Hatchery pond at Greensboro’s Lake Higgins stocked with rainbows through the winter
Cameron Loomis of Kernersville got a taste of mountain trout fishing in the Piedmont this past Saturday, thanks to the city of Greensboro, which stocks trout in a hatchery pond at Lake Higgins, a municipal reservoir.
Loomis, 7, was casting a white, 1/16th-ounce jig while his father, Shawn was talking to a friend. Suddenly, something stretched the 4-pound line on Cameron’s ultra-light spinning rig.
“It scared me just a little bit,” Cameron said.
But it didn’t scare him enough to keep him from getting the 5-pound rainbow trout close enough to the shoreline for his father to net and make the day before Super Bowl Sunday something super.
Lake managers stock mature rainbows from a Virginia hatchery into tiny Taylor Turner pond next to Higgins during the winter. Fishermen can catch and keep all they want for $4 a pond. The Loomis guys are real fans.
“This is close to home and we always catch fish here,” said Shawn Loomis, who revealed that fishermen catch trout regularly on wax worms and nightcrawlers.
Just down the bank, Duke Nelson of Oak Ridge had two nice trout in his cooler, both caught on scented trout baits.
On the day before Super Bowl Sunday, ice covered most of 286-acre Lake Higgins next to the pond, but the pond was clear of ice.
Jennifer Lewis, who works at the marina office at Higgins, said the city of Greensboro stocks the pond with 800 pounds of trout in November, then with 800 more pounds in January. Charging for the trout helps the city break even, financially.
“This is a program to give people something to do in the winter,” she said. “We get all kinds of people fishing together here. That is the fun thing about it.”
Lewis said trout fishing will continue through February into early March. Call 336-373-3739 for details.
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