the dam and down into Gaston.

As you know, hot summer months dissolved oxygen

can become a problem for a fishery.

So we focus in on that.

When we did a major rehab of the powerhouse in 2010,

the turbines that were put into the powerhouse were vented.

So they actually create dissolved oxygen

as they're operating, generating hydrophilic.

That is so cool.

Who the heck caught a bat?

Yeah.

So we take those steps that we think

can have an immediate impact downstream of us

versus something like a fish ladder,

which is a discussion, but requires several more steps

to happen before it becomes a reality or realistic.

Bill, I want to toss it back to you.

You mentioned something about the duck hunting.

I never knew that was a big thing on car.

I really didn't.

That's really cool.

You know, I've done kind of for a number of years.

And when I first started hunting car, it wasn't.

And for, I don't know, five or six years

it really exploded and it has become extremely popular

around the lake now.

It's, you know, there's a lot of swamps,

a lot of backwater, a lot of areas on the river

that people can access.

And I think Google Earth, Google Maps,

when they really started getting the aerial photography

and people started researching that through Onyx

and things like that, it really,

people really saw what the reservoir had

and the benefits of the reservoir

and the amount of water, if I could actually use the lake

is incredible.

And of course it fluctuates here the year,

but typically you can have pretty good success here,

the lake.

I guess that's a chicken or the egg question.

You said the last couple of years,

was it like an increase of waterfowl

that made it a hot destination?

Or was it more of like promoting it?

Which came first to where it took off?

That's a good question.

I want to say it was more the access to the imagery

and things like that.

People started finding these swamps,

locals knew about them,

but now you can get online and look and find backwater

and people started finding and started hunting

and started accessing it even more.

And it really became a pretty good resource

especially for waterfowl.

I've never, so growing up, Shenandoah,

the title Potomac, I know there's a ton of people

that hunt tidal water.

The idea of hunting on a lake next to Timmy and Susan's

$100,000 house, is there zones

that they're allowed to do this in?

That's got to make your job a nightmare too.

Well, people think that there's docs everywhere

around the lake and there's the shoreline zone.

You have three different zones.

We have a green zone, which allows docs

in the yellow zone and the red zone,

which outline the wildlife,

wildlife manganaries and areas in between the red and green.

That's where the yellow zone is,

not to get into weeds on that,

but there's really not as many docs as you would think.

It's a lot of land out there,

really protected, isolated.

We try to manage that way.

So people can enjoy docs and areas

where there's subdivisions or there's places like that,

around town, things like that.

And then there's a lot of areas that are pretty remote,

that take hiking or a boat into access.

So it's pretty diverse as far as the structure

of the project.

That was literally going to be my next question

because you look at a lake anna and the houses

are on top of each other like New York City.

Were these zones created back in the 1940s,

or was that something that was, I guess,

newer that the idea of putting these zones in?

Well, Michael, you go ahead and tell me.

Yeah, so the zones that we have currently

are something that would have probably come about

in the 70s or so then back when it was originally,

but our master plan for development around the lake

has always included areas set aside

for recreation purposes versus shoreline activities

or preservation for cultural historical resources

that may exist as well as what Billy mentioned earlier,

wildlife management areas,

which we have 26 of them around the reservoir.

That's so cool.

Yeah, I was actually reading a book this week,

just about all the different lakes in the Carolinas too,

and Kerr was in there about just the flooded villages

and then the trains and things like that.

And so it's fascinating because then you keep remembering,

yeah, this thing was built in the 1940s

and I don't think a lot of people that show up there

with their basketball appreciate the history

that went into this and just the enormous undertaking

to build this thing.

Yeah, and to your point earlier,

we had to acquire a lot of land,

50, 55,000 acres of land around the reservoir

because we are a flood control reservoir.

We have 20 vertical feet of flood storage.

So if we were, if the lake were ever to get to 3, 320 feet

above mean sea level, you go from having a 50,000 acre lake

to roughly an 83,000 acre lake.

Oh, shit.

