Monday, May 30, 2016

Memorial Day Morning Float - May 30th, 2016

  
Brad and I floated from Alderson to Pence Springs on a sunny Memorial Day. The bite was slow and the river was busy with other people fishing, floating and swimming. I caught 13 and Brad landed 10. We caught our fish on flukes and g tails mainly. We averaged a fish every 16.9 minutes on the water. My biggest three was shy of 36 inches.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Saturday Morning Fever - May 28th, 2016

   Greg, Brad and I hit the G brier early on this Memorial Day weekend for a Pence Spings to Talcott float. The bit was slow early then opened up the died off once the sun got high. We landed 78 fish total....catching on every bass every 14.2 minutes. I never really could lock onto any one thing they wanted. Flukes were my best option, G tails for Brad and Ned rig for Greg. We landed no big fish at all. I lost one around 16 inches on a fluke but mostly 8 to 12 inch fish. The river flow was high and crowded with folks by the time we left out to head home. 

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Rainy Morning Float- May 21st, 2016

   
Brad, Nahodil, Bryan Aliff and myself floated from the dam to the first take out on a rainy foggy morning. There were running a lot of water with 4 gates. It had rained a lot the day before and all the feeder creeds were running muddy. We caught over 160 between the four of us, but not a lot of big fish. Aliff and Nahodil had a couple over 16 inches. The biggest Brad or I had was 14 inches. We were catching a fish every 8.4 minutes. In line spinners and crank baits accounted for the bulk of our fish.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

South Branch of Potomac Day 5 Breaking Camp - May 13th, 2016

   
 

The wind and high water from a week of on and off again rain kept us of the river today as we broke camp and headed home. On our way home we did some native brook trout fishing on the head waters of Lunice creek below Mt. Storm. It was a neat way to wrap up our trip before heading home. Had and awesome week and hope to do it again next year with the intention of targeting the low "trough" section of the South Branch more.

South Branch of Potomac Day 4 - May 12th, 2016

           
Today Brad and I floated from Big Bend campground at the bottom of Smoke Hole rec area to Petersburg. (14.5 miles) I have always wanted to do this float but never had the opportunity. The river was up and muddy on the Smoke Hole side of the mountain however the North fork side was clear. Both sides of the river were up significantly. The weather was awful with rain followed by hot sun then more rain repeated over and over. We landed over 40 fish and Brad caught two smallmouths 2 over 3 pounds and I had one. Spinners and tubes were again the order of the day. We drifted closely by one rock ledge that had 3 copperhead snakes sunning on. This was scary because this float trip goes through National forest with little to no road access. We saw nobody the entire day. We finished the float trip in Petersburg then headed to Seneca Rocks for a hike and ended the day by a bomber camp fire. It was an awesome day.

South Branch of Potomac Day 3 - May 11th, 2016

     
Brad and I floated from Petersburg to below Moorefield on a 14 mile float trip. We caught over 50 fish including 8 trout. I landed two smallmouth bass greater than 3 pounds. The rain was tough but the day was one to remember. We saw some beautiful farm country.

South Branch of Potomac Day 2 -May 10th, 2016

   



 
This day fished liked four different ones. We fished the cabin lot to no avail. then trout fished North Fork of South Branch where Brad lost a 5 pound rainbow. Then we headed hole hopping on South Branch of Potomac were we caught some small mouth bass, a few largemouth bass, and redeyes. Then we headed to South Mill Creek Lake four a couple hours were Jamie caught his first trout, I landed 2 large mouth bass in the 1 to 2 lbs range. Then to end the day Brad and I had an awesome 4 mile float on the South Branch of the Potomac. We caught over 40 fish there including 9 trout and a 3 pound small mouth. It was a crazy way to spend election day. At the end of all that I was elected to the Board of Education for the first time late that night when the results came in.

South Branch of Potomac Day 1- May 9th, 2016

         
Brad, Brian and I headed to Harmon's Log Cabins(wvlogcabins.com) for a week of fishing on the South Branch of the Potomac in Pendleton, Grant and Hardy counties. We floated from Petersburg to Old Fields take out on day 1 (11miles). Brad had the biggest fish at 3.7lbs and I had the biggest trout at 24 inches. We landed over 7 different species of fish and hung in through the rain to have an awesome first day.

Spring Pond Fun - May 7th, 2016

  
The girls and I did some fun and simple farm pond fishing today. Both girls caught some bluegills and bass. Poor Annalyn dropped her pole in the deep end of the lake. I got in a looked for it for a good 20 minutes with no luck. We had a good day anyway.