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.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Mohawk 16 RX Test Run

 
I got my son up at 6 am to get out on a local flow for a 1/2 day in the recently modified Mohawk tandem.

The canoe performed well and is a very stable platform for the two of us. It's also not so heavy that I can't handle it myself. Bought used and slightly modified, it's also under 1/3 the cost of a new fishing kayak.  With superb stability and a few additional features, the Mohawk will also likely become my winter trawler.

We launched around 7:30 or so with clear skies and clear water. Things started a little slow. I was throwing a weightless super fluke in albino color and couldn't buy a bite in the first 30 min. We hit a little honey hole and I switched over to a Zoom clear/flake fat albert grub with a gammy jig head. I proceeded to land 4 crappie in 10 minutes and my son picked up a nice gill on an earth worm.



We made our way downstream and I landed several bass on the fluke, grub, and black buzzbait. I also caught 3 bullhead catfish on the Zoom grub, all within 100 yards or so on the same bank.



Got a few more crappie on the way back as well as a few more bass. My son brought in this small bass near the end of the day. I still have to cast for him to get it in the right place, but he does fairly well after that. I'm just stoked that he likes to go!





I think I missed 5 pickerel, one was absolutely huge, just missing my buzzbait about 10' from the canoe. I had another ~3 lber hooked with the buzzer and he came off near the boat. Landing a pickerel today just wasn't in the cards.

Lastly, nothing like a cool dip when the sun is high. He jumped in twice to cool off.


 4 nice crappie and 3 bullheads came home with us and the crappie have already been consumed