Grass Isn't Always Greener

With the vast number of locations available to fish from a canoe in the state of NC and so little time available for me to fish, I constantly second guess my location choice unless I have a stellar day.  I also spend gobs of time researching new places online that I think will be even better than my current favorite honey hole.

Mack and I have been talking about fishing a stretch of piedmont river neither of us have fished previously.  Both of us have visited the put-in many times and done well there, but haven't floated very far downstream.  To float this area is very tough as access to and near the get-out is very difficult.  Of course, we're both thinking a remote stretch of river would be loaded with hungry fish that have never seen a lure. 

We'll today, Mack and I had a chance to test the grass on another pasture and although this spot showed promise, the fishing was nothing to write home about.  I caught 10 or so this morning (so did Mack), all but one caught within range of the put-in.  Don't take this post the wrong way, I had a blast today.  Those 10 fish made my day and I did enjoy the rest of the trip.  There's always something special about being on a secluded river and observing the wildlife.  Today we saw a bald eagle, river otters, and a heronry (a first for me).

So, after considerable anticipation and build-up getting to fish a section that we assume get's very little pressure, it turns out the best fishing was right in our own pasture.

 

Tri-Fecta

Basketball fever is in the air with conference tournaments on the horizon and the national championship just around the corner.  Although I didn't get to watch much basketball this weekend, I did hit my own 3-pointer.

It's been an unusually warm winter and my friend Todd and I were in search of some active winter bass in one of many eastern NC mill ponds.  Turns out, I found a few other species as well.  I started by trolling a few shallow running suspending jerk baits.  One was a Rapala x-rap, and the other a Bomber Long-A. 

A short distance from the launch, I stopped paddling to throw a lipless crank bait toward a point.  I left the trolling lures in the water behind me and when I started to paddle again, the Bomber immediately got hit.  It was a small bass, but a fish none-the-less. 

I got setup again and paddled 20 ft or so and the Bomber got hit again after a pause, just like before.  This time it was a catfish!  Not sure if it's a channel cat or a bullhead, but I was surpised a small cat attempt to eat the 6" plug.

With two fish landed, I thought I may be onto something.  I started throwing the bomber in the general area with a slow retrieve and short pauses.  My next fish was an even bigger surprise.  This small crappie went after the bomber as well.  That made three species all on the same lure within the first 30 min of fishing.  I rarely have days like that!

I caught one other small bass in this area and we moved on.  I only caught one other bass on this trip on a lipless crank.  My friend Todd caught the best fish of the day just after lunch on a majestic minnow using his new rod and reel.  He just bought his first baistcaster and got the hang of it pretty quick. 

No bigguns today, but we had absolutely beautiful weather and a nice paddle. 

Jacky New Year!

Jacky, as in Jackass, is one of the many nicknames so gracefully and lovingly given to me by my wife.  I take it all in stride.  I've been called much worse and I'll gladly take any nickname which allows me to escape some of the home duties and go fishing on a regular basis.  So, this one is dedicated to Lauren.

The weather was beautiful today, very unusual for January.  Also, I couldn't wait to get out and use some of the new gear I received for christmas (again, thanks Lauren!). Unfortunately, none of my usual fishin buds could make it. I struggled with where to go, and settled on one of favorite rivers.

Apparently I made the right choice on where to fish. I put in on this small piedmont flow around noon and water temp was a chilly 46 F. Air temp was in the 60s with partly cloudy conditions. I wasn't expecting much considering the water temp.  I decided to troll a rattletrap and just paddle for a while.

I started out trolling one 1/4 oz cordell spot Black/Green/White color. Within ~20 minutes, I thought I was snagged on the bottom as my reel was zinging. I grabbed the rod, and it pulled back. I soon realized it was a monster chain pickerel (a.k.a. Jack or Jackfish), by far my personal best. I didn't have any of my "stuff" out to land this fish and fumbled around to get my grips and pliers out. I finally got it to the boat and hoisted this beast in for measurements. 4.25 lbs and 26.25" long, just barely meeting the "Trophy Fish" minimum in the fishing regs. What a way to start off the new year, and this was just the beginning!

I continued trolling, now with two cordell spots (one 1/4 oz and one 1/2 oz) and landed a few small largemouth on the larger lure. I parked in a few spots and threw the rattletrap and landed a couple more bass, 4 in total, biggest pictured below. Lost one a little bigger at the boat. 

