Originally created to provide cooling water to a nuclear power station, Lake Anna has become a top East Coast destination for a variety of fish species. Here, the writer shows off a nice-sized striper. (Photo courtesy of John ‘Curley’ Casale)
February 17, 2025
By Ken Perrotte
There may not be any smoke on the water, but Lake Anna is on fire right now. At least that is how Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources fisheries biologist John Odenkirk describes the action in the 13,000-acre impoundment spread across parts of Virginia’s Louisa, Orange and Spotsylvania counties.
The lake, located about 30 miles southwest of Fredericksburg, is owned by the Dominion Power Company. Completed in 1972 to serve as cooling water for the North Anna Nuclear Power Station, it is divided into two sides separated by stone dikes.
The larger public side, often called the “cold” side, spans 9,600 acres. The public side has the lake’s only marinas, boat launches and public access points. Only property owners and North Anna Power Station employees can access the private side.
Water on the private side is warmer due to power station discharges. Some of this warm water travels to the public side via underground channels. In cold winters, public-side fish often congregate in the lower lake, adjacent to the hot side.
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Today, Lake Anna is living up to its reputation as a quality bass fishery, with largemouths in the 6- to 8-pound range possible. When it comes to the public side, Odenkirk says, “There has never a better time to fish.”
The Virginia DWR began stocking the lake the same year it was completed, introducing largemouth bass, bluegills, redear sunfish and channel catfish. Later, striped bass and hybrid striped bass were added, along with blueback herring and threadfin shad forage for the aggressive, hungry predators.
Jim Johnston has plied Lake Anna’s waters by kayak for the past half-dozen years. One of his favorite spots to fish in spring is Ware Creek. (Photo courtesy of Jim Johnston) BASS BY THE NUMBERS Odenkirk says that recent angler surveys show that largemouth bass are the most heavily targeted species, garnering about 75 percent of the angler action. Like most lakes with a robust bass fishery, many marinas stage at least one tournament league each season. Creel surveys reveal that most anglers on Anna practice catch and release with the largemouth bass, voluntarily releasing an incredible 99.7 percent.
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While the largemouth population is doing well on its own, the DWR began a 10-year test in 2020 to see if they could increase the number of trophy fish exceeding 8 pounds. Since then, the commonwealth has stocked more than 100,000 F1 “Tiger” bass fingerlings. These F1s are the offspring of a pure northern largemouth bass and a pure Florida largemouth bass, known for rapid growth potential and aggressive behavior. F1 stocking will continue for the next few years.
“We’re not trying to shift genetic profiles,” says Odenkirk. “Rather, we’re using relatively small numbers of pure F1s to grow and contribute outright.”
Three days of electrofishing in April 2024 yielded 693 bass. Those classified as “preferred” (15 inches and longer) were captured at a rate of 49.2 fish per hour. Bass classified as “memorable” (20 inches or longer) were boated at a rate of 3 per hour. Overall, 138.6 bass were captured each hour.
“These were excellent bass catch rates and suggest the largemouth bass fishery is at an all-time high based on numbers and size,” Odenkirk says.
Lake Anna is stratified into three sections, according to Odenkirk. The up-lake section has water with considerable turbidity that is loaded with nutrients. The up-lake section transitions to the mid-lake region. There, the water begins clearing to what Odenkirk calls a “healthy green color.” Visibility expands to 3 to 4 feet compared to just a foot or so uplake. Down-lake, he notes, the water becomes “gin clear,” with 20-foot visibility the norm. The habitat changes along with the water conditions.
“The mid-lake region, in my opinion, is the perfect nexus between habitat and fish biomass,” Odenkirk says.
Native naiad and non-native hydrilla are the dominant types of submerged aquatic vegetation, with most of it found mid-lake. Water willow is beginning to expand from the mid-lake to the upper and lower reaches, Odenkirk adds.
