About Me

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Raleigh, NC
Born in Richmond, Virginia, grew up in Kernersville, North Carolina, and now reside in Raleigh. I attribute most of my fishing prowess to my father, who took me fishing often as a child. We would regularly do float trips on the James River in Virginia, which is where I learned to love canoeing and river fishing. Unfortunately, my father has passed, but he lives on through my passion for chasing fish from my canoes. I intend to pass this love for fishing and the outdoors onto my children and can't wait to share these experiences with them. I currently have 4 canoes: Customized Old Town Guide 119, Customized Mohawk 16 Royalex, Coleman Scanoe, and 12' Indian River Solo.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Striper, Largemouth, and Goats ... Oh My!

My friend Mack called me a last week and asked me to reserve the following Friday for a fishing trip.  I told him I could go, but I'd have to take a vacation day.  We spoke on Wednesday to discuss our options for a trip and Mack suggested a river I'd never fished before.  I was skeptical to say the least as I wanted to make the most of my vacation. 

After checking river data and weather, I agreed to Mack's suggested locale.  Mack brought along a friend (Mike) and we all met at the put in around 6:30 am to shuttle cars. 


We launched around 7:15 am and made a short paddle upstream to some riffles under the bridge.  Along the way, I landed my first fish of the day, a nice largemouth on a Super Spook.


Mike mentioned that he saw some schooling stripers in the pool above and we headed up to try and catch a few.  I'd never caught a striper until today and man was it a good time!  After an hour or so of steady action, we pulled anchor and headed downstream and continued our streak of stripers for another hour or so.  All in all, I caught about 20 stripers today, most in the 2-4 lb range.  I caught two around 5 lbs and all but one came on a "walk the dog" type topwater lure.  I lost two lures to big fish that never made it into the boat, but that's a small price to pay for a morning filled with hot topwater striper action.  Here are a few shots. 





We continued downstream in hopes of catching a few largemouth.  The water was relatively clear but deep and I tried a few different lures (soft swimbait, lizard, frog) before settling in on the buzzbait.  I ended up throwing the buzzer most of the day and caught about 20 largemouth in total.  Here are a few of the fish, including a chunky 4 lber, which was the biggest largemouth of the trip. That fish hit my buzzer within 5 ft of the canoe at ~2 pm near a rock in the middle of the river and within sight of our take out.






Lastly, while passing a large island in the river, we came across something I'd never seen on a float trip.  A goat was standing on the river bank of the island surveying our fishing skills.  There was plenty of other wildlife seen, mostly herons and muskrats, but we also saw an eagle, an osprey, geese, and comorants. 


  
Today was topwater heaven and Mack gets credit for making my vacation day one to remember.  He also took some nice photos.  Thanks man!

-Jeff


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Great post and report Jeff. Nothing like some top water action.
Congrats !
I bet it was a trip seeing that goat..LOL

Fish Whisperer said...

I had an absolute blast. Makes me want to go back ASAP. Looks like you guys did well with the Shoalies.

Neil Joyce said...

THanks for sharing bro. Need to start thinking about when we can get together and go catch some. I have the fever after the other day on that little pond I went to.

Mack said...

nice reportand that goat was a site to see...he was like...:get off my river".....Mack

Feather Chucker said...

Nice Report. Seriously this is weird. Never heard of stripers hitting in the summer and definitely not on top water stuff. I'm starting to think I don't know much about them at all.

Fish Whisperer said...

I lucked into the stripers. I wasn't expecting it at all. I'll definitely be back!