Alexandria Urban Fishing
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Check this out. Think you have to drive way out into the mountains for trout fishing? Well, it turns out that certain lakes and streams in urban areas are stocked with trout. I had the chance to check out Cook Lake in Alexandria, VA. This is a small 4 acre lake thats nestled among the townhouses and businesses along Eisenhower Avenue. During the winter months, it is stocked with trout and during the warmer months it is stocked with catfish. The stocking of this lake is part of the Urban Trout Fishing Program and funded by purchases of trout licenses. You will need to purchase a trout license in addition to a VA state freshwater fishing license to fish here during the trout stocking season.
Turns out that the lake was stocked just a couple of days ago and so I decided to check out the action. There were several people fishing from shore around the lake. The majority of them were using either a bottom rig or bobber rig with Berkley Power Bait. Seemed like the carolina rig with egg sinker was quite successful in landing a mess of trout. It looked as though the trout caught were rather small and around 8-9 inches.
I, however, didn’t have the time today to wait for the trout bite to turn on for me. Instead, I casted both small spoons and in-line spinners. There were many casts where I could see a decent sized 12 inch trout follow the lure but not strike. Seems that I caught the interest of the fish but didn’t get it to bite. It was interesting that after several casts the big guy was no longer interested and then after switching lures I caught his interest again. Then after a few more casts he was no longer interested. It was kind of like a cycle as I switched between lures: Acme Kastmaster spoon