Where'd the Shad Go?

Came down to fish again with James (Muzkrat).  We got on the river at dark, and began to set the gill net and throw the cast net in the usual spots.  We came up empty so we moved to a different part of the river and tried for bait again.  Nothing. 

Hours began to creep by, and we were still without a single shad so we had nothing to fish with.  At about noon, six hours after we got on the water, we got a call from Dicky (Fokromix) who was also having bait troubles earlier but finally lucked into some shad.  We met up with him and his crew and he gave us a couple shad.  James and I decided to go ahead and fish and quit looking for bait since we had already lost so much time.

We  managed three fish on the day, a 23# being the largest.

23#:



Neat story on this fish.  We had it out of the water for less than a minute, but when we released the fish, it turned on its side and had trouble going back under.  We pulled the fish out of 10' of water, so burping was not an issue as far as we could tell.    We watched the fish drift away, just laying on its side on top of the water.  A few minutes later, we noticed a seagull circling the fish, and after a couple passes it landed right next to the fish.  It looked around a bit then began pecking the hell out of the catfish's belly.  Like magic, the catfish suddenly roared back to life, splashed its tail, and disappeared below to avoid being disemboweled.

Did I mention it was brutally cold that day?  You can make out an ice line on the water in the picture below:

A Bighead and a Convict

Fished the weekend with James (Muzkrat) aboard his boat.  Fishing was slow for this time of year.  But as always, it's great to be out on the water fishing.

Saturday:
I managed to land a couple citation fish, and James hooked a 17# and a 5#.

40.5# - 41":

22# - 38":

Sunday:
We managed one fish, a convict bass, that James took home and gave a hot oil bath to.

4.5# - 23":



ECTT Tournament - Part Deux II

Jeff and I fished the ECTT tournament out of Osborne Landing on Sunday in the hopes of reprising our second place finish back in July.  It wasn't in the cards for us, and ended up being one tough weekend of fishing for me.  I don't recall the exact number of boats in the tournament that day, but we finished second to last with a grand total of about 14 lbs.  Someone took some photos, but needless to say, I haven't put much effort into tracking them down.

Who Got Sprayed?

Fished the river hard all day with James (Muzkrat).  We covered a ton of water and tried alot of different things, but were unable to land a single fish.  I seem to have a trip like this every year.  On the bright side, James and I scouted some awesome new locations that I'm sure will produce for us in the future.

Waiting for a bite at sunset:

Cookout Tourney - 3 for 3!

James (Muzkrat) and I entered the latest ODCC Cookout Tournament.  We came away with the victory, with a boat total of 97.24# on 4 fish.

We got bait really easy at DB on two sets of the gill net, netting 7 shad and zero catfish on each set!  We then made the run downriver below the Benjamin Harrison.  It was a windy night, and when we made the turn at Presquille it got choppy as hell, but we kept on.  Setup on the channel edge down there and rode waves for an hour and a half with no bites.  We debated over heading back upriver or finding a spot out of the wind where we were at, and we decided to stay downriver. 

The wind was from the South, so any spot along the South bank was calm enough to fish.  We got three of our fish there, and moved upriver before daybreak and boated our last fish.

37.24#, big fish of the night:

 23.62#:

26.74#: 

 9.64# dink - eat your heart out Darian!:

What a perfect day to be out fishing!

Thanks to James for inviting me aboard to fish with you!  I wonder how long before one of the homeowners calls the cops on us? ;-)  Don't ever forget that bucket!

Final tally for the night:

Josh - 26.7#, 9.6#

James - 37.2#, 23.6#

From Worse, to Bad

Left Lynchburg at around 2am Saturday to meetup with James (Muzkrat) for some Labor Day weekend fishing.  On my way up, I marveled at how smooth a trip it had been so far and what great time I was making.  Coming through the 'wonderful' town of Hopewell, I hit one of those 55 down to 45 zones and next thing I know I have blinking lights behind me.  Cop tells me I was speeding in the 45 zone.  If that wasn't bad enough, he writes me another ticket for illegal tint.  It's never been an issue the entire time I've had the car and been stopped, but I guess he needed something to do at 4am.

So that was the "worse" part of the trip....now onto the "bad".  James and I launch while it's still dark out, get bait easily, head down to Presquille and boat three fish between 16-20# within the first 30 minutes.  I'm thinking it's gonna be a good day....WRONG.  We spent the next 18 hours, yes I said that, 18 hours to catch two more 5# fish!  It was still a little early in the season to do daytime trips yet, and the non-stop back and forth recreational boat traffic didn't help matters.  Then boy did it get cold that night, so we headed in at about 2 AM Sunday.

Can't say it was all bad though.  I got to go fishing, and that's always a good thing.



Final tally for the day:

Josh:  18#, 16#, 5#

James:  20#, 5#

ECTT Tournament - 2nd Place!

Me and Lizard decided to team up and enter our first big tournament.  It was the Extreme Catfish Tournament Trail on July 10th, launching at 7:00 PM out of Hopewell ramp with a 7:00 AM weigh-in the following morning.  There were a total of 18 boats entered, and we came in a very respectable 2nd place in a field containing some guides and very experienced James River anglers!

We edged out a couple of the teams who placed just below us.  The 1st Place winner Jason (JCat) blew everybody else out of the water.  He was last to weigh in, and when he asked for two separate tubs to bring his fish to the scales with, and when he returned with those tubs containing fish so big their tails were hanging over the edge, we knew 1st place wasn't in the cards for us that night!  Jason was the first angler to break 100# on a two fish weigh-in on the ECCT trail. 

It was a struggle from the get-go to keep our fish vibrant in the livewell.  We didn't have it setup to auto-run, so we were icing and exchanging water throughout the night in an effort to keep our fish healthy and the water temps down.  Thankfully, our fish were able to swim off after weigh-in.  Next time we'll be better prepared.

Standings (Top 3):

Jason Kintner / Matthew Hedrick - 62.1#, 54.5#.....116.6 Total Weight

Jeff Parks / Joshua Pritchett - 37.3#, 26.3#..... 63.6 Total Weight

Jeff Fink Sr / Jeff Fink Jr - 43.9#, 19#.....62.9 Total Weight