Buggs Island Day 1 - April 17th, 2011

Dad, Roger, Greg, Todd, Joe, and myself arrived in Clarksville,VA for our annual Buggs Island trip around 10:30am. Dad and Roger came down to crappie and bass fish while the rest of us were pursuing bucketmouths. The forecast for the weeks was sunny and very hot. Their had been a cold front their on the day before and when we arrived we found the dreaded high sky blue birds and heavy winds. After getting checked in our house we headed off ironically to Bluestone Creek, drive all that way only to head off to Bluestone.  Joe and I ran out to the main lake and tried cranking some rip-rap with not luck. I thought maybe if we fished deeper than 5 feet we wouldn't be as affected by the high skies. We did find a few in main lake pockets, cuts, and coves, but the main lake was pretty slow. Joe picked two up a jig-n-pig shallow, I caught two on squirrel tail worm shakey head. We caught several good fish in and around Ochonochee harbor. I think it's because many tournaments have their weigh-ins their and "restock" the harbor frequently on weekends. It's a cheap way to catch fish I know but I'm not above it. I ended up with 5, Joe with 5 all large mouth.  Joe did hook and lose a big chain pickerel on a jig that broke him off.  Greg and Todd found a good spot off of a main like point and ended up with 20 some fish off of shakey heads and spinners.

The first fish of the trip.

High Skies and Falling Water - April 14th, 2011

  I fished Bluestone alone from 10am to 2pm. The dam was pulling water running 14 gates and it was the dreaded post cold front blue bird skies that I love so much. Water surface temps ranged from 55 to 60 degrees.  I tried fishing Bull Falls but the current was so heavy up there that you couldn't effectively fish slow even with the trolling motor wide open. I did manage one 10 inch smallie on a squirrel tail worm rigged shakey below Bertha in about 6 feet of water. Other than the one fish I got no other bites. I talked to Brian Ball out on the lake he to had only caught one fish down around the dam on a crankbait. He had tried a spinner bait in the stained water with no luck. Another bass fisherman I talked to in the pits had struck out on throwing flukes below the pit bank. Then again I knew today's conditions would make for tough fishing anywhere except a farm pond. There is some hope for me though, my next stop will be Buggs Island Sunday morning.

Bluegills in the Warm Sunshine - April 10th, 2011

Brad, Bella, Melissa, Avery, and I headed up to Lowell to do a little bluegill fishing on a warm sunny Sunday afternoon. We all cuaght several bluegills and the girls had fun. Bella caught her first fish. We used worms and bobbers in the shallow end of pond.

Avery's 1st catch of 2011



Bella's first ever fish. Congrats Bella.



Shanklin's Shines Again - April 9th, 2011




My best work in a long while. 5.0lbs. Smallie via black tube

 



 

1.7lbs. Smallie who fought as hard as the 5 pounder.

Thank the Lord it's Spring Flowers.




3.2 lbs bass also via black tube.

 

 Brad and I fished from his renovated Jon boat turned bass boat on the New from 12 till 4pm. The thunderstorms cut our day short or I believe we would have had more fish pics to show. The water was way high and rising even more from last nights thunderstorms. We had air temps in the 60's and water temps in the 50's. I started the day off right on my 3rd cast catching a 5.0 lbs. small on the digital scales. He came off of a black tube out from a ledge right underneath my feet.  I having been dreaming about a fish like him all winter long. We worked 4 other familiar spots catching fish on 2 of them before the weather cut out trip short. If it had just been rain we would have carried on but the strong lightening sent us packing long before we wanted to.

Mountain Valley Lake - April 8th, 2011

Greg and I fished out of the Crawdad from 10am till 4pm boating only 4 bass. All of your fish came off of squrriel tail worms ran on shakey heads. We missed a few more. I caught 3 and Greg caught 1. Greg had the big fish at 2.8lbs. We thought we would pick a few more up but they just didn't want to feed very well today. You might come back tommorow and do great. But post cold front they seemed a little unwilling to hit well.

2.8 lbs. Bass by Greg Nahodil



A less then 2.8lbs. Bass by Austin



Todd's Big Bass Bonanza - April 4th, 2011

On a day with rising water, warm air, a front coming, and some big fish having been caught in last 7 days Todd and I fished Bluestone Lake from 9:30 till 3:00. In epic fashion Todd went off with his Shakey worm. He caught a 6.3 lbs monster LMB that was 22 inches long with a gerth of 16.5 inches. Then he turned around and caught a 3.1lbs, followed by a solid 1.5 lbs. smallie keeper, and then finished it off with a 4.0 lbs. bucket mouth.  As for me, well I mostly drove the boat, netted Todd's fish, and took pictures.



