A Beautiful and Busy Weekend on the Lake

Jim, Patty, Bud, Jenna and Doug

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 74* and Clear

Caught bait this morning then picked my clients up at their dock. Bud is a regular client wanting to learn as much as he can about Lowrance and catching Stripers so today I concentrated on teaching more than fishing. It was a good day to learn, fish were not schooled up like they have been so we spent a lot of time on electronics. We hit a couple of smaller schools early but the buzzards got too close for comfort so I picked up and ran down lake to hide. We fished a couple of areas then spent about an hour re-filling the bait tanks. By now the boat traffic was horrific, dozens of boats ran within 20 yards of us at full speed on both sides of  the boat and I was less than 50 yards off the bank! We continued to look and fish different areas and caught fish but there was nowhere we could hide from the traffic. That's fishing on the weekends. I need to have my head examined for attempting to try it. Anyway we overcame our challenges and caught plenty of Stripers, 6 Largemouth and a dozen Cats. Although the weekend traffic is loud and rough, we all had a great time battling the Stripers today. The weather is beautiful and a this is a great weekend for boating. I can't wait for the weekdays to return and I am sure the fish in the lake agree with me. They have to be all shook up.

Danielle, Lee and Karen

Cloudy and Cool, Water temperature 76* and Clear

DP took these folks out today for some action on Lake Anna.

They caught 150 Stripers and 30 Catfish this morning.

They are holding a nice stringer of Stripers.

Fishing a Major cold front

Bill, Joy and Marcus

Cloudy and Cool, Water temperature 76* and Clear

Yesterday it was well into the 90's and today it stayed in the 60's. Felt good to me but the lake rose about 5 inches and the water temperature dropped 4*. I caught bait early then picked the guys up at 5:30. I looked for schools for about 30 minutes till I found some fish. This was a good place to teach the guys how to put the baits out and how to reel in the fish. They were in for a difficult day, not because of the cold front but there was no way 3 anglers could begin to handle the action that we are experiencing. Summer fishing is fast and furious, it takes a minimum of 4 anglers to deal with even a slow day. They found out real quick what they were in for. After about 20 fish they were ready as they could be to hit a real school, or so I thought. I set them up on another school and they suffered for 45 minutes running from rod to rod. Panic had set in and they forgot what I had said about how you have to reel a fish in with circle hooks. If something wrong could happen, it did. I pulled them off of the school so they could get a well deserved break, then filled my tanks back up with bait. We hit more schools till we ran out of bait then I caught yet another tank full of bait and set out for our last set up. 150 baits later we finally ran out of bait, what a relief to me. Today was no fun for me and way too much work. I am going to make sure my clients show up with enough anglers to handle the day. We took well over 300 hits today, way too much action for this crew. They deserve credit for what they were able to catch considering the awesome bite we are going through now.

275 Stripers by 1 o,clock

 Jarrett, John Odenkirk, Bob, Mike and John

 

Sunny and Hot, Water Temperature 80* and Clear

Today I was honored to spend the morning with the Department of Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries  biologists who control the lake [and most bodies of water north of the lake]. These are the guys who log all the data collected from netting's and shockings throughout the year and make recommendations for stocking  the game fish in Lake Anna. They are responsible for this excellent Striper and Bass fishery that we are blessed to be a part of. John Odenkirk has headed up this project for many years and today's catch is a testament to the hard work him and his crew have devoted to the lake. Today we caught 275 Stripers between 6am and 1pm on hook and lines. Yea, you read that right, 275 Stripers.  This morning I caught 250 baits then picked the guys up and went looking for schools. It didn't take long to find what I wanted and before anyone knew it all are rods were hooked up. It stayed that way for 45 minutes till I decided to pull them off of the school. They couldn't believe I was taking them away from fish but I knew of so many schools I thought it was time to leave that school alone and work another. I went right to another school and worked it for 30 minutes constantly having fish hooked up. By now we were out of bait so I located some bait, filled two tanks back up with 200 baits and took off. We hit school after school catching fish constantly till we ran out of bait again. I collected another 200 baits and hit one final area. We worked it using up every single bait in the tanks. Our final count was 275 Stripers. They kept their limits and released all the other fish. The upper two pics of my Lowrance are when we were working the first school of the day. The lower pic is a school where we caught about 50 Stripers out of. Some of these school were acres upon acres of fish. Funny thing was the fish were really not active and biting well today. You can see that very few fish were "Streaking", a sure sign of inactive fish. In my experience if the fish would have been on a major feed the graph would look completely different and our catches would have been better. No one complained about the fishing today though, it was a lot of fun. The guys went home with plenty of filets and tore up thumbs. 

