A Couple Firsts

Well on Friday afternoon, I had finished two out of my three exams, and turned in my final English paper.  My plans for the weekend prior had been cancelled due to high river levels and unsafe conditions, and the forecast for my trip Saturday was not looking any better.  Lilly and I decided early on in the week that we would fish the Whitethorne area of the New River on Saturday afternoon no matter what the weather was like.

Well all morning long showers and storms were keeping us off of the water, but we were determined to get out and hook into some fish.  We had heard rumors of fish on beds, but with the rain, it made sight casting nearly impossible.  After thirty minutes, without so much as a nibble, I decided to switch tactics and go big or go home.  I switched over to my Alabama Rig to try and get lucky with another musky, but I couldn't even manage to get a follow by one.

With Lilly getting bored without any fish sighted, we decided to call it a day.  I was fortunate enough that when we returned to the house she still had enough energy to make some delicious peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips.  They were absolutely delicious!  Before I left her house, I confirmed my Sunday trip with a buddy of mine, Evan, and decided to leave the kayak out and ready to go.

I discussed options of where to fish with Evan, and after debating between Whitethorne, Belspring, and Big Falls, we decided to head to the furthest place, Big Falls.  Big Falls is an area loaded with swimmers, sunbathers, and whitewater kayakers playing in the rapids, and today would be no different.  When we pulled up, around one, there were cars lining the banks and people all up and down the bank.  We got lucky with a parking spot close to one of the beaches; we quickly unloaded the kayaks and hit the water.

On one of the first casts Evan got a nice hit, but failed to get a hookset on it.  I wasn't having any luck in the tailwaters we were fishing so I told Evan I was going to try and paddle up as far as I could to the rapid and see if I can't find any fish hiding in the eddies; he decided he would do the same.  As we were paddling up I heard a snap, I looked over and saw Evan checking on his kayak paddle.  Not thinking anything of it I kept going.  I then saw him with only half of his paddle, using it like a canoe paddle, trying to get up the rapid; his other paddle hit a rock and the connecting piece between the blade and handle were busted.

We both realized that going upstream any further wasn't going to happen so we began to drift our way back downstream fishing the side opposite of all the swimmers/sunbathers.  We were floating a lily pad line when I had my first glimpse of a smallie.  I was throwing a white/silver spinnerbait about a foot into the pads and pulling it out.  When I was about halfway down the stretch of lily pads I had a feisty smallmouth chase down my spinnerbait, but  I got excited and set the hook too early.

We continued floating downstream and came upon a set of islands; we got down to the very last island, and I had to "relieve" myself.  While I was on the island taking a leak Evan saw two nice smallies cruising a ledge right next to us.

We both started throwing spinnerbaits in the general area, but couldn't entice anything to hit.  I then remembered reading a report by a fellow KBF member about his experience in Belspring the day prior.  He was having luck on a senko, so I turned to Evan told him my plans and he followed suit.  I had switched to a 5in senko and he had a 3in senko.  I personally have never thrown a true senko, but I had a few in my bag begging to be thrown.

The two of us were throwing in the same area and it didn't take long before I hooked up.  I was dead sticking the senko; I threw it out and let it sit, then I slowly raised the rod, then lowered it while reeling in the slack, and then repeated.  I was raising the rod and felt a bump.  I set the hook; FISH ON!

I seldom have smallmouth pull drag hard, but this one didn't want anything to do with me.  It was pumping hard and made several dashes for the current.  I managed to turn it away from the current and bring it into slackwater.  Nothing giant, but a decent smallmouth would be the start to our day.  I threw it up on my Hawg Trough and it measured 17-17.5in.  Evan and I both continued having hits, but couldn't seem to get into another one.  I got another good hit and set the hook.

This fish wasn't as big as the other one, but it had much more spunk.  Immediately after setting the hook it leaped from the water trying to shake the hook.  It went aerial a few more times before landing it.  I quickly placed on the board and snapped a quick picture, 14in.  We stayed a bit longer, but couldn't pull any more out despite having numerous hits.

We then switched tactics and started wading the falls.  I soon found a killer pattern for the red eye in there.  I was throwing a Tied Up Tackle spinnerbait across the current, reeling it into the current, letting the current take it down a little ways, then reeling it back slowly on the edge of the current.  Almost every cast I would have a hit, but most were 4-10in.  After catching our fair share we jumped into the river and floated/swam across the river to the truck before heading back to finish studying for finals.

It was the first fish I ever caught on a true Senko, and the first time I threw a Tied Up Tackle spinnerbait which will be added to the site very soon!  Overall it was a great and successful day with about 20-25fish landed between the two of us and a great sunburn to go along with it!

Ten Thousand and One...

Today me and Lilly Goldsmith decided we would hit the water after doing the 3.2 for 32 Run in Remembrance.  Our initial plan was to hit the New River on our kayaks upstream from the whitethorne area, but with the wind blowing good when we arrived at the house, we thought better.  Instead Doug decided he would take us out for the day and be our personal guide.

