Big Bass Are Booming at Virginia’s Stocked Smith Mountain Lake

Bass that are genetically tested are tagged with small electronic tags so they can be identified if collected later.

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Chad Green and Johnny Martin had high hopes as they headed out on a recent chilly Saturday morning for a mid-March bass tournament on Smith Mountain Lake, their home waters just southeast of Roanoke, Virginia.

The pair had been regularly weighing five-fish limits topping 25 pounds at tournaments earlier in the year, and just a couple of days before this tournament event (sponsored by the Angler’s Choice boat dealership), Green boated a 9-pound 10-ounce largemouth while pre-tournament scouting.

While they felt good about their chances of taking the tourney’s $10,000 top prize, the arrival of a cold front made things tougher, and the pair ended up with a disappointing 11th-place finish with a 17-pound bag. The next weekend, however, was magic.

Fishing a smaller event, Green and Martin brought in a five-fish bag weighing an astounding 36.88 pounds. Their limit included a 9.49-pound kicker, as well as two other fish over 7 pounds each.

A recent tournament at Smith Mountain Lake produced nearly 40 bass over 4 pounds despite difficult conditions. The state Department of Wildlife Resources genetically tests fin clips from bass over 4 pounds to determine if they are F1 hybrids.
A recent tournament at Smith Mountain Lake produced nearly 40 bass over 4 pounds despite difficult conditions. The state Department of Wildlife Resources genetically tests fin clips from bass over 4 pounds to determine if they are F1 hybrids.

“Man, what a day,” Green told Wired2Fish afterward. “There’s never been a heavier bag in Virginia.”

But there may be more, as the 62-year-old Smith Mountain Lake is pumping out more big largemouths than it has in decades. SML’s big bass boom is an example of anglers like Green and Martin literally reaping what they’ve sown.


The Angler-Led Push to Stock Smith Mountain Lake

Ten years ago, the two anglers were among a small cohort of bass fanatics who helped kickstart an innovative effort to stock SML with F1 bass, a fast-growing hybrid of Florida-strain bass and northern largemouths.

What started as a three-year pilot program supported by private fundraising has turned into a state program administered by the state Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR). Data collected by the agency shows the F1 stocking program’s impact on the lake’s big bass population isn’t simply anecdotal. The lake is clearly producing increased numbers of 5-pound-plus largemouths, and a large percentage of those big bass are proving to be F1 hybrids, which are sometimes called “tiger bass.”

Dan Wilson is the state biologist who oversees the management of Smith Mountain Lake, a 20,000-acre reservoir with more than 500 miles of shoreline. He recalled getting the first phone call from a bass fisherman asking about the possibility of starting an F1 stocking program.

“We get requests from time to time, but most of the time, they really don’t fit with what we’re trying to do management-wise,” Wilson told Wired2Fish. “Our stance has been that we don’t stock bass over healthy natural populations.”

At the time, Tennessee’s Chickamauga Lake and its big F1 hybrids were getting a lot of attention. The group of anglers looking to stock SML was willing to buy the necessary fingerling hybrids, and advances in genetic testing meant that Wilson would be able to collect hard data on how the stocked fish were doing. 

“I could take a fin clip, send it to a lab, and they could tell me if it was one of our stocked fish,” he said.

So, Wilson went for it.

two bass in a sieve
Bass over 4 pounds are collected at tournament weight-ins and genetically tested to find out if they are F1 hybrids. In just a few years F1s are making up a growing percentage of the lake’s bass over 5 pounds.

A Plan Comes Together

Green and Martin were among the fishermen who spearheaded the fundraising campaign, with help from others like fellow SML veteran angler Dean Wood and marina and tackle shop owner Dewayne Lamb. They raised $30,000, which was enough to buy 20,000 F1 fingerlings a year for three years from a hatchery in Alabama and to stock the lake for the same amount of time.

“We didn’t have many donors, but we had some big donors,” Green said.

Early sampling efforts focused on simply looking for those stocked fish, versus tracking growth rates.

“We were able to find our stocked fish,” Wilson said. “In a lake this size, that meant we had decent survival.”

After the first three stockings, the state took over. Since then, the DWR has stocked an average of 47,000 fingerling F1s in the lake annually. Wilson has also started focusing his data collection on studying growth. 

Electrofishing the shallows is one way to collect larger fish, but not the best way, so Wilson and a crew started attending bass tournament weigh-ins. Despite tough conditions at the recent Angler’s Choice tournament, they were able to collect nearly 40 bass over 4 pounds.

