Scott Levy and his HVAC Posse

Sunny, Cold and Windy, Water Temperature 44* and Clear

Scott booked a trip a couple of weeks ago for him and some of his co-workers and was dead set on going out today regardless of what the weather would be. I warned him about the cold and wind predicted for the day but that did not slow these guys down. I think they thought that if they drank enough alcohol the night before that they couldn't get cold in 20* weather with 20 mph winds. Once they got out and started catching fish they started to get cold so they resumed where they left off at 3am this morning by recharging their heat pumps but after a couple hours the wind got up and they needed to go to auxiliary heat [the car] so we called it an early day and got off the water while we could. It was all good because they had a ball catching fish for a couple hours and kept enough to have a great dinner back at the rental house this afternoon. I felt fortunate to catch fish today with the weather conditions and Bluebird sky's in the short time that we were on the water. I am ready for some warmer weather to come to Virginia.

Brian and Mike

Mike had these two hooked up at the same time and got them both in the boat.

Cloudy and Cold, Water Temperatures 40* to 46* and Clear

I was scheduled to fish yesterday but I decided to change the date to today due to the winds. I got out early to catch bait which was somewhat difficult this morning but I managed to put 120 beautiful baits in my bait tank. I met the guys at the dock at 9 this morning, they had a few issues to deal with before they got to the lake. We set up pulling planner boards over various depths. I positioned my boat right over a break line putting my baits anywhere from 5 feet deep on the shallow side out to 30 feet on the outside. We started taking hits on the deeper side which dictated how we were going to fish today. I dialed right in on the pattern and we proceeded to hook up with fish after fish. We would have 4 or 5 hits within 30 seconds then go ten to fifteen minutes and do it again and again. By 1 o'clock we had a boat load of fish and got off the water which was a relief because it was cold out there. Mike is holding up two of the 6 fish that hooked up in less than a minute span. We got all the fish in the boat tangling a few boards in the process. That was a great end to a good morning fishing for Stripers on Lake Anna. 

A Great Day on the Water

 Chris, Brian, Roger, Harold and Terry

Roger

Sunny in the morning turning cloudy, Water Temps 38* to 45* 

Brian and I got out real early this morning and caught a beautiful tank of bait then picked the guys up at the crack of dawn at their dock. We set up a spread of boards and pulled some shallow flats early down lake with little success so after about an hour we made a move. We hit another area working depths from 10 to 40 feet deep taking a few hits and catching 3 Stripers and a bunch of Bass. That wasn't getting it so I decided to make yet another move to another area. As we were setting out the baits I reminded the guys that when one line gets hit it is very likely many will take hits. Two minutes latter everyone on board was reeling in Stripers. After boating the fish and the guys regaining their composure we baited up again and hit the same area. Ditto....every rod hooked up again. The guys were digging this and so was I. We rebaited and I pulled our baits over the area again but doubting if we would have that kind of action on the third pass. We had broke off and lost some nice fish on the first two passes and I knew the fish would not tolerate this kind of pressure. We hooked up with 3 or 4 more Stripers then but the Stripers had enough and vacated the area. By now the wind had got up and we were down to a couple dozen baits so we went and loaded the tank up again and pulled an area out of the wind for about a mile with little success. I told the guys to get the baits in because I wanted to fish an area where I knew fish were regardless of the wind. We set out another spread and popped 4 or 5 real quick. I kept on going and hit 2 other areas where we had plenty of action. Today we had a lot of action. We caught 25 Stripers keeping 18 and caught and released 6 or 8 Bass. Everyone had fun today and will take home some good memories and plenty of fish for the table.

Converting a Bass fisherman to Stripers

 Man this fish is heavy!

 Ducks first Striper of the afternoon

Cloudy and Cold, Water Temperature 39* to 42* and Clear.

Yesterday [Monday] I had enough of staying around the house so I called up Anthony and Duck to set up an afternoon trip out on the lake. We all met around 1 at the lake then went to find some bait. After about 1 1/2 hours of looking and throwing we had enough to fish for a couple hours. Duck loves to catch Bass so I set up in an area where he could catch some which made him very happy as you can see in the bottom photo. After an hour of looking for Bass Anthony and I had enough so we decided to put Duck on some real fish. We hooked him up with the 10 pounder in the middle picture and he fought it for four minutes to land the fish. He was OK with catching the Striper but it fought a lot harder and was much more difficult to put in the boat. We were having fun with Duck watching him wrestle with Stripers but it was getting late so we decided to hit one more area for a couple of minutes right at dark. We had 3 or 4 very nice Stripers boil on some of our baits then Duck hooked up with a nice one. All Duck could do was hold onto the rod as it pulled drag but he eventually slowed the fish down when it was about 100 yards from the boat. Now the battle began for him to get the fish to the boat. The fish had his way with Duck swimming from one side of the boat to the other tangling a couple of lines but in the end Duck prevailed and won the fight. Anthony took the fish off the hook, handed the fish to Duck for a quick photo then released the fish back into the water to fight another day. The fish was 34 inches and weighed 15.4 pounds, a nice healthy Striper. Duck may have hooked and landed that Striper but that Striper definitely hooked Duck and may forever change his mind about fishing for Bass.