We hit the water in the afternoon and immediately headed upstream from the boat launch.  We went past the islands and then past the first set of "rapids" before we decided to start.  I haven't been up this far in a while, but it looked fishy.  I started off the day throwing a chartreuse spinnerbait with chartreuse blades, but had no luck; then I quickly switched over to the "School of fish," as Doug calls the Alabama Rig with berkeley ripple shad.  The water was gin clear, and I could see the rig swimming way off in the distance.  It seemed to good to be true, but I wasn't having any luck on the A-rig.

We anchored up just above the rapids, and Doug immediately hooked a rock bass on one of his first casts.  A couple casts later he had another one that came off boatside; they were nothing huge, but the first bass of the season for me on the river.  That would be all we would pull out of that stretch, and we moved down to just below the rapids.  Down below the rapids we had no luck, the shallow water was not holding any fish, despite the water being upper 50's.

Once we got out into the current and started floating downstream at a little quicker pace, I started heaving my A-rig across the river.  It wasn't long before I would have what I have been wanting all year!  Since last summer I have been saying I want a musky, and for the past couple months I have been focusing every trip on landing one.  The previous trip I had two follows, but no takers; today proved to be the lucky day though.

As I was ripping the A-rig across the current I felt a thump, but it wasn't a normal bump.  Instead, it felt like I bounced the rig off a rock.  I didn't think anything of it and jerked the rod to try and free it, but I felt the same thing, another bump.  I was a bit baffled, and then I felt a nice thrust of a fish.  It was without question a musky.  My first musky was on the line and 60ft from the boat.  I reeled the fish to the boat without much of a fight, but at the boat he started to give me a little trouble.  It made a couple runs and took line, and all I could do was hold on.  Doug grabbed the net and managed to get the entire fish into the net on the second try.

We threw it onto the middle seat to get a quick measure.  After measuring it I started to get the hook out, but he decided to do a death roll.  She rolled and got 3hooks into her (1 in the mouth, one on his gill, and one in his back); I guess that's the big downside to the A-rig.  Once we got all the hooks out, she started squirming and squirmed into the bottom of the boat by Lilly's feet!  She freaked, but we were able to quickly get the fish up and snap a few pictures of my first musky, 34in!  We resuscitated her, and after making sure she was good, we let her swim off back for someone else to catch.

I felt accomplished, my day was pretty awesome.  I continued to try and catch another musky, but only managed to get 100 more casts out of the 10,000 I need before hooking into another one.  The end of the day I had my musky, Lilly had a couple nice smallies on her Bitsy Minnow, and Doug had a couple nice bass on his Cotton Cordell; none were monsters, but we had a great day on the river.

St. Croix MH Mojo and Abu Garcia C3 spooled with 65lb Power Pro for the Alabama Rig
Falcon BuCoo M and Abu Garcia Revo S spooled with 30lb Power Pro with 20lb Seagur Flurocarbon for spinnerbaits and cranks.

34in of pure muscle and teeth

Observing the cool colors of the fish

Reviving the fish for another day

Shad Run, or maybe White Perch Run...

Last weekend I found myself en route to Richmond for a busy Easter Weekend.  I left good ol' Blacksburg on Thursday evening and got in late at night; Friday morning I woke up ate a little brunch and headed off to the 14th St. Whitewater Takeout.  At the ramp I was going to be meeting up with Eric (BigEhokie) and James (Lonestar).  Upon pulling in I was slight surprised at the small volume of cars in the lot.  When the shad fishing is hot there is no where to park and you often have to go to the other side of the river and park at Ancarrows Landing.

Eric was already at the launch when I arrived, and I quickly found myself playing catch-up with him.  He has helped me a lot with places to trout fish along with patterns that work well out at Tech.  After the two of us had gotten his yak down the steps Mr. Solar Powered himself showed up.  James sneaks in casually late, but I was in no hurry, so I waited for him to rig up before hitting the water.  Since Eric had been landlocked for the past couple months or wading trout streams, he decided that he would get his sea legs before me and James joined him out on the water.

After helping James rig up, he realized he didn't have an anchor.  He sifted through his car, but found no anchor nor rope.  I went back to my truck and found an old anchor rope I had, but I too didn't have an extra anchor (my brick was already being used by me).  When he heard this he found himself a decent 15-20lb rock and wrapped the rope a couple times around it and called it good to go!  Must be the Texas blood, because the rock was way bigger than it needed to be :D.

The two of us launched and joined Eric out above the railroad bridge before we all paddled out to the fishing grounds.  We made the long three hundred yard paddle down around the island to the fishing grounds.  James and I both decided we would beach our yaks and try fly fishing from an exposed cluster of rocks, but Eric opted to anchor and throw his spoon and dart into deeper water.  When he went to set his anchor, he felt a pop then no weight on his line; his anchor pin had fallen out and he lost his anchor.  So he too was landlocked on one of the other rocks.