This is the beginning of our summer season. The action is incredible and at least FOUR anglers is a must to be able to handle the action. Don't miss out on some great summer fun, book a trip for some great memories.

Fishing on a very busy Sunday

Mutt, Roger, Shawn, Mack and Melvin

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 76* and Clear

Tony took this motley crew out yesterday fishing for Stripers. The lake was as busy as it gets but by the looks of the stringer Tony put the guys on some nice Stripers. It is extremely difficult stand up in a boat with the traffic like it was much less catching a stringer like this. Good Job Guys!

Lowrance HDS Screenshots

 This is a pic from early in the morning when the fish were up on a 15 to 20 foot flat hugging the bottom.

 This shot is the school still on the flat but as the sun gets brighter they start moving off the flat into deeper water. These fish are feeding , notice the streaks on the sonar page.

 As I gradually worked deeper I started seeing and catching larger Stripers. Notice my history in the upper part of my sonar page. The Stripers are stratifying in the water column at 20 feet. They were hugging the bottom on the 20 foot flat and as I moved deeper they continued to stay at the same depth.

 I think I am on them here. Again notice in my history on the top of the sonar page all of the fish and how long I had been on them. We were catching 50 fish an hour here.

This is a great shot of some structure on Lake Anna. You can tell it is a hard rocky bottom by all the yellow on the bottom on my sonar page. What I like best about this pic is the side scan screen. Now that's a beautiful shot....I am going to name this picture Jeanne after my wife.

June is the best month to catch schooling fish on Lake Anna.

If you want to learn how to read a Lowrance and have 

fun catching a lot of Stripers, call or email us to book 

a trip. I have two boats rigged the same and the best 

guides on the Lake to put you on the Stripers.

Jim_Hemby@hotmail.com  540 967 3313

Record setting morning

Kylie, Pappa Don, Megan, Jason and Caden

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 77* and Clear.

Picked my crew up at the dock at 5:45 and went fishing. After showing them how to deploy the lines we set up on a flat that fish were holding on. We picked up where we left off yesterday, couldn't keep a bait in the water. By 7am we had already caught 40 fish and had used up every fish in the tank. I went and filled my tank up with bait again which took about an hour. Everyone had a good rest and were ready to get back to the action. We found a school and wore them out. Everyone was proficient now and the fish did not stand a chance. We went through another full tank of bait and by 9am had boated over 111 Stripers, a new record for my boat. Everyone did great on the boat especially the two children. Jason remarked on the way back in that this was great, they could get back in and go out to breakfast. The kids will always remember this fishing trip. Fishing for them will never be the same. What a beginning to a great summer. Book a trip to get into some great action this summer.

100 Plus Striper morning

John, Michael, Carroll and Kelly

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 77* and Clear

I was  ready for my crew this morning when they arrived at the dock. I had a tank full of baits and was ready to show them what to do. After going over how to deploy the lines and how to reel the fish in I went looking for schools. All it took was about 10 minutes for me to find what I was looking for. Before we knew it we were reeling in fish. Kelly hooked up with the first Striper and won the $100 bet for first Striper of the day. Then everyone hooked up and the game was on. We worked the school for about 45 minutes then I pulled off of them so we could catch our breath and regroup. We had caught 20 Stripers and it was only 7 o'clock. We checked a few more places out catching fish everywhere we stopped. After running out of bait as I looked for bait I ran over school after school of Stripers....Murphy's Law if guess. I finally found some bait and filled the tank up again and headed back to where I saw the schools. I never made it to them, I ran over some nice fish so we set up on them.Things got real crazy then. We tried to get all of our baits in the water but the Stripers would have no parts of that. Every time a bait would hit the water it got attacked. We worked this school till we completely ran out of bait. Within an hours time we had over 100 hits and finished the morning well before lunch time with 103 Stripers. Kelly caught not only the first, but the largest and the most. They took home 20 nice Stripers and a whole lot of memories and some torn up thumbs.