On my way back to the launch I trolled one of the cordell spots and a rapala rattletrap in baby bass color. I landed one nice crappie, which made its way into the cooler. I ran into a few other kayak anglers crappie fishing and they were on a hot hole. They encouraged me to anchor up and cast jigs. I ablidged and proceeded to land several nice crappie on a chartruese / pink head curly tail jig. The guys handed me a few more crappie they were catching and I filled my little cooler with 8 10-12" crappie. I thanked them for the fish and advice, and continued on my way.

About half-way back to the launch, the trolled rapala got nailed and it was another big pickerel. This one was ~3 lbs and 22.25". Check the belly on this one.

I threw the jig here and there looking for a few more crappie, but that was it. I wrapped it up around 5 pm and headed home. Great day and I hope a sign of things to come in 2012.

1983

I know it's 1983 because it's hanging in his bonus room with an engraving, "caught by Neil Joyce 1983".  From '83 until about '93, my bro had the biggest bass in the family (~5 lber out of Kernersville Lake, caught on a spec of worm on a diawa pack ultralight with 4 lb line). I think he went fishing 3 or 4 times total with my dad and I during our childhood and he held the record for 10 yrs! Meanwhile dad and I went on hundreds of fishing excursions. Fast forward to our adulthood, he rarely fishes and only this year started to get into it. I've been teaching him the basics and he's been itching to catch a big largemouth.

We've planned several overnight floats but have been unable to execute them due to poor weather for about 2 yrs now. On our last overnight adventure, his first overnight ('09 on the James river), we had pouring rain from 3 pm on day 1 'til 6 am on day 2. To top it off, our campsite was horrible, I was afraid we were going to be washed downstream all night, and overall the fishing wasn't great.

Finally, the stars aligned. This past weekend we floated a local river and camped on the water. The weather was awesome, the campsite was nice, and the fishing was pretty good overall.

Water temps: ~60F (morning), ~66F (evening)
Ambient: ~40F (morning), 66F (afternoon)

Day 1 - Put in around 10 am with sunny skies and virtually no wind. Fishing was slowwwwwwww. My brother caught the first and best bass of the day on a zoom horney toad (one of his first bass on a soft plastic). We hit every laydown and eddy pool on the way down and I caught 4 bass on 3 different lures (buzzer, fluke, spook).

Campsite - After some mild bushwacking, we had a flat spot for our tent and some driftwood to start our campfire. Apparently we placed our tent in the middle of a game trail. I think 15 deer walked past our tent between midnight and 4 am. When I was able to sleep, I was dreaming of being trampled by a big buck. Thankfully, they steered clear of the tent and left us alone.

Day 2 - After a chilly night, a morning campfire, and bacon & eggs, we pushed off in search of some better fishing. Within an hour or so, the ambient temps were very nice, and again very little wind. We saw 6 doe swimming across the river ahead of us as well as a group of river otters.  Although we couldn't get close, seeing the otters was a rare occurrence.

After we made it past the biggest rapid on the trip, the fishing picked up considerably. My brother tied on a $1 white/blue walmart spinnerbait after getting no action on the buzzbait and other lures. Within a few casts, he landed a ~ 2 lber. I had the same lure in my box and tied one on as well. We each caught several nice fish. He landed his best fish since 1983 (~3 lbs) and I landed a 4 lber. Fish were caught on the bank, off the bank in open water, in sun and shade. We caught no fish on laydowns.

We wrapped up around 2 pm and lugged our gear and canoe out to the truck. Good trip with my brother and a pleasure to see him catch a few nice fish.  Congrats bro!  Looking forward to seeing you land many more.

Dave Schlidt, if you're reading this ... this is the same section we floated last October.  I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it was hauling our gear up to the truck :-)

-Jeff

Good Fish

Stopped by a private pond on my way into work early this morning and fished for an hour or so.  I'd heard there are lunkers in this pond and I found one of them this morning.  This fish smacked my black buzzbait and put up a heck of a fight.  Never jumped or showed herself until I went to lip her at the canoe.  Caught a few others, but nothing close to the size of this big girl. 