“It would take us days of electrofishing to get that many bass of that size,” Wilson said.

That information has proven F1 bass are growing faster than the lake’s naturally spawned bass, and are accounting for an increasing percentage of the lake’s largemouths over 4 pounds.

In 2019, the agency tested 212 bass over 4 pounds, and found that four of them were F1s. By 2024, of the 162 bass over 4 pounds tested, 40 were F1s. That’s a jump from less than 2% to 25%.

The average weight of the biggest collected F1s also keeps climbing. In 2020, the average weight of the top 10 F1s was 5.8 pounds. In 2024, it was 7.8 pounds. Of the bass collected in 2024 that were 7 pounds or heavier, 85.7% were F1s.

While the growing use of improved technology — looking at you, forward facing sonar — may have some impact on anglers putting more 4-pound-plus bass in the boat, the data still clearly show that the lake has more of those fish 10 years into the F1 program.

“It looks like we’re achieving our goals,” Wilson said. “And it looks like a program we’d like to maintain based on the growth we’re seeing.”

Johnny Martin (from left), Chad Green and Johnny Coles hoist the five bass that totalled 36.88 pounds at a March tournament Coles directed at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia.
Johnny Martin (from left), Chad Green and Johnny Coles hoist the five bass that totalled 36.88 pounds at a March tournament Coles directed at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia.

Stocking Other Virginia Lakes

While Smith Mountain Lake is getting a lot of attention, the state is also stocking F1s at several other lakes, including Lake Anna in Louisa and Spotsylvania counties and Claytor Lake in Pulaski County. Results have been promising at those lakes, too.

Green certainly agrees that SML is trending in a direction he likes.

“I think I’ve caught 13 or 14 fish over 8 pounds on this lake in my life and most of them have been caught in the last few years,” he said. “Also, in my 27 years here I’d known of only two or three 10-pounders, and there have been three 10-pounders this spring already.”


More Big Bass Means Changes on Smith Mountain Lake

scanning fish for tags
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources biologist Dan Wilson (foreground) manages the fishery at Smith Mountain Lake. Ten years ago he signed off on a pilot program to test how F1 bass would do in the lake.

Is there a downside to having more big bass? Of course; fishing pressure has increased. While 2025 is a relatively light year for major tournaments at Smith Mountain Lake, there are still hundreds of smaller tournaments held here. 

“The more fishing pressure there is, the harder it is for the average guy to just go out and catch fish,” Wilson said. “But we’re here to make fishing better and the simple fact is that when the fishing is better, more folks have a tendency to go there to experience it.”

Green said it’s been exciting to watch the fishery evolve, and not just because those fat F1s are helping him cash tournament checks.

“I’m out here a few days a week,” he said. “It’s been fun to have been able to see these fish grow up.”

Targeting the Fry Guarders in the Early Post-Spawn

bass getting lipped with a glide bait

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Many anglers turn their noses up at the early post-spawn; they consider it a tough time of year to go bass fishing. And while, yes, the fishing certainly slows down a bit, this is still one of the best times of year to target bass shallow. As the bass spawn winds down and the post-spawn phase kicks in, look for bass to still be feeding heavily in less than 10 feet of water. 

There are certainly some that go into a post-spawn funk, a little shell-shocked from the bedding process and disinterested in biting anything. But there are far more that are catchable, from the last few spawners, to bass guarding their fry, to bass gorging themselves on shad spawns and other prevalent forage. The early post spawn is one of the best times of the year to catch bass shallow. Here’s how to do it. 


The Last Few Spawners 

spawners in the water

Not all bass in a fishery spawn at the same time. The water temperature is believed to be one of the primary factors that notifies a bass it’s time to spawn. So, it stands to reason that resident shallow fish would spawn much sooner than a bass that’s sitting in 20 feet of water. 

As the main spawn finishes up, you can often find a few remaining spawners by looking for areas of the lake that have deeper or colder water nearby. Main lake pockets, for example, are great places to seek out fish that are late to the game. Rivers and creeks with current are typically a little colder than the main lake as well, so bass spawn later in these areas. 

Once you find a last-minute spawner, slow down and fish for it by putting your bait right in the middle of the bed and working it as close to in place as possible. Texas rigs, Tokyo rigs, and drop shots are the easiest baits to do this with. But keep in mind, you’re trying to mimic something that poses a threat to their eggs, so sometimes you’ll have to break out the big guns and toss a swimbait over into the bed to get them to bite. 