Todd's 6lbs 5oz. monster LMB



Notice the 16.5 inch girth on this fish.

Click on this pic and look closely at this fish's bulging eyes. This was a big fish.



3.1 lbs. LMB



4.0 lbs. LMB

 In the last 7 days Greg caught a 7 lbs.. 9oz. giant of a LMB, I caught a 4.4 Smallie as well as a 4lbs Rainbow, and Todd has caught these fish along with a 4.5 lbs. LMB yesterday.  The last week of March into the first week of April is making a real strong case for being the best big fish week of the year so far.

Last Remaining Light - April 3rd

Sunday after work I fished the Greenbrier below the house for an hour. I lost 3 tubes and caught this 2.6 lbs. small beside a large underwater boulder in about 6 feet of water. He hit a 3 inch green pumpkin tube.

The Lonely Smallmouth - March 31st, 2011

I fished from 11am till 1pm on the Greenbrier. I hole hoped and pitched tubes.  It was cold with colder air on it's way in. This has been a slow start to spring so far. The river level was stable but by no means high. I caught only on but was a solid 2.5lbs smallie that was cuaght behind WWCC's old pier. It seems that the fish want a jig-n-pig more when the water is flood level high and when it's lower and cleaner they prefer tubes.

First Smallies of the Year - March 30th

I have been cold water smallmouth fishing no less than 10 times this year with no smallmouths to show for it.  Dozens of lost jigs but no fish. Finally today my luck changed. I fished the Greenbrier for 2 hours on a cold rainy day. The river was stable to coming up and the water seemed clearer than it had in some time. I caught all 3 of my fish on earthly colored tubes. I caught a 2.5lbs, 2.1lbs., and  a 4.4lbs fish. The 4.4 was very long and if was caught again in the fall will probably weigh 5+lbs, it was a long fish 22 inches. plus. The pics aren't great because I was by myself and had nobody to take them. Despite a slow start to my smallie season and many lost jigs today sure was sweet.

The forage. Small Gitzit tubes 

2.1 lbs. Smallmouth



4.4 lbs. Smallmouth




Tired after the fight



2.5 lbs. Smallie

Cold Weather Trout Redux - March 25th

We decided since spring weather is on hold we would go back to winter trout fishing until the weather started to break. Brad I trout fished from 2:30 to 5:30 in fairly high water, it was 62.5 on the USGS. I previously had thought anything above 55 percentile was too high but we did well. The water was falling on the hydro graph and it was stained but not muddy. We ended up catching 37 trout total. All good sized fish. I caught 21 and Brad 16. I had one fish over 4lbs and another over 3lbs. We hooked and lost several more fish. The cold weather is supposed to continue for several more days. We were unable to determine if they had stocked some more fish or if there were hold overs that hadn't been fished in a while.  If they did stock new fish they came from the same supplier not the state because they were the same Canadian subspecies of rainbow that they have been stocking for the last 4+ years up here.                                                            

The Musky That Got Away - March 24th

I fished by myself in the cold at the JB reservoir for an hour, below the dam, and below the house. The air was cold, in the high 30's. It had been real warm the previous few days and the I knew the sudden temp drop would make chasing bass particularly difficult. I got zero bass bites, but did hook and lose a Musky below the dam adjacent to the spillway. I was working a jig-n-pig in real slow when right a the bank I saw a flash behind the jig so I just killed the jig and let it fall. I felt a small tick and set the hook. For about 4 seconds it was on. A musky came up jumped, turned, did a little tail walk and then spit the jig. He was a solid 35 inch musky. I tried fishing there for about 45 more minutes but had no success in getting him to hit again.

Trips to the Lake

I have had my bass boat since July 2, 2007.  After some checking on this blog I figured out that I have had it on the water fishing 145 times in 10 days short of 3.5 years. That averages out to 41.4 trips per year. It would be more had a couple of my friends not also have bass boats and a trend toward fishing the river more.

