I Doa Need No Steenkin' Shad!

I decided I would stay below the Benjamin Harrison Bridge all day.  I've been having issues with my automatic tilt and trim, and have been forced to manually adjust it.  When launching, I had the motor set a little too low and tore my prop and skeg up pretty good. 

I set the gill net twice and it yielded me two cutters.  I said enough and went to fish with what I had and in the meantime set my net about 100 yards upriver of me.  Well, I fished the hole for 30 minutes and pulled a 38# in.  He was pulling drag at will and I thought I finally had me a 60, but it was still a fun fish!

37.85# - 40":

I then went to retrieve my net, and it was HEAVY.  Reports of the shads' demise are greatly exaggerated!  I kept only the ones hooked in the gills and/or bleeding, which amounted to 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket full.  And counted all that I released which was 55.  So I had probably 80-90 from that set of my gill net.  I know it's a good idea to stay with your net, but when bait was as slow as it was that morning, I thought I would come back to just a handful of cutters and catfish.

I contnued fishing between Benjamin Harrison and Flowerdew, and got two other good takedowns but no hookups.  Got off the water at 4pm and headed for home. 

Final tally for the day:  37.85#-40"

Ain't No Stopping Us Now

James (Muzkrat) tagged along for a fishing trip yesterday.  We left Lynchburg bright and early at 2:30am.  Got to the ramp at 5am hoping to get bait and partake in the "morning bite", but it wasn't meant to be.  We set the gill net in Deep Bottom for two hours for 1 cutter.  We were headed back to the ramp to take out and go fish downriver where I know I can find bait, but on the way we ran into RiverLizard and he pointed us to a spot where we could throw for medium sized shad, and it was a great tip!  Even with my 3ft Wal-Mart cast net, we were able to get enough bait for the day in about 20 minutes of throwing.  Off to the first hole!

Well....damn tilt was stuck again.  So we putter down the loop at a walking pace with the prop just barely under the water, kicking up a monster wake.  We had no speed, so we only fished the loop yesterday, which really limited our options.

Bite was super slow.  We only had two bites - and that includes dink nibbles and all.  But one of them was sweet.  We were just about asleep basking in the warm sun when a rod goes down hard and James pops up to get the fish.  The rod is shaking in the holder and he's having trouble getting the rod from the holder.  He finally gets it out and fights the fish to the boat.  It kept getting bigger and bigger the closer it got, and I even had trouble lifting it into the boat.

The fish went 56# and was 46" long. It's James' biggest fish and the largest fish landed in my boat yet.  James was stoked and it's always a good feeling to put somebody on a nice fish or PB, so I was stoked too.  We only fished a couple more spots all day as the wind picked up big, so we went back in around 5pm.

What a beast for a new P.B!  56# - 46":



I'd like to add, Mike (Cameron_Krazie) and Bruce (Redcat) offered to lend assistance getting my tilt unstuck.  Mike hopped aboard and had his arm in the water up to his shoulder trying to find the manual release that I knew nothing about.  He got my unit lowered enough to where I could go faster but still get my boat up the ramp.  Bruce gave me his screwdriver so I could adjust the tilt for the road.  Great guys and they give catfishermen a good name.  Thanks guys!