Monday, June 30, 2008

Bert and Lilly Harris


June 30th, 2008: Sunny and Warm, Water Temp *5* and Clear. Caught bait this morning and set up on a huge school of Stripers over 26 foot of water, put out downlines and Nothing, nothing happened. Well I got over that and found another school after 5 minutes of looking and hooked up numerous times and caught some nice fish. After loosing the school we burnt a lot of gas locating and fishing numerous schools , using live bait a also doing a little trolling. Bert took home a few fish to share with his brother-in-law who has a house on the lake.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Striper Al , Michael and Myself

June 29th, 2008: Partly Cloudy and Warm, Water Temp 85* and Clear. Today was the first day I had off in awhile so I woke up early as usual and got the boat ready, woke my 3 year old grandson up, threw him in the truck with his breakfast and took off on his first Striper trip. Got to the Marina at 5, picked up good old friend Striper Al and went out and caught bait. Took an hour to get bait, found some fish main lake where no one else was fishing and put out 8 downlines. Before we knew it the baits got nervous and Michael put a Catfish in the boat. Al hooked up on a nice Striper a second after Mike picked up a rod and started reeling one in. Both fought their fish for about a minute and once I landed Al's fish Mike hollered out " Pa, I have a Big fish and I can't hold it anymore". I thought he had another Kitty but he had reeled a 6 pound Striper right up to the boat and it was flopping around on the surface. I threw Al's fish onto the deck and prayed I could get Mike's in before it broke off or he lost grip of the rod. Everything worked out great, we boated the Striper and Al snapped a picture of My Grandson and myself holding his first Striper. This all happened within 10 minutes of putting the baits out and when we looked up there were 4 boats on top of us running over the fish and spooking the school. Obviously Michael enjoyed the experience of catching bait and fishing because I thought he would only be good for a couple hours this morning but he hung in there for 5 hours and it was Al and myself that called it quits. This was a morning that I will never forget and hopefully Michael will cherish the memories forever .


Thursday, June 26, 2008

Adam, Chase, Shaylor and Aaron


June 26th, 2008: Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 84* and Clear. Caught bait this morning and picked the guys up and searched for Stripers. Put bait on a few schools and all the fish did was kill the baits. After awhile we started trolling and hit numerous schools catching a few but not what we should have considering all the fish we were seeing. Later in the day we went back to live bait and caught a few more until right when we were ready to come in the fish decided to feed and we had some fun. Today the boys caught about 20 Stripers and some Cats.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Matt, Scott, Lee, Darren and Veronica


June 25th, 2008: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 84* and Clear.
Got out real early and caught bait, picked the guys up at High Point at 5:30 and went looking for Stripers. Checked out a few places then found a nice school in the mouth of a creek and picked up 2 fish then had to go back to the marina to pick up a couple of other clients.. Looked nearby the marina and found a few more schools and trolled through them catching a few before the schools moved on. We found some nice schools and put Herring on them and caught a lot of fish but mostly punks. Today we caught about 30 fish and my clients took home a few to eat.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Brian, Joe, Sherrie, Wendel, Steve,William and George


June 19th, 2008: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 81* and Clear. Caught bait early and picked the crew up at 5:30 and went searching for Stripers. Got about 1/2 mile from the dock and hit our first school. Tried bait on them but the fish still were not very hungry this morning. We fished about half the lake today and found over 20 schools of Stripers and most schools looked like the picture of the graph although some were spread out further than others. We fished live bait and also trolled through the schools with everyone catching fish. Although from the looks of the graph today we should have caught 100 Stripers , we caught enough to keep busy and for the guys to enjoy a wonderful family outing. Wendel is pictured holding a Bass caught out of 35 foot of water.




We saw at least a dozen schools of Stripers that looked as good as this or better!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Howard, Mike and Larry


June 18th, 2008: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 82*.
Caught bait early, picked clients up at 5:30 and worked 4 large schools of Stripers with downlines only to catch punks and go through 100 nice Herring. Obviously the fish fed up last night on the full moon and just wanted to kill the baits. I decided to try trolling at 8 am to see if the fish would instinctly hit a bait rushing by them quickly at a high rate of speed and we started putting fish in the boat immediately. We hit numerous schools catching fish the rest of the day, ending up catching over 35 Stripers. I even tried Herring again on some schools later in the day with no success. The guys took home enough for diner and released all the other Stripers to fight again.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Blaine, Warren, Paul, Punkie and Joey


