Leap Day Bass - Febuary 29th, 2012

Between severe rain showers I managed to slip in 4 hours of fishing. The lake was extremely low. Lower than I have every seen it. Water temps were 45 to 47 degrees. It was almost impossible to get the boat into the water. I had the entire lake to myself until shortly before I left, which is a beautiful thing in itself. I started off throwing a LC pointer and about 30 minutes in hooked 3 or 4 lbs. smallie that came unbuttoned when I got him pulled up to the surface. Then nothing. I kept throwing and throwing and throwing. Changed color, changed running depth, changed location 3 times, until I found what they wanted and where they were at. I finally caught em on an LC XD pointer in aurora shad. I caught 5 all  within a 70 yard stretch of bank in about 10 foot of water. Two were on back to back casts. I caught 2 bass over 3lbs. and 3 bass over 2lbs. giving me a five fish weighing in at over 12lbs. Four of my fish were smallies and the largest was a LMB.  By 3pm the rain and wind were making a comeback so being short on time anyway I head back in and luckily was able to pull my boat our without tearing anything up.


3.0 LBS Smallie




2.5 Smallie





3.1 LMB



2.0 Lbs. Smallie



Same Bass Different View



Wind & Rain Shortened Day - Febuary 24th, 2012

Greg and I tried to put the finesse worm move on the local bass of Mountain Valley Lake today. The weather started off 60 degrees and sunny. Then later came high winds and punishing rain that cut our day short after only about an hour of fishing. I missed to bites and Greg caught one LMB on a squirrel tail worm. 

First Bass of 2012 - Febuary 21st, 2012

It's 35 degrees with 10 to 15mph winds and 42 degree water temps. Sounds like the perfect day for bass fishing right? Well I went anyway and I am glad I did. I managed to catch 4 bass on a LC pointer and I had one more get off on a float-n-fly in only 4 hours of fishing. The second bass I caught was really nice. It seems that big bass like to cold water, because once the water warms up for summer they get really tough to catch.

1st Bass of 2012

The Old Creek Bridge

LC Pointer Strikes Again

4.4Lbs. LMB

First Smallmouth of the Year

2.5lbs. LMB

President's Day Panfish - Febuary 20th, 2012

The warm bright sun came up and started to quickly melt a thick blanket of wet snow. By 1pm the 6 inches of snow from the day before was melted. Brad and I hooked the boat up and headed to the lake without any problems, all of the snow on the pit bank had gone. We went about catching crappie and bluegills with the snow capped mountains looking on in background. We use garden wigglers on a drop shot to catch 40 between the two of us in 3 hours of fishing. It felt more like late April than Febuary right after a snow storm.

Before the Snow Hits - Febuary 10th, 2012

Greg and I crappie fished with #6 garden wigglers from 9am till 2pm. The weather started off cold and got colder as the day went due to a cold front and snow storm headed in for the weekend. I'll bet school teachers just hate it when we get snow on a Friday afternoon. I caught 20, mostly gills, and Greg added another 3 with one being a really nice sized crappie. We had fun, caught a few fish, missed several more, and got out the house.

April In Febuary - Febuary 7th, 2012

On a day with a high temp near 60 degrees, bright sun, and little to now wind. I tried my hand a crappie fishing again. There were several boats on the lake on this day and they all seemed to be catching a few fish even though everybody I talked to complained about catching only small ones. I fished for 2.5 hours and caught 19 being half crappie and half bluegills on the dropshot rig. This warm weather really makes a person long for more warm spring weather.

Febuary Perch - Febuary 6th, 2012

Todd and I crappie fished on Bluestone from 9:30am till 1:30pm. We fished minnows and nightcrawlers on this cold windy winter day. Nightcrawlers surprisingly out fished minnows 3 to 1. We ended up catching 31 fish, 7 bluegills, 21 crappie of assorted sizes, and amazingly 3 perch. It seems that perch are making a comeback on bluestone lake. I have caught one once before but catching 3 in one day means their numbers must be on the rise. Several of our crappie were big slabs.

Wintertime Bluegill

Perch the other Sunfish

The Missing Tubes - Febuary 2nd, 2012

   On yet another warm sunny and  windy day Jason Brown and myself tried our best to hook up with a big winter smallie to no avail. We fished from 10am to 3pm without even a bite. Jason fished on till 6pm and without even a single bite to show for it. We fished Sandstone, around Hinton, and up the Greenbrier as far as Willowwood with no success. I did manage to loose about 20 tubes or so on hangups, you gotta love winter time bass fishing from the bank. At this rate a jet boat would pay for itself in jig heads by about 2025. Jason tried throwing a musky bait some to but they didn't come out to play either. I am really starting to think warm sunny winter days are tougher to catch smallies than nasty overcast snow days in the winter time. I look forward to March when smallies will eat for more than 45 minutes a day.

Panfish Wednesday - Febuary 1st, 2012

Fished the lake on this unseasonably warm day for crappie and bluegill. The water after these last few warm days was up to 42 degrees which is pretty warm for this time of year. John Ratliff and I tried to find some minnows but nobody had any so we went to night crawlers instead. We found the fish in 16 to 18 feet of water. John had to go catch a train after the first three fish and couple of hours. I fished on from 9am to 2:30pm and I caught 21 and John caught 2 more, before having to leave, being a mix of crappie and big bluegills. The nicest being a 15 inch crappie pictured below. All of our fish came off of drop shot rigged night crawlers.

No Musky - January 28th, 2012

Brad and I fished bucktails from the top of Indian Creek to the Mouth of Indian at the New. We hiked down through the feather bed fishing each deep still hole very thoroughly. We fished from an icy start at 8am till around 2pm. We did see a coyote and a bald eagle but we had no hits or follows from musky.


An Icy Start to the Day.