Art Conway (804-514-1486) out of Ed Allen’s Boats and Bait reported that
on Wednesday April 8 Chickahominy Lake mid-day surface water
temperatures in the lower lake were in the middle 60’s. The lake level
was about even with the top of the dam. The water was medium brown,
clear from surface to about 3 feet, but much more murky for several feet
below 3 feet, apparently due to an algal layer.

A few blue cats, channel cats, and bullheads were scattered in deeper
regions of channels in the main lake, but some were also in some creeks
and on flats. Some crappies have been moving into spawning areas in
creeks during warmer weather, then leaving when cold fronts hit. Today,
we found moderate numbers of crappie spawning around cypress trees in
some creek mouths and in the main lake. Several groups have had
moderate success long line trolling for crappies in creek mouths and
channels. We have not encountered any white perch for the last month. A
very few bluegills and shellcrackers are starting to show up in mouths
of creeks. A few scattered pickerel and bass have been in creek channels
and channel edge flats.

Tom Porter, Sandra Rothrock, and I caught 12 nice crappies, one bowfin,
and one largemouth bass today by fishing small minnows under bobbers
around cypress trees in several locations. All of the trees with fish
were in 3 to 5 feet of water. There seemed to be fewer fish in most
cypress locations than we found last Wednesday. We also found a mix of
sizes of crappies in a few locations in channels in spawning creeks, and
small crappies on wood cover on channel edges near creek mouths.