Clear Water Lake Trout March 15th

Dad and I headed over went trout fishing at lake Tuckahoe with the bass boat. They had stocked 2 days earlier and there were a lot of other fishermen on the water including 7 other boats. We saw lots of trout but they weren't very co-operative. We tried spinners, jigs, spoons, power bait, Yo-Zuri Pinn minnows and salmon eggs. I hooked and lost 3 differnt trout, and Dad caught a brook and a rainbow while also losing another rainbow on salmon eggs rigged with split shot and a bobber. There where a lot of gold trout in the lake and they would follow a bait it but they would not hit anything. We saw a lot of trout being caught but no golds. One guy did have one on a stringer but that's about it. The water was between 44 and 47 degrees. We managed to dodge the rain and the wind and even though I didn't catch any fish I did have a good time.

March 11th

I walked below the house and tried slowly fishing a black G-tail on a sunny afternoon. I had one little bass chase it back to the bank but other than that I had no bites. The river was especially clear for the Greenbrier and falling which didn't help. The water is still very cold. Waiting on fish to bite in the spring is like waiting for flowers to pop up. A very few start early and it seems like take forever but one day they are everywhere in full bloom.

Early Crappie Fishing On The Bluestone

Roger,Dad, and I started out on around 9am on Bluestone Lake. We crappie fished with minnows and jigs tipped with minnows. Roger caught 6, I caught 2 crappie and a bluegill, and Dad caught 2 crappies. Had the wind not gotten tough I believe we would have caught a lot more fish. We saw a guy catch a small musky on a crankbait while crappie fishing in a boat across from us. We fished three differnt areas and caught fish on the bottom in all three places. The water temps were around 50 to 52 degrees. The fish seemed to be spread out for the most part right now. The last picture is a real minnow on the bottom contrast with a Berkley Gulp Alive Minnow, it's not live bait but it's close.

PRESEASON SCOUTING ON BLUESTONE LAKE

-Circular rock structure

-The Infamous BillBob Hump

-Rocks on the Pit Bank Shelf

-Brush Piles with Crappies


I headed up to Bluestone lake with Brian to try and start learning how to use the HumminBird Side Imaging that we had installed over the winter. The lake was still at winter pool and launching a boat was really hard. There were 8 or so boats crappie fishing. I saw Elmer Wykle up there and he said they had caught some crappies on minnows. I am still in the learning curve with this sonar but it's definetly a solid upgrade. Having GPS maps and being able to mark waypoints as well as having a color depth finder is really nice. The side imaging definetly works it's just leaning to read and optomize the opportunities it prestents. I found BillBob' hump, some scattered rock piles off the pit bank, brush piles with crappies, and some isolated rock structure.

THE LAST FEBUARY HAS TO OFFER

Brad and I headed out on the last day of February. It was cloudy, in low 40's, and there was some wind dragging in more snow. The water was up a little with some stain which made for ideal fishing conditions. We threw gold in-line elites, Mickey Finn and one of Brad's custom patterns. I caught 4 rainbows had 3 more bites and another 3 or so give chase. Brad caught 2 rainbows and a 16 inch smallmouth,his first of 2009Despite the extremely cold water catching a smallmouth gives hope of whats to come in 6 weeks or so.

SPRING COMES EARLY

Ben & I left Hinton around 9am with Virginia Licenses in hand and headed over to Little Stony Creek. It was the kind of day in February that you only dream of. Sunshine, 65 degrees, no wind and the day off. Despite the warm air the water was only 38 degrees and the creek parts that still had shade on them still had massive ice caps. Because the water was so cold the trout were not real aggressive. Ben used one of his custom fly rods with a green wolly buger and I through trout magnets on an ultra light. I tried small spinners for awhile but the fish weren't having it. The stream itself was gorgeous and had a lot of character. It's a nice place to know about especially since it's only 40 minutes from the house. We each caught both wild rainbows as well as native brooks. I caught 4 and lost 3 more and Ben caught at least twice that amount. It was a real nice day to be out and about especially for February.