You know, it's that 20 vertical feet spreads out

across a lot of property

and that's why we had to acquire property around the lake

in order to prevent from flooding private property

and houses that we're ultimately trying

to protect downstream.

Is that have to do also?

I just like with Smith Mountain Lake,

is that built into the cake?

Like if there was a dam failure there,

it's coming downstream.

So this is how much land we need as well

and then gasped in the same thing.

Yes, I won't say that that's calculated in for gaston dam,

the private power dams,

but if dams above us, above John H. Carr,

if they were to fail, one, it would take a while

for the water to get here so we would have some notification,

but we would be able to handle those events,

especially with the notification

where we could start drawing down

before the water even reached this area.

That's fascinating.

That's absolutely fascinating.

Is there, and just to put it,

just to put a pen on the land around the lake,

is there anything coming up or will it ever be,

will the lines drawn on the map be flexible

where you could see in the future

there will be more homes and docks on the lake

or will it keep this pristine rule nature

and that's just how we want to keep it?

To Billy's point earlier, you know,

with the zoning that we have,

those have held steady for a while now.

We review them once every five years

to see if there needs to be any changes,

but we try to mean that one third,

one third of the shoreline is designated for docks and private,

when I say private use, they have access to their docks,

they can put in paths,

those kind of things down to a private dock,

but it's still public land.

Anybody is allowed to be on it.

And then you have protected shoreline,

which usually hasn't,

we're protecting it for aesthetic purposes

to maintain that natural landscape around the reservoir

or it could have historical or cultural resources,

and then we have another third designated

for recreation, recreational development,

which is our state parks, our federal parks,

in other partners, other partners that have recreation

to include five marinas provided on the lake.

Is that much of an issue

when it comes to pleasure boat?

Or so example is deep creek lake,

I'm gonna be getting another episode here going about that

about Lake erosion with wakeboats,

and you look at a lot of these smaller bodies of water

that's not an inland ocean like Carr is,

but you have that issue with so much pleasure boating,

it might be a cause for erosion.

Is that something that you're seeing at Carr

or it could be a problem in the future?

Yeah, of course we're a man-made lake,

so erosion has always been a factor,

and with some of the boat traffic,

and just an increase in boat traffic

can increase that erosion rate

that we've always anticipated and planned for.

And of course, wakeboats can have a bigger impact

than just your normal pleasure boats,

but I don't know that we've seen a significant increase

in erosion based on any one user group.

You know, really, oftentimes our flood events,

where the water comes up quickly,

and we try to pull the water down quickly

to get back to our guide curve or target lake level,

sometimes that can have a bigger impact on erosion

than anything, just because you have a saturated shoreline,

you then pull the water off of it,

so there's no back pressure anymore,

and then you'll start to have sloughing and so forth.

So that can have just as big an impact as anything

as far as recreational activities are otherwise.

That's interesting, that's really fascinating.

Billy, what is the catfishery like nowadays?

Because I know back in the day,

how many state records have you had pulled out of there,

almost world records?

It's insane.

That's right, that's right.

You know, just as I've been here,

the catfish and popularity has exploded.

You know, it was all bass fishing for the longest time.

Of course, the crappy were right there with them

as far as popularity, but the catfishing is just exploded

and it's a plentiful fishery right now.

I mean, it's everybody's out and it's very popular

and everyone's having a lot of success,

especially with the blue cat and the rivers with the channel.

I mean, with the flat heads.

What is the primary forage for them right now?

It's gonna be your shad, your threadfinch ads,

your gizzard shad, things like that.

I would say it's your primary LWives, things like that.

So they're in the shad, you know,

it's just as popular and just as plentiful as ever as well.

So there's no shortage of forage for the fishery.

You mentioned LWives, is that a distinction

between LWive and a blue back?

I think so, yes.

I've always called them LWives.

I've always known them as LWives.

I'm not sure if they're the same or not.

I'd have to look that up.

I know they look kind of the same.

Just to confirm that we're talking about the say,

yeah, so LWives, that makes sense.

Cause they're more of like the deep, clear water area

if I'm not mistaken.

And then your other species will venture farther up

in the river, correct?