June 17th, 2008: Water Temp 82* and clear.
Worried about the full moon last night and the cold front that blew through I got on the water before 3 this morning to catch bait. Herring does not want to come to a light with a bright moon and the water temp dropped 6* overnight so I knew I was in for a tough day. I hung 3 lanters and hit 4 dock lights and in two hours I caught 30 baits. Picked the guys up and told them the bad news and went looking for bait with no success. We had caught nice fish yesterday trolling so I rigged up for that and we pulled umbrella rigs and drop lines today . It took the fish 3 hours to school, mostly due to the front, but once they did we caught 16 Stripers. Thanks to the fish Gods for letting catch this many fish in these conditions.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Tracie, Brooke, Erika, Tori, Nicole and Pete Lillie

June 16th, 2008: Sunny and Warm, Water Temp 87* and Clear. Got on the water at 3 and caught bait, picked up the crew at 5:30 at High Point. Went up lake and set up on some 25 foot flats running downlines and started catching fish immediately. Hit a few nearby and caught a few more fish then found a Huge school about 5 acres and had constant action. We worked them until a good friend called me in on some other fish and as I was running to him we found another large school, put downlines on them but it got to frantic trying to keep up so I converted to trolling and continued to wear the Stripers out. The girls may look small but they did an admirable job today wrestling about 35 fish. Took a picture of one of the schools after working it for 5 minutes.

John, John,Tim, Matt and Mark


June 16th, 2008:
Guide John Chadduck show with his crew with a Great days catch.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Jimmie, Elwood, Bobby and Irvin


June 14th, 2008. Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 87* and Clear.
Got out on the water about 3 this morning to catch bait hoping to collect bait find and catch bait without catching so many smaller ones and laboring the "keepers" , starting with 200 baits in poor condition. We fished the baits till 10 when we ran out and started trolling . We worked and covered a lot of different areas and ended up catching 17 Stripers today. The guys had a bet, who ever caught the smallest fish would have to throw his shoe overboard, Jimmie lost. Still looking to find a honey hole for larger bait, if I do look out!

John, Johns Dad, Chris and Robbie


June 14th, 2008:
John went out for the morning and caught a few nice Stripers for his family and friends.

Friday, June 13, 2008

David Rice, Jeff McKay, Tim Zirby , Steve and Calin Birrell


Friday the 13th, 2008: Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 86* and Clear.
Picked clients up this morning at 3:45 to take them out to witness catching bait. Had to make 30 casts this morning with the throw net, bait collection has sucked lately. There are so many smaller Herring in the lake that when you throw on bait you catch over 100 Herring at a time, by the time you pick out the 6 or 8 decent sized baits out of the batch the Herring get so beat up they become very fragile and lazy and only last for a couple hours before dying. I start out with a couple hundred baits and by 9 am you have had 100 hits and the rest are history. We hit numerous schools this morning, by the time you set up on the schools they move so fast you catch only a fish or 2 out of the school, then have to get back on the big motor and locate more. Well we fished aggressively early today with Steve and his daughter "Spanking" the rest of the crew, Calin catching most of the fish. Tried to catch more bait later in the day and threw for a couple of hours with no success.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Larry and Steve Cohen


June 12th, 2008: Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 86* and Clear.
Caught bait early, picked clients up and went fishing. Found numerous pods of fish but never any larger schools till around 10 o'clock. We ran downlines today over 30' flats having over 200 strikes. We kept some of the nicer fish for my clients diner.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Scott, Scott, Clarence, Marc, Ray and Hunter


June 11th, 2008:
Guide John Chadduck pictured with the results of a good day of fishing on Lake Anna trolling.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Bill, Chris, Jeff and Bruce with guide John Chaddduck


June 10th, 2008:
John took these guys out for a trip this morning trolling and here are some of the 15 Stripers they caught.

Bruce Armstrong, Ron Owens, Jeff Hill, Bill Chronister and Micheal Bailey

June 10th, 2008 : Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 86* and clear. Got out early this morning and caught about 300 Herring , picked the guys up at 5:30 and went fishing. Stripers were scattered a bit this morning early and we set up on a couple of smaller schools before I located 3 very large schools where we all had some fun. Today we had well over 250 strikes , I lost count of how many fish we boated but the guys took home a few fish for dinner. Michael felt sorry for his fish and released most of his!





