Early Fall Smallmouth

A few weeks ago, I got up early on Sunday morning for the "early service", and this is the sight I was greeted with at the point in my hike when I first encountered the Potomac. It was about 7 am. It was one of those magical mornings when the steam was rising off the river as I waded, the air temp was 56, and the water I would guess was 70 or so.
The light was beautiful as it hit the rocks. I had to stop and just soak it in for a few before I wet a line. I landed 5 or 6 in a few hours and shot some video landing a few fish, but I accidentally erased most of it. Not a bad way to wake up, I was home by 11 am after a trip to the grocery store.
Work has been pretty stressful, so I decided to blow out two hours "earlier" than most days lately (by earlier, I mean I left only 45 minutes after my contract hours were up for the day). I had packed my light action rod with 4lb test and my vest with only the essentials (a few hooks, soft plastics, camera, forceps and knife). It was a gorgeous Indian summer day, 80 degrees with water temps in the 68-70 degree range. I started wading in a location I knew usually held a few bass and sunfish. I hooked in the first smallie within minutes. Not a soul was around fishing, all I could hear were the geese, and I was shorts deep in the cool water. Suddenly, life wasn't so bad.
I hooked several fish in that spot, and decided to wade up stream, through sections I either had never fished or hadn't fished in years. It didn't matter much, the water is low and its like a whole different river. The old saying is true, "The same man never never steps into the same river twice." Ask this smallie, he'll tell you, check out the color of the reflections in the ripples.

I was doing quite well, and the bronzebacks were in full effect.
Here is a chunky one on the run, one of the eleven smallies I landed . I felt revived in under three hours. What a day, I wish I could do it more often.
Weekend before last, Rochelle and I went down to Gloucester to hang out with my family. My Brother and I got the little outboard running and took it for its first trip on the creek in the undersized flat bottom I have. We ran up and down the creek right before dark and were rewarded with incredible views including this amazing sunset. No time for fishing, the wives were waiting on us, but we snuck out anyway - it was great.

Rock in yer eye!

The bite is on at the Amoco docks at night! Now mind you these aren't the ocean hogs that come into the bay later on in the Fall but it is fun. Caught 4, gave one to a tugboat captain who's deckhand informed me that 2 guys were fined $250 for undersized rockfish, and kept one for myself

	Ok, the bite was DEF on for Sat. at the CBBT (Ches. Bay Bridge Tunnel). What was biting for most of the day however were rather large black sea bass but I was after some big flatties. All in all, I caught like 4 undersized and one whopper 25"-6.5lb er' caught on a 5" mullet. Was GORGEOUS that day as well! Brad will be posting his catch from Sunday soon... hopefully...
	Brad landed this 18" on Sunday with me with full force! Go Brad and he's JUST getting started! Thanks for the shirt to Brad...

Eels, John, and Flatheadz Part 2

Do I listen? Or do I talk? I think this time I'll just listen.

You know, it doesn't matter what size they end up being, it's just the experience of taking part in what that river has to offer.

Life does not suck when you are staring upriver with a full bait bucket.

Somehow the guy always maintains and doesn't skip a beat.

Not a bad stringer. I think John weighed it out to be about 60 lbs.

After almost 12 hours of watching that rod tip and the JD escape us, John says it all.

Pre season rockfish

Ok, well I landed like 7 15-18" rockfish tonight at the Amoco dock. Caught them on my new graphite med-hvy 6'6" with small Penn combo. I tried a small white bucktail at first and they just played with it. Then I slapped on a top-water silver/gray split-tail bass assassin and the bite turned on a bit. It looks as though it's gonna be a while until the bigger fish roll through because the water temps are still up even though the nighttime temps are dropping./p>

Matt's trip to Montauk

Matt sent me this album from a recent fishing trip. Cool big water fishing pictures.

Greg's getting serious about his live bait

Haha, well this livewell is about 3.5' diameter (circular so that the fish don't get damaged and go crazy with a square design) by 4' in height. I spent $60 on the damn wire and I think that stupid ass True Value ripped me off! That dude has ALWAYS ripped me off! At any rate, works well and I put a zink at the bottom to give it weight and to ward of electrolysis.

Freshwater Bassin'

Smallmouth On the Run
(all photos in this post: Rochelle Adams)