Lake Anna’s stripers bite best when presented with their preferred forage, like blueback herring and shad, which can only be procured by cast net. (Photo by Ken Perrotte) IT’S GAME TIME A resurgence of submerged aquatic vegetation over the last two decades helped restore Lake Anna’s reputation as an excellent largemouth bass fishery. Vegetation suffered for several years after grass carp, introduced to help control thick hydrilla blooms on the lake’s hot side, escaped to the cold side. Thankfully, that situation abated and both bass and grass are in healthy balance.
Larry Martin has been a top local tournament bass angler for more than 30 years. He ran a Veteran’s Day Fishing Tournament for 10 years before handing off the responsibilities last year.
He says he has never caught one of the lake’s legendary lunkers, but routinely boats fish in the 4- to 6-pound range, and his son Lee has one fish to his credit that hit the 8-pound mark. Martin’s favorite time for largemouth bass is winter.
“That’s when we catch our bigger fish, through January and February into early March. In winter, you can pattern better in the mid-lake, from the Route 208 bridge to the power plant where the water warms up.”
Odenkirk echoes this sentiment, saying fishing down-lake can be “dynamite in winter” as warm water enters the main lake under Dike 3.
Cold, muddy water can make up-lake fishing tough, Martin says. Winter bass like areas where the water temperatures mostly stay consistent.
“The fish are more comfortable with less fluctuation. They don’t like to move much horizontally in the winter, but you can go shallow on nice days when the sun heats things up,” he says, adding, “You won’t get as many bites in the winter, but they’re pretty much quality fish.”
While many marinas have summertime tournaments, daytime fishing at that time of year can, to use Martin’s term, “get abysmal,” with heavy boat traffic affecting both fishermen and fish. Autumn can be productive but difficult as the lake begins turning over.
“Winning weights in the fall tournaments are 12 to 14 pounds,” Martin says. “Winter-series events take 20 to 21 pounds to win.”
Martin targets deep structure in winter, although warm days might have him fishing along clay banks and other areas that heat up.
“The fish are like humans; they like to sit in the sun when it’s cold. I try to fish like I’m a fish sometimes,” he says.
Jerkbaits, along with glide baits and A-rigs, are the winter winners. On the coldest days, Martin will switch to a 3/4-ounce jig.
“Those bass have mud on their bottoms sometimes,” he says. “Just about anything works during spring fishing when the fish are moving and hungry. When the willow grass starts emerging, they’ll hit spinnerbaits. Summer is tough. I often try a drop shot. But you’ve got to hit specific spots like brush piles, points and humps.”
Jim Johnston is a kayak angler from Stafford, Va., who has fished Lake Anna for 6 years. He likes spring when the fish are in pre-spawn and fall—late October into December—when bass are moving up to the many submerged points on the lake.
He prefers fishing from a kayak because it lets him take his time to figure out where big bass are located and then thoroughly work the area. Johnston keeps a log of all the places where he catches fish, and he is keen on Ware Creek.
Johnston also favors jerkbaits, followed by Alabama rigs. In autumn, 6- to 9-inch swimbaits and glide baits work work well for him. His biggest Lake Anna bass was a hefty 7 pounds, 10 ounces.
“For me, it’s about quality over quantity,” Johnston says. “And you can catch some quality fish in Lake Anna.”
Longtime Lake Anna striper guide Jim Hemby says the best time to catch the lake’s biggest stripers is March and April. (Photo by Ken Perrotte) LARGEMOUTHS AREN’T ALL “Lake Anna also has one of the nation’s best freshwater striped/hybrid bass fisheries, a situation that magnifies the lake’s allure,” Odenkirk says.
The Virginia DWR typically stocks nearly 200,000 striper and hybrid striper fingerlings annually. Anglers can keep four stripers or hybrids (crosses between striped and white bass) that measure 20 inches or better per day.
When it comes to targeting stripers, Jim Hemby (jimhemby.com) is “The Man” on Lake Anna. Hemby, a fulltime striper guide for nearly 30 years, is a live bait specialist.