The beginning of a wonderful day on Lake Anna.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Striper Al, Len and Ted Williams with guide John

June 9th, 2008: Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 85* and Clear.
John picked the guys up at 5:30 and found a school of Stripers and put Herring on down lines in their faces which started a day of good fishing for his clients. He hit 3 or 4 schools of fish catching 25 Stripers before running out of 150 Herring then converted over to trolling artificals catching 15 more to make this nice stringer. Striper Al is the guy in the middle holding all the weight of the stringer which compressed his body , that's why you can't see his face.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Steve and Greg Smith with Larry Snow and Lee Periard

June 8th, 2008 : Sunny and Hot, Water temp 84* and Clear. Got on the water around 3:15 and caught 225 Herring for my clients and picked them up at their dock at 5:30am. Today we had 3 sets of clients out, My guys, Anthony's crew and Guide John Chadduck had a group out who released their fish. We started out looking for schools and had just set up on some fish when Anthony called on the radio that they already had a third of their limit and to get down and help him with this school of fish. I certainly obliged him and hit the School with 8 downlines rigged with Herring and our action began for the morning. The schools were moving extremely fast today, we would get 15 to 20 hits out of a school then they would move on and so would we. We set up on a dozen such schools catching fish out of all of them. By 11am we had 225 strikes and were out of bait which was a good thing cause the Sunday boat traffic was hitting the lake pretty hard. Greg is pictured holding a Bass he caught. Today we caught about 30 Stripers and a couple of Kitties.


Brian Hess and John Shepard

June 8th, 2008 : Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 84* and Clear.
Guide Anthony Hicks {Striperholic} picked the guys up at High Point , already having caught bait at 5:30am. He didn't go 1 minute from the marina before finding a large school of Stripers and showing his clients what is is like to fish for Stripers on Lake Anna in the summer. They put out downlines and had a hard time keeping up with the action. They repeated the drill a half a dozen times and places this morning catching over 20 Stripers and a bunch of Cats. I think the guide had as much fun as his clients!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Paul Henon, George Hussey, Tom Welsh and Gary Skillicorn

June 6th, 2008 : Sunny and Warm, Water Temp 81* and Clear.
Picked the guys up at 5:30 at High Point and went looking for schools of Stripers. Checked 30 to 40 foot flats seeing plenty of fish but not positioned like I wanted so after 30 or 40 minutes I started checking drop-offs and found catchable fish, put 8 downlines on them and started catching fish. Worked them for a while then found a huge school, repeated the drill but got busted by a fisherman and with in 15 minutes had 6 boats fishing on top of us so I left that area. Schools of Stripers were easy to find today, everywhere I went they were there and we caught fish on at least 10 different spots. We had about 225 strikes this morning and lost count of how many fish we caught. For the next couple of months fishing is going to be great!

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Ron, Darlene, Doug and Katrin Ochsenknecht


June 5th, 2008 : Sunny and Warm, Water Temp 80* and Clear.
The guys wanted to go catch bait with me this morning so we left the dock at 4am and caught bait, picked the girls up at 5:30 and went fishing. Set up over a 25 foot flat pulling big Gizzards on Boards and Herring on downlines. Had a couple of fish hit at the larger Gizz but did not hook up until we got over a little deeper water then all the lines went off. Today we worked schools over flats from 30' to 40' deep, later in the day going exclusively to downlines. A couple of times we found some very dense schools of Stripers and had plenty of action. We had about 150 strikes today, boating 16 Stripers and a bunch of Cats. Now that the water has warmed up the Stripers should school up well and hopefully within the next week our catches should be up to where they were this time last year, 30 to 50 fish a morning.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Jim Ciulla with friends Amir, Eugene and Michael


June 2nd, 2008: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 78* and Clear.
Got out early and caught Herring and a few Gizz and went to pick the guys up at 5:30 but they were late. Planned on catching more Gizz but the Sun was up and I wanted to pull a flat with boards so we did. Had a few fish boil on the Gizzards and not hook up but once I put downlines out over 25 feet we started catching fish. Caught a couple of Stripers and a lot of Cats and decided to move on. Found 3 or 4 more schools and worked them with no success until I found a school of at least 4 acres of Stripers. We put herring on downlines in their faces and within an hour we had gone through 150 baits without putting a keeper fish in the box! The guys were having fun with the punks and were not happy with my decision to leave the school and go catch more bait. We went and caught 30 Gizzards, went back to where I started the day and put out 4 boards and 9 downlines . We hit a school of fish and had 8 or 10 hits at once and finally put some better fish in the boat. Today we had over 180 strikes , Amir catching two Bass and lost count of how many punks and Catfish we caught. By the way, they liked catching the keeper fish better than the punks.