Febuary 1st "Too Cold To Fish"

While in Petersburg for my father-in-law's retirement party I decided to attempt
some cold weather trout fishing. It was a Saturday morning and I had to get out and about to combat the cabin fever. I started off at 8:30am a Seneca rocks, North Fork of South Branch catch and release. When I got there it was 19 degrees with 15mph wind. There were more ice chunks than open water. They had stocked some smaller early season rainbows the Thursday before. I tried breaking ice and fishing some but with the river being in the shade of the rocks it was just no use that early in the day. After 20 or so casts my spinner was frozen solid, just like you had placed in in an ice cube. I'm talking ice formed of the hooks, hair frozen straight, and blade won't turn because it's one solid ice chunk. To give you an idea of how dedicated the people of the Potomac highlands are to trout fishing I saw 5 other fishermen, I mean morons,that morning on the stream uselessly beating up ice chunks. I headed back to truck and decided to go try some native trout fishing at Aleshia's grandpa's. I figured that the fast moving water wouldn't be frozen up as bad. When I got there it wasn't frozen but there was snow drifts everywhere. The base of Dolly Sods/Mt. Storm is not a real warm place to be in the winter. I was able to catch some trout on trout magnets though. They seemed to like white dead sticked on the bottom the best. The water was low and gin clear so the fish were very spooky. My camera ran out of batteries, mainly because I forgot to charge it before hand, half way through my trip. In 2 hours of fishing on the Lunice I caught 13 brookies between 4 and 10 inches. Actually only 2 where in the 9 to 10 inch range. I hooked and lost a half dozen more. By the time I left I thought I was going to freeze to death. I have always wondered how cold is too cold to fish and now I know it's exactly 19 degree plus or minus wind chill. Next time the temps in the teens and I think about going fishing I'm staying home.

2008 Year-In-Review Fish Pics

January 3rd 2009

Brad, Ben, Joe and I headed off for a day of hiking and a little trout fishing on a warm sunny 50 degree day. We all used Joe Fly spinners with Gold blades, silver didn't seem to work at all, except Joe who used mostly mini tube jigs. Joe caught one on tubes, Brad caught 6, Ben caught 4, and I caught 6. All 17 fish were rainbows and we didn't catch anything bigger than 18 inches. The water was gin clear and a lot of trout could see us and just would not bite well. Most of the fish we caught were on the lower section of the stream. We had a good time and plan to go fishing again when the opportunity comes around.

January 2nd 2009

Joe Yancey & I headed out on a 30 degree morning for some trout fishing. When we left the house there was snow flying and wind blowing. But after we got on the water at 11am the snow stopped and the wind died. The eyes on our fishing poles were constanly freezing and there were huge ice chuncks floating in the river. We used Joe fly elit spinners with gold blades and caught 20 total trout by 2pm. Joe caught 11 and I caught 9. We each caught 2 fish that were over 20 inches. For a cold snowy second day of the year we had a great day. At one point in time I caught a 20 inches back to back with a 22 inch fish on consecutive casts.

December 24th

Dad and I went to War ridge for a Christmas eve doe hunt with Danny Helms, Don Spedien, and Ron Spangler. We set off 2 drives and hunted around the fields from 8am until 12noon. I saw 3 deer one that I jumped in a thicket while doing a drive that offered no real opportunity for a shot and 2 button bucks in a field. Don saw the same 2 buttons but nobody else saw any deer, some squrriels and a turkey but no deer. No shots were fired.

December 20th

Aleshia, Avery, and I went to Petersburg for an early Christmas. While up there I headed up to Jordan Run to Aleshia's grandpa's old home place to fish for native brookies. The water was about perfect, up some but not too high. The weather was extremely cold mid 30's with some high winds, which made for some cold fishing. I used white and pink trout magnets with a 4 foot ultralight. I ended up catching 20 fish 4 of which were 8+ inches with none being larger than 10 inches. I fished for around 2 hours. Had lots of bites and hooked several more that got off. I seemed to do a lot better below the low water bridge than above it.

December 17th

Dad & I hunted the fields around Claud Davidson's place above our farm for either sex deer with a muzzleloader. Dad saw 7 total deer, 5 of which were around Jeff's feeder at daylight. While he was sneaking up on them another deer snorted behind him near the pond and ruined his stalk. I hunted a loop all the way around Claude's property boundry. I jump 6 deer in the above Jeff's tree stand down on our place. I never could get a descent shot. I had hoped the deer would go up the hollow towards dad when jumped but it never happened. I continued to follow after them and rejumped those same deer 6 more times in an effort to push them towards Dad or get a shot. But it didn't work out they ended up going over towards Maddam's creek.