Greenbrier Smallie - March 21st, 2011

Joe and I fished the Greenbrier near the house from 8am till noon. We fished with jig-n-pigs, tubes, and I even tried a jerkbait. I had one bite I am sure was a smaller fish with no other bites. Joe caught one bass that was 3.1lbs and had another larger fish hooked up above lowell market.

Plum Out of Luck - March 16th

Dad and I fished Plum Orchard Lake on a beutiful day with air temps in the 60's and only a little wind. The water was clear and still very cold with surface temps only around 45 to 47 degrees. We tried jerk baits and then drop shot with no luck. I saw one bass up shallow but it spooked out to deeper water quickly before I could even get a cast off.

Feels Like Spring - March 13th

 We launched out of Ivy Hill on what was to be the last day of our trip. It was close to 50 degrees at daylight and would warm up to the lower 70's with very little wind. It was the best I've felt outdoors in months. Staying with our jerkbait pattern while trying to refine it a little we caught 5 bass and missed one more in the beach coves. Then we picked up 3 more in campground cove. From there we went on to hammer the fish in the back corner of Island Creek. At one point back in Island Creek Jason put on a larger clown colored Smithwick Rouge only to hook a good sized 3lbs. bass that broke his line at the boat when he tried to pick it up. The last time we saw the Rouge it was in the fishes mouth as he swam off. We also caught fish in Rushing Creek and Powerline Cove. We caught fish everywhere and every time we stopped the boat. We ended up with 16 fish, I had 9 and Jason had 7. 13 of our 16 fish were > 14 inches. And we had 3 fish over 3lbs in that bunch. It was a fun day. We fished till 3 and started our long trip home.

First Bass of the Year - March 12th

We fished Grassy and it was slow at first. But the sun was out and it was warming up. We tried shallow junk fishing then figured out that in 50 degree water the fish were out deeper. Jason suggested that we go throw jerk baits on points and coves that were near main creek channels. It made perfect sense and it was working. We caught 3 in the first place we tried including a 3lbs fish that Jason caught. We then ran all over Grassy picking up a fish here and a fish there. The right side of Beaver pond creek had some of the better stucture that places I had fished in Grassy before. We tried fishing back in Essex and we did catch some fish at the mouth of Essex but there were fishermen everywhere back there so we skipped fishing farther back. We ended up with 9 bass, 7 of which were keepers. The other guys on this trip were fishing shallow and were really struggling despite being some talened and accomplished fishermen.

White Bass Only - March 11th

Jason & I left Hinton at 9am to go prefish Kerr for his BASS weekend series the following weekend. We left Hinton with snow flying. When we got to Bluestone Creek launch ramp it was only 47 degrees with wind 10 to 20mph. The main lake was muddy, but the creeks were very clear. We fished secondary points, Goodell creek, Clarksville rip-rap,rocky channel banks and even launch ramp cove. We tried cranks, spinnerbaits, jigs, and lipless cranks with no luck. The wind nearly pushed us off the lake. Jason did land one 8 inch white bass off the main Bluestone creek channel.The was was only 50 degrees. Muddy cold water can be a real killer for an LMB bite. Luckily for us the weater for Saturday and Sunday were expected to dramatically improve.

The One That Got Away - Febuary 26th

With both the Greenbrier and the New rivers on the rise after 1.5 inches of rain, Brad and I gave winter smallies the old college try. We fished for 6 hours, hole hoping between Sandstone to Hinton. The water was close to perfect, but we could hardly buy a bite. The water was still very cold  and the fish just weren't real active despite the rising water levels. I did get one hook up on the Greenbrier that got way. I didn't get a good hook set and it just spit the jig. As far as I know that was our only bite.

Pitching a No Hitter - Febuary 21st

While the New River is still really low, the Greenbrier is on the rise. So I fished 3 or 4 of my favorite winter holes plus a couple that were new to me. I pitched a jig'n pig for about 3 hours with no bites. I did manage to have 6 KIA's = lost jigs. I threw some tubes as well, but it wasn't meant to be. The 2 new holes up the river from the house have great promise to produce good fish. In fact I lost a huge bass in May of 2002 on a float trip at one of these holes, so I know they are there.

A Walk In The Snow - January 29th

Brad and I braved 8 inches of snow to search for some trout. I caught 4 and Brad caught 1 and lost 2 more. The warm air temps was melting snow and raising water levels. It was at 55 percent when we got there and was up to 62 by time we left.