That's right.

That's right.

Flathead.

I never even knew you guys had flathead.

I knew about the blue back or the blue back,

the blue cat fishery, but the flathead doesn't do.

Yeah, the flathead in the rivers is extremely popular.

I mean, a lot of people go after them.

They get pretty big and it's a,

it's exciting fish to catch out of doubt.

And then the other thing that's, you know,

puts current, the car on the map

is the striped bass fishery that you have there.

And one thing in the literature I was reading

and it was a little bit probably outdated,

is this a spawning population

or self-replishing population or not?

Oh, it is, okay.

It is, they do stock, the game of harm does stock of the lake,

but it is one of the natural, one of the few, I guess.

I don't know how many there are,

but one of the few main made lakes that they do spawn.

They go up the Brook Neal in that area and do spawn.

And that's, when I personally go striped fishing

is at that time when they're up in the river

and fish warm, then that's a lot of fun.

One for every hundred casts they say,

but sometimes you can get them to a better net,

sometimes it less, but it's a good time in the river.

Why do you think, because I just remember,

I think it was in fishermen up 10 years ago,

it was like Lake Texacoma and Carr,

where like two of the few that actually had

a self-replishing population,

what is it about this lake that allows that to happen

or your best guess?

I want to, I mean, my guess would be the distance

between the next dam, you know,

the stable population to lake distance

between Smith Mountain Lake and up in Brook Neal,

the substrate gets real rocky in the Rona River,

it gets to where, you know, they congregate

and can lay eggs there.

I want to say that those factors are the reason why,

but that would be more of a guess than anything.

That's interesting.

Yeah, I just, these mystical questions

that no matter how much money you throw at it,

you still don't know whether it's the SAV

or Y Striper decide to spawn them.

I know, you know, Halik, a huge shout out to you

in Northern Virginia at our front royal fish hatchery,

they're just figuring out how to get small mouth to spawn,

which has been a nightmare to figure that out.

And it's just so interesting, even in 2023,

there's still things that we're trying to crack the code on.

And the last thing I really just wanted to hit on was,

is there any kind of a structure of things,

like Christmas tree that you put into the lake

or anything like that, manmade?

Yeah, we used to have a Christmas tree program

that we would set out places to collect the trees,

people would drop them off.

And it really dropped off in the past few years,

where it got less and less and less and less.

But something we started doing with the game department,

or the Virginia Department Wildlife Resource

that I always come to game department,

you know, they changed the game with you.

It messes me up too.

Yeah, you know, game ordinance now,

but they're conservation officers and all that.

But one thing we started doing probably, I guess 2019,

is we bought these Mossback fish structures

and we started putting them out in a lot of different places

and talking to the biologists in Virginia,

they say they're the ones to use, the ones to get.

So we've been purchasing those and putting them in places

where the hydrolog was taken away

to try to get a little more structure,

a little more manmade structure in places.

And we've gone all over the lake now in that bush

to push us creek,

started getting up into the blue stone and things now.

So we're trying to put these structures back

to provide more structure for the fishery

for people to use and to enjoy.

Yeah, thank you so much to both of you for your time today.

I mean, we've touched on so many things.

Is there anything else or closing thoughts

or anything that's coming up that you would like to promote

that people can, I can link in the episode description

so people can find?

Well, I mean, can we have a multitude of boat ramps,

a multitude of campgrounds that are run by us,

run by Virginia State Parks,

run by North Carolina State Parks Center's,

all kinds of access, please feel free to call up here

and you have any questions

and feel free to come enjoy the lake

and definitely be safe when you're out on it.

You're gonna be fishing or boating,

wear a life jacket and just come have a good time

and see if any questions,

we can give our number and they can call up here

to the Visor Assistance Center

and have their questions answered.

Michael Billy, thank you so much for your time.

I know you two are super busy.

I really appreciate it.

Again, guys, link in the episode description

to everything we talked about today.

Please like and subscribe to the channel.

We are the number one fishing show

in the greater DMV metropolitan area.

We'll see you next time on Fishing the DMV.

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