NC River Black Bass Slam

There are only a few rivers in NC (that I'm aware of) where you can catch all three black bass species in one outing.  Those species include: largemouth, spotted bass, and smallmouth bass.  During my last trip, I unexpectedly accomplished this feat with some quality fish in two of the categories.

I actually fished on a Wednesday, which is very unusual.  After reviewing the weather forecast, river conditions, work calendar, and vacation balance, I made the decision to make a 2+hr drive to visit a Piedmont smallmouth river I've done well in previously.

I pulled out of the driveway around 5:10 am and launched around 7:30 am.  Conditions to start were a chilly 50 deg with fog and no wind.

I started by throwing a small buzzbait and zara spook.  After a few hours of paddling and no strikes, I decided to switch it up.  I switched to a small spinnerbait that worked well there previously.  I landed one small smallmouth on the spinnerbait.  I also tied on a green weightless senko and landed about 4 small spotted bass in one area, including this guy ...

I continued upstream to a tributary river and found very clear water and mostly shallow water.  I lost my spinnerbait and decided to try a rebel craw crankbait.  I landed a spotted bass and a small smallie on the first two casts with the craw. 

At that point, it was bright sun and in the mid 70's (beautiful!).  I had begun my float back down the tributary to the main river and tossed my craw into a fairly deep hole.  As the lure approached the canoe, I saw two large smallmouth chasing it, but they turned away at the last second.  I anchored up on the opposite bank where I had great visibility of this deep clear hole.  I tied on a weightless white superfluke on my light spinning rod.  On my 4th cast into the this hole I saw a nice smallie zoom right out to the fluke, pause to eye-ball it for a split second, and inhale it.  This was 10 ft from the boat and just awesome to witness.  I set the hook and landed the fish below.  I also landed a tiny spotted bass in the same hole on the fluke after two attempts to inhale a lure maybe half the size of the fish. 

I continued to the mouth of the tributary and tossed my fluke near a deep hole and laydown.  I saw a flash near the lure and thought I had a strike and set the hook.  Turned out to be this nice ~3 lb largemouth!  That was a big, but welcome, surprise.

The rest of the afternoon I floated the main river and tried various lures with few strikes.  As the sun set, I switched to one of my favorite buzzbaits and landed 4 smallmouth, including the one below, my best this year. 

I took out a 5:30 pm.  It was a long day on the water, but lots of fun and well worth a vacation day.  I hope to get out a few more times this fall before the cold weather settles in and all the holiday activities arrive.

Rain Rain, Go away. Fished with my Brother Anyway!

 My brother and I have been planning an overnight float for months that was supposed to occur this past weekend.  Well, as usual, mother nature didn't cooperate.  Storms moving from the gulf up the east coast the days leading up to our trip had me scouring the USGS water data <http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt> and weather forecasts all week trying to pick the most favorable float.

Sidebar - The USGS water data is probably the single most important internet resource I have in determining where to go fishing.  It also saves me a huge amount of time and frustration by not attempting to fish rivers that are in bad shape due to rain or high/swift due to unscheduled dam releases.  Additionally, some of the flows log temperature data, which is great for predicting local river fishing patterns. 

Back to the trip ... We decided to bag our overnight.  I was trying to figure out a way to salvage the weekend and actually do some fishing and I suggested that we try a small flow near Raleigh.  The rain didn't hammer it and I've fished it in the spring where other rivers were pure mud and this one was in good shape.  We took a small gamble and planned to meet at the put-in at 7:30. 

The gamble paid off.  I arrived about 7:15 and scouted the water.  I was pleasantly surprised to see stained water with 18"+ visibility.  We launched and starting throwing topwater right away.

Brother caught a small bass within 10 min of launching and followed it up with a nice sunny, both on a Pop-R.  We caught several bass in the morning and brother caught a nice white crappie.  We switched positions in the canoe for the afternoon and I took full advantage.  I started off after lunch with the biggest fish of the day (3.5 lb largemouth), caught on a simple small white curly-tail grub on a plain 1/4 oz lead jig-head.  I was actually trying to catch some more crappie, but I'll take it!

The rest of the day was spent tossing the buzzer and I finished with close to 20 bass on the day.  I'll never get accustomed to seeing a viscous topwater strike near the boat.  I had several on the day and man are they startling and exciting! 

Great weather and good times on the river ... quality time with my brother.  He walked away with my MH spinning rod/reel because he liked it so much.  At least he paid me :)