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What a disappointment. I had read great things about Little Stony Creek in “Virginia Blue-Ribbon Streams: A Fly-Fishing Guide” that I was really looking forward to hitting this stream.
We headed east on State route 42 (exit 72 off I81) to Columbia Furnace where we picked up 676; turning north on 749 to the Reservoir. Waypoint 012 is the parking lot by the dam. After parking at the end of the road (there is a barrier), we hiked up to the Reservoir. Now, it looks great. Crystal clear, deep water with nice banks to fish – if you can haul a canoe or float fishing rig up, you would have a great time on this small lake. But, we were there for the stream on this bright 60 degree spring day, so we walked past the lake and followed the trail that paralleled the stream.
We walked to waypoint 007 on the picture and then began fishing upstream. As you can see from the pictures below, there is a very low flow, the pocket water is very small, and (especially from a spin fishing perspective) it is very difficult to fish.
Granted, you can see that we only fished up the creek a short way before coming to the conclusion to move on to the next spot, but according to the map, the terrain does not change much as you penetrate farther in. The map does not give any indication that there are steep pitches that would produce some good pocket pools deep enough to support fish that are worth catching. I did have a few strikes from very small – 4 inch or so – trout. Thankfully, they all missed the lure as I would hate to chance injuring them when they are that small.
We did see two other fishermen when we were at the creek. One was fishing the lake and the other was a hiker like us who had just arrived. They seemed to think this was a good spot…. maybe we hit it on a bad, low water day or just needed to hike in farther.
Mouth of the creek looking toward the lake
Trail next to the stream – nice and easy
View of the stream – as you can see – not much flow
Biggest pocket we saw – note how shallow it is
Another small riffle
Looking south towards the dam
Looking north towards the mouth of the creek – nice deep water
Chris quickly fished this, no luck
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore