Smith Mountain Lake is Virginia’s largest inland body of water at 20,000 acres, and it has been quietly producing striped bass of a size and quality that fly fishers from well beyond Virginia’s borders are starting to notice. Smith Mountain Lake fly fishing is primarily a striper game, and it is a serious one. The tailrace below Smith Mountain Dam and the main lake’s channel structure hold landlocked striped bass year-round, with seasonal surface feeding opportunities that are as exciting as any striper fishing in the East.
The tailrace below Smith Mountain Dam is the epicenter of Smith Mountain Lake fly fishing, particularly from fall through spring. When the generators are running and water is flowing through the dam, stripers stack in the churning current below the structure and feed aggressively on shad and alewives being pulled through the turbines. Fly fishing this water with a large white or olive Deceiver on a sinking line is about as straightforward as striper fishing gets — get the fly down, strip it back, hold on. Fish in the tailrace run large. Double-digit stripers are the expectation, not the exception, from October through April.
Summer Smith Mountain Lake striper fishing requires early alarms and a willingness to be on the water before first light. Stripers retreat to deeper, cooler water as surface temperatures climb, but they push hard onto the surface during the brief low-light windows of dawn and dusk, particularly in the upper lake arms where shad schools concentrate. Find breaking fish, present the fly in front of the school rather than into it, and retrieve fast. Summer striper surface feeding is brief, violent, and one of the most entertaining hours of fly fishing Virginia offers.
Largemouth bass and smallmouth bass provide Smith Mountain Lake fly fishing opportunities throughout the warmer months, particularly along the rocky points and chunk rock banks of the main lake. Smallmouth on Smith Mountain are an underutilized resource — fish the rocks with crayfish and sculpin patterns in summer and fall and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Target Species: Striped Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Catfish Best Seasons: October–April (tailrace stripers) | May–September (dawn/dusk surface stripers) Fly Patterns: Deceivers, Clousers, large white streamers, poppers, crayfish patterns Notable Areas: Smith Mountain Dam tailrace, Roanoke River arm, Blackwater River arm, main lake channel humps
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