“If there is one predominate factor that influences a fish to eat and will encourage a striper to strike, it is the presence of its natural food source, in its natural setting, presented to the fish in a natural way,” Hemby says. “In Lake Anna, the stripers’ main food source are blueback herring, gizzard shad and threadfin shad. These baits are not sold in a store; an angler must go out and catch them.”
Hemby doesn’t rely exclusively on live bait, though. When the fish are finicky, he’ll sometimes troll stick baits like deep-diving Redfins or swimbaits like Sassy Shads.
Weather conditions dictate tactics. For example, Hemby says from mid-October through January, stripers are typically uplake or in the backs of the creeks. Sometimes, though, they don’t roam from the mid-lake area. That is when Hemby targets flats just off the main channel, places where clouds of baitfish often fill his onboard graph, with side scanners routinely marking schools of 50 to 150 stripers. When the bite is difficult, he tries a bit of everything, trolling a mix of gizzards and threadfins, plus running downlines baited with threadfins off the bow of his center-console tri-toon.
March and April are his favorite times to catch big fish, pulling planer boards with big gizzard shads as bait. May through July are the months to catch big numbers of stripers, with morning outings regularly yielding 50 to 150 hookups. On one memorable day in May a decade ago, Hemby’s anglers boated 275 stripers.
LOAD OF CRAPPIES Black crappie fishing rounds out the top three species anglers target on Lake Anna. With a generous 25-fish limit and a minimum size of 9 inches, targeting brush piles with jigs or minnows under slip bobbers can yield a nice fish fry.
Father-and-son guide team Don and Bubba Moore, part of Hemby’s operation, troll or cast jigs and small crankbaits in March and April, often loading the boat with big crappies. Don says 11- to 13-inch crappies are quality Lake Anna fish. His personal best is a 17-inch 3-pounder.
“No minnows for us in the spring,” Don says, foregoing a tactic that often pulls big spawning female fish from structure. However, he readily employs minnows in the autumn and winter around brush piles and other structures.
Beyond largemouths, striper and crappies, Lake Anna also has good populations of catfish, saugeyes and illegally stocked northern snakeheads.
Odenkirk takes justifiable pride in his work with the Lake Anna fishery. It has long been a destination for anglers throughout central and northern Virginia. With the excellent fishing the lake is currently producing, it should draw fishermen from more far-flung destinations in the years to come.
LOCAL INTEL Where to stay and what to eat around Lake Anna Lake Anna, Va., map. Outdoorsmen can access Lake Anna’s public side at private marinas, several campgrounds and at Lake Anna State Park. All this accessibility creates heavy use by both anglers and boaters, especially during summer months. Popular launch sites include High Point Marina (highpointmarina.com ) and Sturgeon Creek Marina (sturgeoncreekmarina.com ).
The lake is close to several small and larger towns and cities, but for utmost convenience, High Point Marina offers the Lighthouse Inn. Nearby Lake Anna State Park has two six-bedroom lodges, four yurts in the back section of the campground, rustic camping cabins and camp sites. (dcr.virginia.gov ). The Boardwalk Hotel on Lake Anna (kasa.com ) is a new on-the-water property.
Some great spots to grab food and drink include The Cove (thecovelka.com ) in the town of Mineral, which features steaks, burgers, wings, shrimp, a full bar and nice views. Sabor A Mexico (saboramexicova.com ), also in Mineral, is a hit for Mexican food. It’s got a huge menu that includes great fajitas and homemade salsa and guacamole. The “molcajete” dish is loaded. If you want to go a little upscale, Obrigado (obrigadorestaurant.com ), in nearby Louisa, features rustic Mediterranean-inspired cuisine, plus creative dishes like pan-seared rainbow trout with a hazelnut and butter sauce, and a rich pasta dish featuring shiitake mushrooms, roasted red peppers, spinach, roasted garlic and your choice of chicken, shrimp or scallops. The ample bar has a diverse wine selection.
This article was featured in the February 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
