By Britt Stoudenmire
June in the Blue Ridge Mountains marks the beginning of summer and is a great time to hit the outdoors. Hiking along the Appalachian Trail, tubing a local creek, camping in the National Forest, and fishing the numerous trout and smallmouth streams are just a few of the activities you can enjoy this time of year in the Blue Ridge.
Hiking up little Stony Creek in Giles County to Cascades Falls is a must see. If gorgeous views of the scenic, 60â waterfall arenât enough, Little Stony offers some excellent special regulation trout waters with native brook and rainbow trout being the main quarry. If the trout arenât biting, make sure to check out the New River.
The New River starts in Boone, NC and flows northwesterly into Virginia and then into West Virginia where it joins with the Gauley to form the Kanawha River. The river widens and deepens as it flows from North Carolina and into Virginia and has a 14â-22â slot limit on all portions within Virginia. With river wide ledges, deep runs, and a never-ending food supply, the area below Claytor Dam near Radford, VA is best known for its populations of trophy fish.
June is an excellent time for both numbers and quality smallmouth on any smallmouth river in the Blue Ridge. Fish are coming off a long spawning season and are hungry and aggressive. We love to use top water baits this time of year with buzz baits, Pop-Râs, and prop baits being a few of our favorites. Concentrate on more aggressive areas and donât overlook shallow current seams. Really large smallmouth love these areas in the post-spawn because they are normally full of bait and minnows making it an easy feeding location. If top waters arenât working, we normally rely on plastics including tubes, worms, and fluke style baits.
If you like musky, the June post-spawn bite is one of the best of the seasons, particularly around the full or new moons. Musky are aggressive and hungry, and will attack baits with a vengeance if you catch them in the right mood. We like to night fish during this period and if retrieving inline spinners arenât working, donât overlook top waters like a Bucher Top Raider or Suik Weagle.
Britt Stoudenmire, along with his wife Leigh, own and operate New River Outdoor Co. featuring waterfront cabin rentals and guided smallmouth and musky trips on the New River in SW Virginia. For more information on their services, contact them at 540-921-7438 or visit their website at www.newriveroutdoorco.com.