Fry Guarders

fry in the water

Immediately after bass eggs hatch out, these tiny bass school up to form balls of fry. Given their size, they are extremely susceptible to the threat of predators like bluegill, other bass, and even their mothers — the female bass are notorious for turning on their young right away and eating them. For this reason, the male bass hangs around the fry, keeping them corralled near cover while he wards off any aggressors in the area. 

Setting aside the conversation on the morality or sustainability of this style of fishing for the moment, these male bass are usually easy to catch. 

In clear water, you can see them and their fry with your naked eye at times, but even better with a good pair of polarized sunglasses. Throwing a wacky rig Senko past the ball of fry and working it towards them is often all it will take to get the bass to eat. You can sometimes even find the bigger female still lurking nearby. 

The ladies are usually far tougher to catch; staying way back and throwing a finesse bait like a Fluke, floating worm, Neko rig, wacky rig, or drop shot is your best bet there. 


Shad Spawn 

bass hooked on a lure

Depending on the fishery you’re on, there’s often a shad spawn starting up towards the back half of the bass spawn. Where bass spawn by pairing up and creating a bed in shallow water, shad spawn in a completely different manner. These little guys group up by the thousands and work up and down any type of cover they can find, using the cover to rub the eggs out of their bellies. 

In the process of doing this, the shad draw the attention of bass in the area. As soon as one bass blows up on the preoccupied shad, another hears the commotion and joins in. Pretty soon you can have dozens of bass gorging themselves on the shad. If you stumble upon such a scene, you can insert a spinnerbait, swim jig, or topwater into the situation and have an absolute blast. 

The only issue is that these shad spawns are typically short-lived, most dissipating as soon as the sun gets up. So, you’ll want to get out on the water early if you’re going to look for one. 

Again, these can be on any type of cover, even floating debris out in the middle of the lake. But seawalls, marina docks, and grass lines are fantastic places to look first. To further narrow down the search, keep your eyes peeled for gulls, heron, and other birds that can tip you off to a concentration of shad. 


Bream Beds 

bream beds with inset of a bream fish

Just as the bass spawn officially finishes, blue gill and other bream start to spawn in the same shallow areas where the bass have bedded all spring. This brings another food source right to the doorstep of the hungry bass that are still in the area. 

Bream spawn in a different way than both the shad and the bass. They do still form beds on the bottom like bass, but these fish wallow out cooking-pot-size divots in the ground as opposed to just fanning a clean spot. And where bass pairs make individual beds, dozens of bream group up at times to create one big bream bed, which looks like a honeycomb structure of individual beds.

As early-post-spawners meander down the shoreline in search of food, they inevitably run into these bream beds, and then chaos ensues. The bass tear through the beds trying to snag a bream, often to no avail. But if you happen upon this scene, you should try presenting that bass with exactly what it thinks it wants — an injured bream. 

Throwing subtle baits like wacky rigs and drop shots into and around bream beds is a great way to trick a bass into biting. But it’s a lot more fun to throw a giant wakebait or topwater over top of the bream bed and trigger an explosion if you want to give that a try. 


Topwater Time 

man with a largemouth bass

During the early post-spawn, you should be able to still find several fish shallow by just fishing down the bank. There may not be as many shallow as there were during the spawn since some bass shoot straight out to deeper water as soon as they finish up, but there are still several big ones to be caught. And locking a topwater in your hand and covering water is a great way to get an exhilarating bite. 

Topwaters like Whopper Ploppers, hollow-body frogs, toads, Spooks, poppers, and buzzbaits work extremely well around shallow grass, wood, seawalls, docks, and any other cover you can find. 

Try to put your bait in the shade any chance you get, and make sure to select the most suitable  bait for each cover type, like a frog for a lily pad field as opposed to a Spook, which is much more likely to hang. Throw the Spook instead around isolated wood, and then a buzzbait down a seawall, and so on. 


Final Thoughts 

a bream and a glide bait on concrete

The early post-spawn is a fantastic time of year to fish shallow. The bass may be a little fewer and further in between, and they can be a little harder to catch at times, but they are still big and hungry. There are a few ways to better your odds of catching them. 

For starters, start early; get out on the water at the crack of dawn and look for birds, which will likely indicate the presence of shad and, hopefully, a shad spawn. 

As the morning wears on, keep an eye out for the last few spawners, and be looking for bream beds, too. Keeping a topwater in your hand as you cover water shallow looking for these beds will give you a good chance to catch a big one while in search mode. 

Don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for balls of fry, typically the size of a beachball or smaller. If you do all of this, you can turn what most believe to be a tough time to fish into a lot of fun on the water. 

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