There are pretty much only two reasons I am willing to wake up before light: work, and fishing. One of them I actually enjoy getting up for, and Sunday was no exception. My alarm went off at around 5:15, I rolled out of bed, grabbed some coffee and cereal, threw my canoe, rods and tackle in the car and headed to the closet local lake (less than two miles away). As I approached the lake and saw all of the cones blocking the road, I thought my day was busted. Hoards of bikers cruised by and I soon learned the Reston Triathlon was going on, so much for fishing.
I thought about going to bed, but instead decided to hit another local lake that is one of my trout fishing holes in winter and spring - I had never bass fished there in the summer, so what the hell. I'm glad I did, even thought the canoe would have to stay with the car; fishing from boats is not allowed on this lake. I would be shore-bound for the morning.
Within minutes ( 3rd cast?) I was hooked up with a largemouth bass, nothing big, but fun on the ultralight rods I've been using for these guys around here. The ultralights turn a 10-12 incher into a hog, and a 15 incher will damn near bend the rod tip to touch the butt. My tiny 3" slug-gos were like bass candy and I landed 3 more within 30 minutes. In under 3 hours I had landed 6 Largemouths and a Goggle-eye or Red-eye bass (depending on who you fish with). I hooked but missed at least as many. A very rewarding and relaxing morning, with the lake almost empty. Then the inevitable happened - my cell phone rang. It was Matt Grimes, he wanted to fish, and had a plan.
After a run and some sweet-talking about how nice it would be on the river, Rochelle and I packed some sandwiches. Matt and Paulina came over and we headed for Riverbend park, about 30 minutes from here. A nice little hike along the wooded flood plain got us to a spot where the girls could stretch out and relax while Matt and I fished. The girls waded out and sat on a rock while Matt started catching bait (he is a live bait fanatic, and I firmly believe he would rather catch bait than fish, not a bad guy to be fishing with). Meanwhile I started catching smallies right away on my trusty soft-plastics. I had moved up to a light action rod due to the current, but it was still a rod bender of a day.
Hooked up! Oh yeah - I had 3 smallies by the time Matt had caught a dozen crayfish, and that was just the beginning. I fished under the same riffle all afternoon While the girls ladies watched and caught up since the wedding. Rochelle also took photos (all the photos are are Rochelle's). Matt wandered around the river and caught a small catfish, but mostly just explored - its easy to burn an entire day up there just looking for another sweet spot, and there are plenty. I've done it more than my share of times at that park.
I landed 15 fish, easy in 2 hours. Most were very small, but it seems as indicated by numbers on this particular day the smallies are hopefully rebounding from the fish kills that have plagued the upper Potomac and its tributaries in the previous summers. The water was clean, the fish were healthy and plentiful - check out the rich golden color, no wonder people call them bronzebacks.
Heres a good action shot - check out the bend on the light action rod - in the lower right you can see the fish...
This is the nicest smallmouth I've caught in a few years since the fish kills(about a pound, maybe a bit more) , I'm being optimistic and reading this as a good sign.
So many times freshwater bass fishing can be slow and frustrating, and this was a good one. Not epic, but darn near perfect. (There has to be some kind of smallmouth canoe/camp trip on the horizon right guys?) There aren't many Sundays that can top catching both species of freshwater bass in one day (well, that Drum was caught on a Sunday too..). Tight lines!
(I want to say thanks again to Rochelle for being open-minded and going fishing with me and thanks for taking the pictures! All bass were released safe and sound)

Biggest Fish So Far

Early morning, York river, Sunday September 2nd. Greg and I headed out to hopefully catch more big mullet with cast nets, but the tide was against us. We had plenty of bait, but only a few of the big mullet we hoped would score some big flounder that day. But the tide was against us and we took the skiff back and jumped on the parker. We fished Back River reef after getting gas and hooked into a few nice flounder, close, but not keepers. Then we nailed a double, both hooking up with fish simultaneously and landed two keepers - perfect. We had lots of bites and a few snags, but not many takers. A few drifts later it happened...
I felt resistance, drop my rod tip and steadily pulled up slowly in founder hooking fashion, ready to drop the tip quickly if, it got off to put the bait back in front of the fish. Solid weight followed the boat in the drift a few feet as I reeled in slowly and then, the drag started screaming. I stopped reeling and kept steady pressure. The medium-light rod buckled in long screaming runs off and off for at least fifteen minutes. Greg and I were sure I had a shark on the big mullet - I felt the head shakes and everything, but the 50Lb fluorocarbon leader never broke - Finally i was surprised to see the huge head of this...
BIG OLE RED DRUM! 45 inches and my biggest fish by far, but the netting was stressful - he was almost twice the size of Greg's net, and I thought he was going overboard when he tried to heave it in the boat. Obviously he got him - I was flabbergasted. This is the biggest fish I have caught, and the biggest one pulled in on Greg's Parker. Greg is now ready to catch more mullet and target black and red drum after this haul.
We fished some more around York spit light, looking for flounder (we each landed another one just a little under sized), and spade fish. We found no spade fish, but the juvenile black sea bass ate our our clams up! It didn't take long to go through a half dozen clams and realize all that was there were the sea bass, so we headed in. Awesome day!

Gregs sending me text messages

Greg sent me text messages but neglected to tell the story, well, the second was pretty obvious and was labeled - 8 flounder, one keeper.

