Capt. Art Conway of Conway’s River Rat Guide Service (804-746-2475) out of Ed Allen’s Boats and Bait reported that Chickahominy Lake mid-day water temperatures were in the high 40’s in the lower and upper lake and in the low 50’s in the backs of major creeks last weekend, but had dropped to the mid 40’s in the lower lake and creeks and the lower 40’s up the lake on Monday and were holding at those levels on Wednesday (3/27/2013). The lake level was a little over a foot above the top of the dam and rising slowly. The water was brown and relatively clear in the lower lake.

Blue cats were widely scattered in a variety of depths in the lower main lake. A mixture of sizes of crappies were in some of the staging areas outside some of the creeks, and have been in these locations for several weeks. Crappies and blue cats in deeper locations were hitting live minnows and drop shot rigs with small Gulp baits. Medium to large crappies were starting to accumulate in the channels of the major creeks and were hitting live minnows and trolled curly-tail grubs over last weekend, were mostly gone from the creeks on Monday, and were starting to return on Wednesday. The cold and precipitation Sunday night and early Monday apparently ran them out of the creeks again, but look for crappies to continue to accumulate in the channels and backs of the creeks during the next week or two if water temperatures rise again. Most bass and pickerel were scattered on mid-depth and deep flats in the main lake and were sporadically hitting live minnows, blade baits, lipless crankbaits, and plastic worms. Fishing with Capt. Conway, Hollis Pruitt had 24 crappies. David Botkin had 18 crappies.