DECEMBER 6TH "Last Day WV Rifle Season"

With Dad in Ohio deer hunting with slugs, in the company of Roger and Joe,I headed out to hunt on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I left the house a 1pm and went to Rogers and started still hunting my way back towards our place. By 2:30 there was an inch of snow onto he ground and you could walk deer trails and four wheeler paths without making a sound. On the way in I saw 2 does and a spike in Roger's yard, I had been instructed not to shoot the spike since he was somewhat of a pet and I figured the 2 does must be about the same so I left them be. I hunted all the way to the top and headed back toward the fields on the madam's creek side. As I was walking through a green brier thicket I saw brown flash up in the right corner of my eye no more than 5 or 6 feet away.I wheeled around in the middle of the thicket and shot once. No time to think, just react. The deer fell over dead instantly. It was a tiny little button buck. Had I had time to look the deer over I would have let it pass, but it happened instantly. I had hit him high through the lungs and the bullet had taken out the bottom of the spine killing it at once. I was happy to have killed a deer and happy to have the meat but I felt awful about killing a small yearling especially a button buck. I absolutely hate to kill buttons. The way it happened is just the way it happened. That week in Ohio Joe and Dad killed does and Roger killed a 6 point buck. Joe killed his doe at ~ 206 yards with a slug gun and Joe also missed a big non-typical buck at > 200 yards. They had awful weather for much of the week.

November 27th "Thanksgiving Day"

Dad and I hunted the farm again from the Angel's side. I didn't see any deer and Dad saw one but had no shot due to distance and thickets. We both saw several squrriels. We hunted until 3:30 at the farm. From 4pm until dark I hunted below Brad's house and saw 2 does but got no shots.

NOVEMBER 26th

Dad and I hunted our farm on Beech Run from the Angel's side. We hunted from daylight until 5pm. I saw 8 differnt deer, six of which were does and 2 that I couldn't tell. I saw several squrriels and a couple of fox squrriels. Dad saw 1 deer and didn't get a shot of at it.

NOVEMBER 8th

In what had to be the most productive day of trout fishing I have ever experienced, Brad caught 11 rainbows 1 fallfish and I caught 19 rainbow trout. We caught our fish despite super low gin clear water conditions mostly on inline spinners. Brad did catch a couple on jigs and I caught a couple on Yo-Zuri Pinn's minnow. All but 2 of the 30 trout we caught were 17 inches or better with 5 or more over 20 inches. The smallest of the trout still had length of greater than 12 inhes. The 2 smaller fish were most likely holdovers from last spring. We caught 30 trout in less than 2 and a half hours of fishing. It was a super productive day.

NOVEMBER 3rd

Dad & I headed back to Little creek for some squrriel/fall turkey hunting. On the way up there in a field back this side of Haley's house we saw 2 nice bucks fighting in a field. We stopped an watched through binoculars but they got nervous and stopped shortly thereafter. I started out a Siang again. Almost immediately after starting to hunt I jumped a grouse that offered me no shot. I saw a big raccoon and killed 6 squrriels before 10am. The wind stayed down but it is still very dry and hard to sneak on anything. Dad turkey hunted below Steve's camp in the corner but had no luck. I

OCTOBER 24th

Dad and I headed up to Little Creek in Greenbrier county to squrriel hunt. It was a cold and windy morning. All the squrriel movement happend before 9am. I started out at Siang and hunted my way back to Steve's camp. I killed 6 grey squrriels and saw a chocolate colored 5-point. The weather was bad enought that Dad never made it out of camp. He drank coffee and talked to Steve all morning. I also hunted up to the high point and back to mouth of long run. I saw 10 to 12 squrriels total, but once the wind started up all movement stopped.

OCTOBER 20th

Brad and I waded below the damn for smallmouth. We fished spinners in extremely low water conditions. The water temps were below 65 so he had to wear chest waders. We fished pockets and channels picking up a fish here and there. All totaled Brad caught a dozen or so smallmouths and I caught 7 smallies, a fallfish, and a redeye.