Honeymoon Preview

Hey dudes - its late, so I will only post a few images from the honeymoon - which we had some much fun on (in addition to the given activities). I'll post more later when I get back from Arkansas.
Kickin' some ass at water polo at the resort (actual, my team lost by one point)
Cool little puffer(?) fish I followed around for a while to try to get a good shot while scuba diving on the chankanaab reef and park off of Cozumel Mexico. Rochelle talked me into diving and now I think I'm hooked!
Rochelle took this picture of me diving on the reef taking pictures of fish -so exhilarating - We had a blast!

belated flounder fishing post

Wow - right before our wedding (thats Rochelle and I , not Greg and I got that Blair?) I went out for a two day flounder extravaganza with captain Blair and captain Greg, respectively. I have been neglecting to post to the blog, but I see the other two slackers have too. I just got back into the country from the Riviera Maya, leaving the morning before Hurricane Dean arrived. Tomorrow I leave for Akransas to visit my wife's (yeah wife, that sounds weird) family.
Greg and Blair - I expect you to pick up the slack and edit the post so the story gets told - I'm only posting the photos - and there is a story to be told - we caught 70-90 flounder (depending on who you ask and how many beverages you are into the conversation) and a bunch more exciting stuff - awesome fishing - just go into mange blog - edit posts and add the text to the photos.







Gregs 25"+ monster - add more greg .....

Back For More

I woke up early again, and all of my stuff was ready, so why not fish for a few hours. I got to Lake Audubon around 6:10 am and headed out with my ultralight rod and some 3" slug-gos. Eight bass later I headed home. They were all small, so the ultralight rod definitely made it much more fun. I found some new spots today, and reinforced one as a honeyhole. I think I might explore one of the other lakes next week - tight lines!

Lake Audubon

This morning I got up early and took my folding canoe out on Lake Audubon, one of 4 private lakes that are part of Reston, the planned community I live in. I hadn't taken the canoe out this year, and this was the perfect place to do it, It was a gorgeous morning, the water was warm and slick as a bathtub with no wind. I hoped to find some Bass, but my record fishing on lakes is not so hot, I like to fish in current, and I know how to find fish there (fresh or salt), the only exception being small ponds (small enough for me to through a rock to the other side). So I wasn't sure how I'd do.
I spent about 4.5 hours exploring the lake, checking out the turtles, snakes and some cool water birds I had never seen before. I had no idea what the contour of the bottom was like (and I only figured out certain parts), so I just hit the points, some of the docks and over hanging brush.
I definitely found bass, and I think I missed at least ten before I hooked one on a plastic worm - they are light biters and I've been used to those voracious strikes from the rocks and blue fish in the York river. I also saw some really cool stuff I had never seen before, I found a spot where there is a rise in the middle of one end of the lake, like a sandbar, but rocky, and bass were schooling minnows and baby sunfish onto and smashing them topwater! This little guy was one of the culprits, and I had many other strikes and misses (mostly my fault of course). I also lost a big bass because I had my drag set too light and the hook didn't set - it just pissed him off and he buckled my rod and pulled a bunch of line off before he spit it out - dang! But all in all a great morning - I'll be back, its only 2 miles from our condo, hmmm, I wonder what I'll be doing tomorrow...

Matt, Eels, Flats, Blue cats and JD Part One

Its been almost two years since Matt Grimes and I have hit our cat fishing honey-hole we found while Matt was working on a big mural in the Shockoe Bottom section of Richmond. Matt has since moved to DC with his girlfriend Paulina and set up a ceramics studio in NE DC. We've both been busy and really haven't had a chance to go fish together. Friday we made it happen. Usually we like to get there early in the day and catch bait, along with a few small mouths, then cat fish throughout the afternoon and evening. We were cramped for time, so we hit a bait store and got the biggest minnows we could buy and a bunch of eels. We hiked into our spot and waded in to river for a long haul of cat fishing all afternoon and night. Our buddy JD made an appearance, but was long gone by the time it got dark. We had our hearts set on some citations like we had caught before, but the store-bought bait didn't quite do the trick, although we landed a mess of big fish (we didn't weigh anything under 8 lbs) and had some "reel" redneck fun.
Matt got right down to business, within 5 minutes of his first cast, while I was still rigging up, Matt hooked into the biggest flathead for the day - check out the bend in that medium-heavy rod! You can barely see the flathead in the lower left hand corner.
These huge fish are masters of camouflage, they blend right in with the rocks on the bottom and vary in color from dark brown and black speckles to bright mossy green. Check out the mouth on this hog, it could easily swallow Matt's foot.
Here is a shot of the cat - 37" (3" short of a citation) and weighed 20 lbs. You can't really get an idea of the girth of this fish from the shot, these fish are solid and hard as a rock, all muscle and head- Matt was happy.
Here is another flathead Matt caught on an eel, this was a little bigger than the average flathead we caught, around 10-12lbs and over 24". Once again, check out the cool coloration and camouflage effect.
Here was my best blue cat of the day, it went 9lbs 4oz. I didn't measure it, but it was probably 28" or so.We caught a ton of fish and didn't get back to the truck until after 3 am. Matt took a bunch of photos too, including quite a few at night. I've added him as a contributer to this blog, so he should be posting his photos and tell the second half of the story, so look forward to that coming soon! Tight lines!