Warren County tourism says: ‘Let’s go fish’

North Carolina’s Warren County is working hard to leverage its primary man-made asset to bolster a stagnant tourism market. The county’s geography includes a network of lakes created as reservoirs along the Roanoke River in northern North Carolina and southern Virginia.

The good news is the recreational opportunities on the lakes are far from being maxed out.

Warren County is one of only three of 100 counties in North Carolina that did not record tourism revenue gains in 2016. Warren County’s performance was flat. (We’re on a mission here to help turn things around for folks in Warren County.)

Warren County “shares” Lake Gaston with neighboring Halifax and Northampton counties as well as two counties in southern Virginia. The lake is 34 miles long and was created in 1963, with the completion of the Lake Gaston Dam on the Roanoke River.

Lake Gaston is the middle lake within a three dam-and-reservoir system, which is owned by Dominion Energy, Inc., and produces hydropower distributed by Virginia Electric and Power Company.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the first dam in 1947, it was called the “Buggs Island Project,” which made perfectly good sense, because the dam site in Virginia was just a few hundred feet upriver from an island in the Roanoke River belonging to the descendants of Samuel Bugg. It was known as Buggs Island.

For some reason, the U.S. Congress decided to intervene and voted in October 1951 to change the name of the project to honor North Carolina Congressman John H. Kerr. That didn’t sit too well with the Virginians…and still doesn’t.

The Virginia legislature got so riled up, it voted in 1952 that the body of water created by the dam shall “forever more” within the boundaries of the Commonwealth be known as Buggs Island Lake.

Nevertheless, the federal government project was completed in 1953, opening the John H. Kerr Dam and creating the reservoir known as Kerr Lake.

The key to success in boosting tourism interest in this section of the Roanoke River basin as a vacation destination requires collaboration and cooperation between North Carolina and Virginia. A bitter rivalry, competition or feud between the two states is counter-productive. The fishermen, in particular, don’t give a damn about the name of the dam or the lake.

Ironically, the world record blue catfish, weighing 143 pounds, was caught in “Buggs Island Lake” in 2011 by Nick Anderson of Greenville, N.C.

For sure, the fishing for blue catfish is just as good in Lake Gaston. Zakk Royce, owner of Blues Brothers Guide Service on Lake Gaston, says: “I feel like there’s a fish in here that weighs 150 pounds. We can break the world record.”

Royce claimed the North Carolina state record when he reeled in a 105-pound blue catfish from Lake Gaston in December 2015. He now sits in second place, however, because while fishing in Lake Gaston in June 2016, Landon Evans of Benson, N.C., landed a 117.5 pounder. (He was 15 years old at the time. The champion angler is now a rising senior at West Johnston High School.)

Who is the bravest fisherman of all? It will surely be the person who catches “Gassy,” Lake Gaston’s “sea-monster-sized catfish with an unfortunate name.”

“He’s in there, all right,” so claims Tyler Houck, an author and blogger from Ohio who is a cryptozoologist, one who specializes in the search for and study of animals whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the Loch Ness monster in Scotland or Bigfoot.

Dagnabitt. Could “Gassy” and “cryptid tourism” be a cure for the tourism woes of Warren County?

Well, the “lake monster angle” has worked pretty well for Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. “Ogopogo” is the name of the creature that lurks in Lake Okanagan there.

Ogopogo is the most likely and best documented of all lake monsters, states John Kirk of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club. “Films and video of Ogopogo are more numerous and of better quality than anything I have personally seen at Loch Ness, and I believe…a large, living unknown creature inhabits Lake Okanagan.”

Canadian tourism executive Catherine Frechette said Ogopogo was already a popular enough character, so it didn’t require much promotion.

“There is an interest in mythical beings right now on the world stage,” she said. “You don’t spin cryptid tourism out of nothing,” she said. “It’s got to have roots and legends.”

What if Lake Gaston’s “Gassy” turns out to be a scaly aquatic humanoid that could say: “Catch me if you can?”

Would the fishermen come? You bet. It may be too cold to work, but it’s never too cold to fish.

From the lake, it’s just a short jaunt into the nearby town, Littleton, which has about 660 people and an undetermined number of ghosts.

Visit the Cryptozoology & Paranormal Museum there, if you’re not scared. The museum proprietor Stephen Barcelo can also give you the grand tour of “Haunted Littleton.”

For sure…Warren’s former tourism woes should now be lake woe-be-gone.