After having no luck on the rocks, I decided that I would make the paddle to the 14th Street Bridge and fall line area and try for some stripers.  Anchoring was out of the question in the swift water, and I struggled to stay in the area and fish effectively.  I decided to float down and anchor up, followed by James.  The two of us sat there tossing our fly rods with no luck.  We then saw one of the nearby boats hook up into something big.  A kid, who was about 12, found himself fighting a 30in striper.  He was very excited when he landed it and me and James yelled in excitement for him.

Being impatient, I decided I would float down some, and told Eric and James my game plan.  I anchored up and started fishing, but was still having no luck.  James made his way down to me and anchored about 15ft above me, followed by Eric 15ft above him.
The three of us watched as every boat around us was hooking up, but we couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong.  As a boat moved in next to us and anchored up I watched the guy fly fishing off the bow.  He kept having hook up after hook up, so I paid even closer attention to how he was presenting his fly.  I learned to throw upstream and let it sink for 10-15seconds and then strip it quickly back to the yak.  First cast doing this I hooked up, and then it was game on.  I caught fish after fish.  I had probably about 80 fish, but only 6 were shad (2americans and 4hickory); all the rest were white perch ranging in size from 8-14in.  Nothing huge, but they made for a fight on the 5wt.

Eric left after catching a couple, and James was starting to smell awful.  He had that skunky smell, and I could smell it all the way down in my yak!  I told him to try tying on one of the chartreuse flies I had tied up.  I won't say what he tied it on, but I will tell you it wasn't a fly rod :D.  He knocked the skunk off by catching close to a dozen back to back to back.  I started to get hungry and decided that we had a good day on the water.  We packed up and headed for the ramp; at the ramp we discussed about possible plans for coming out the following day to experience the circus show.  However spreading mulch and fishing with Dad was more important than heading back out to the craziness of the James River shad run.

Setups:
3wt TFO with floating line (didn't use much at all though)
5wt Orvis Clearwater with class VI sinking line
Flies were cone headed calf tail flies in chartreuse

And we launch!

No anchor, no problem!

Eric perched on a slowly disappearing rock

Is that a spinning rod...?

All lined up

Is that a shad?

Found the shad

No more skunk!

Lady Luck was on my side!

The rain and storms would not deter me from fishing!

On Friday, me and Evan Shearer decided to take out his jon boat to Claytor Lake to do a little "fun" fishing.  We left Blacksburg with high hopes; we had just heard from a fellow member of the Virginia Tech Bass Fishing Team, Jody White, that the bass were starting to move onto their beds.  We hit the water late, 2:00, and immediately started over to a cove that produced for our last tournament. 

Captain Shearer, we are very organized when fishing....

We motored in to the cove and immediately dropped the trolling motor and started fishing a dock that was falling apart where we pulled out three keepers out of the previous week.  Evan was throwing a Tied Up Tackle Jig, but I opted to throw the Alabama rig with 3.5 shadilicious swimbaits.  We didn't land anything, but had a couple hits as we made our way back to the end of the cove.  With no fish in the boat, we decided to make a 10-15min run to Peak Creek.

After entering Peak we were both amazed by the number of people trolling for stripers.  We must've missed the memo, because of the 50+ boats we saw, we were one of seven boats bass fishing.  Anyways, we made our way to the very back of Peak and started fishing the docks with our Tied up Tackle Jigs, but the muck on the bottom made it hard to tell a fish from debris.  So we moved off the docks and started fishing a bend in the arm of Peak where bait was busting left and right.  This got me excited and I tried a spinnerbait with no takers, A-rig with no takers, topwater, and got NOTHING!  I did see something very cool though; a school of bait was about 6in below the surface when a solid 3lb largemouth came up and exploded on the school. 

We saw a storm begin rolling in, and opted to make a last cast before running to temporary shelter.  Evan managed to toss his Tied Up Tackle spinnerbait into a tree 15ft above the water.  With no way of reaching it he tried to muscle it out, when the unthinkable happened.  He was working it out of the tree (not even working it too hard) when I heard a loud "POP!"  I turned around and saw an Abu Garcia Verdict in 4pieces with braid wrapped around it in a mess.  Strangest thing I ever saw, 4pieces!  We didn't have much time to sit around and think about what happened; we had to outrun the storm.  We ran around the point to Rockhouse Marina where we waited out the storm.

Once the storm passed we decided to head back to the launch, but on the way back we were going to work one more bank leading up to ramp.  On the main lake we were positioned about 50ft from the shore and I started heaving my Alabama rig.  First cast, I felt a decent thump.  I set the hook and felt a headshake and got pumped; then there was nothing.  I was bummed to have lost our first and only fish for the day, but when the rig reached the boat I saw a little flash.  I quickly lifted the fish into the boat, thanks to 65lb braid, and was elated to not have gotten skunked.  But with another storm rolling in, we both decided that getting off the water would be a priority.

Not a monster, but it got rid of the "skunk"

Time to tuck tail and run!

Tally for the Day
LMB: 1

Setups:
St. Croix MH Mojo and Abu Garcia C3 spooled with 65lb Power Pro for the Alabama Rig
Falcon BuCoo M and Abu Garcia Revo S spooled with 30lb Power Pro with 20lb Seagur Flurocarbon for Jigs.