S8, Ep 9: Ice, Snow and Musky: Navigating Winter Fishing in Southwest Virginia

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another Southwest Virginia Fishing Report with Matt Reilly.

Matt, how are you doing? Pretty good, man. How are you?

Just trying to stay out of trouble. You've been sharpening your ice skates.

I have been tying flies and leaders and scraping ice off my, my driveway and, you know, spinning my wheels, basically.

Yeah. So, you know, not an uncommon problem in our part of the world. How many days have you been off the water?

Oh, gosh, man, I have to look at my calendar. I know the, the New river was frozen most everywhere as of the beginning of last week.And, you know, naturally we were pretty well below freezing for about a week prior to that, too. So it's, it's been pretty close to two weeks. The. Yeah, I guess, I guess the weather.Weather shifted pretty cold right after the, the new moon in, in January, which was Martin Luther King weekend. We had good fishing and like 40 degree water temps, and now we do not.

Yeah. And so, you know, obviously I think we're gonna start, you know, as I always know, you're on your side of the mountain.It's always colder and windier, but, you know, we're going to probably get close to 50 here later this week as things kind of start to melt and break up. You know, what should folks expect to see if they have a burning desire to go out and chase muskie?

Yeah, so, yeah, for sure. I mean, we're going to stay. They're actually calling in the New river valley for potentially another 2 inches of snow tomorrow.And we're going to stay, you know, with lows in the teens and highs around freezing for the next five or six days.And then we're gonna, we're gonna have a pretty good string of weather next week where it stays above freezing and hits, you know, upper 40s, low 50s every day. So we'll definitely see some melt especially, you know, got a lot of. Had a couple sunny days here lately, too.So after we get through the next couple, I think we'll, we'll start to see some melting happen. But always got to think about what's coming into the watershed when things start to melt.Thinking about the New river specifically, you know, the upper upper reaches of the, the watershed or western North Carolina, Mount Rogers, you know, east side of the Blue Ridge. And, and we got, we got in the neighborhood of 6 to 9 inches of snow, depending on where you are. Had an inch or two of ice before that.So things will definitely, you know, probably see a bump and flow certainly see a bump in flow and, and you know, that'll sort of buffer the warm up too because you'll have snow melt and ice melt coming in. But yeah, we'll just, we'll just have to see what happens. But that's always something to keep in mind as, as things start to melt.

Yeah, absolutely.So, I mean, we already know that the, the fish are in pretty predictable places and it certainly hasn't going to warm up anytime soon to move them out of those.You know, we've talked in the past about how to stay warm, but you know, one thing people may not think about is, you know, if you're out in a boat, you know how to be safe when that ice is breaking up on the river. Any tips for that?

Yeah, you know, it, I, I would, I would definitely, you know, if you're fishing around like giant sheets of ice, it, it can definitely be a little dangerous, you know, if, if there's no way around them as they're coming down the river.But you know, generally speaking, by the time I'm going to be back out there, things are going to be broken up enough that if something's coming down the river, it's, it's small enough to circumnavigate. But you know, I have, I have been surprised by pieces of ice.You know, you're sitting in the middle of the river, anchored up, you know, fishing or doing something with your gear, and all of a sudden you get slammed in the, in the back of the boat by a big old iceberg. You know, it's just, just pays to keep your wits about you and, you know, not do anything too stupid.If, if it, if it seems risky this time of year, it's, it's usually a bad idea.

Yeah. And that goes double for, if you're in a jet boat, right?

Yeah, for sure.

And so I would imagine too. Right. That things will probably start opening up first kind of immediately downstream of the dams, right?

Yeah. So the, the lower new, particularly, you know, closer to Claytor Lake generally stays warmer than everything else and, and that'll certainly open up.You know, Claytor's frozen right now too, but that'll, that'll open up sooner than a lot of other things just because, you know, it's wide and open, the sun will hit it pretty directly for a long, long period of time throughout the day. Whereas, you know, further up the watershed, it's narrower, mountains are taller, gets more shade throughout the day, higher elevation.You know, that stuff tends to melt last, which is, you know, Again, why you get that buffer and water temperature and flow after things melt.But, but yeah, you know, I'd be looking at the lower watershed and you know, just places that are going to see a lot of sun and have, you know, potentially some, some, some form of warm water influence if, if that's available. But yeah, the, the ice presence can vary pretty dramatically when you're in that marginal condition timeframe from section river to section river.So you know, gradient can make a difference too. You know, if you've got a piece of river that's got a lot of quickly moving water dropping water that usually freezes last.So, you know, just kind of keep all that in mind and, and try to find some open water.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we were talking before we started recording.So with being off the water, you're kind of doing a little bit of shuffling, right, to kind of get people in for the tail end of muskie season and into smallmouth.But you want to let folks kind of know generally what you have available and that it's a very good time to catch you at home because you're not on the water to book a trip.

Yeah, I always feel a little bit funny.You know, I'll be sitting at my desk with my laptop open doing something else and I see an email come through and I can respond to somebody in like 15 seconds. And I always wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing to, to seem like I got nothing to do.But the, yeah, the, the latter half of muskie season's pretty dang slammed at this point just because of, I mean it was booked solid previously anyway.But usually what I'll do if we get some real cold weather this time of year that, that pushes us out is, you know, kind of extend into, into early March a little bit. So I'll do a couple musky days there. But you know, I'll be on the smallmouth train by the probably 10th of March for sure.And yeah, I, I, we've been booking a lot the last couple of weeks. Summer stuff, you know, is always like peak bug season tends to go pretty quick.I think I've got like 40 to 50 days booked between August and September already, so that's pretty thin.But you know, couple of dates, pre spawn smallmouth March and, and early April and then striper run stuff mid spring and, and post spawn muskie fishing and smallmouth fishing is, is sort of loosely filling up too. So yeah, now's a good time to catch me and I'll have a lot of time to talk and configure out figure out details on trips and stuff.So like I always say if there's anything anybody's interested in just give me a phone call or email or something and I'll, I'll get back to you and we'll figure it out.

Yeah, absolutely.And you know folks always we love questions so you know DM me or email me and we'll get them on the show and like always if we use your question or you're drawing for something cool for Matt at the end of the season and you know I would normally say get out there and catch a few but I think that's kind of futile unless you're maybe going to bass pro and you want to catch one in the tank in the shop. So I would say maybe stay at home, tie some flies, get your gear ready for the season and hope for warmer days. Tight lines everybody.Tight lines Matt.

Thanks Marvin.