Herb and John

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 77* and Clear

This morning I caught bait then picked my clients up at their dock. After our introductions I told them that they were in trouble today only having two anglers this time of year but they laughed and said "Bring it on". Well within 10 minutes I had located a school of fish, taught them how to deploy the lines and the fun began. Since there were only two of them I put John up front and kept Herb in the back with me. Our goal was to get at least 8 baits in the water to show a school of bait. Silly of me to think that could ever happen. We had constant action and eventually I pulled them off of the school. They couldn't keep up with the action and I was having fun watching them try. I decided to leave that area and locate schools that were smaller so we could have more control over the action. We hit a few different areas but the action had slowed so I decided to go catch more bait. I caught over a hundred more baits then decided to put them back in a school to see what they could do. For the next 3 hours they had problems keeping one bait in the water much less attempting to get other rods in. It was comical to watch them go from reeling in a fish, trying to get that rod baited then attempt to put another line in before the first bait would get hit. They simply could not due to the action. They were loving every minute of the frantic action and I was loving watching them enjoy reeling in fish after fish. I would pull them off of a school so they could get a break then when they were ready put them right back over another to do it all over again. We fished till we ran out of bait then called it a morning. I lost track of how many fish they caught but John said he knew he caught well over 30 himself. I can't imagine how many we really caught but we used up over 200 baits. 

This time of year at least 4 anglers are needed to keep up with the action.

Cool Lowrance Pictures

 This shot is a school of Stripers that we worked today. You can see the arches on my sonar page and see nicer fish on my down scan. My side scan [upper right screen] shows fish on both sides of the boat but more fish are to the right. I actually turned to the right after taking this pic and had 5 rods hook up all at once. If you look up on my sonar page in my history [the space to the right of the 31.0] you can see we were on fish for a while but we were just coming into the heart of the school.

 This is a picture of us going under a bridge. My sonar shows Herring from the surface down to 15 feet with a few Gizzards underneath them. I was fairly close to a piling so my down scan with a broader cone angle actually picked up the piling on the right. My side scan shows a sunken boat between the pilings laying on the bottom of the lake. You can click on the picture and it will enlarge.

This picture was taken after going over a road bed that parallels Stubb's bridge.  On my sonar page from left to right is deep water coming up onto the old road bed with a couple of fish above the road, then schools of bait with some crappie in it. My down scan shows the road bed along with the guard rails on the edges of the road, then two pilings with crappie between them. Crappie are hugging the bottom. My side scan shows the submerged road bed with the guard rails, a rock vein between the old road and the bridge piling and a school of bait just outside of the last piling.

Hydrosys Beijing Technology

David, Hali, Andrew, Bernard, Chris and Justin

Cloudy and rain, Water temperature 72*

Saturday, May 10

Hali called a couple weeks ago wanting to book a trip for some international friends to go out and catch some Stripers. I set him up with Guide Tony and that exactly what they did. Come to find out his friends had never fished before so this was a special treat for all of them. Most of his guests flew in from China and one came from Singapore, arriving late last night. After catching about 20 Stripers they wanted to go catch a Bass so Tony obliged them with this nice Bass. This was a great first day visiting the USA.

Lowrance Pics

 This is a screenshot using my chart on the left and sonar on the right. I have highlighted my depths on the chart using dark blue [0 to 10'], light blue [11 to 30'] and gray [31' and over]. This helps me run contours and pattern the fish for that particular day. When the water is cool and maybe cloudy I will pull boards nearby the 10 foot breakline and as the water warms the 30 foot break may produce most of our fish. You can see two waypoints I have on the chart that are on underwater points that are prime examples of where Stripers may hold. The sonar page on the right shows our bait [horizontal line] at 20 feet going right through Stripers [arches] at 22 feet. This bait didn't go far before it was clobbered.

 This is a good example of a rock pile that I ran over. You can tell the bottom was hard by the wide band of yellow. The down scan on the bottom right screen shows more detail of the structure but it is the side scan in the upper right that clearly shows the boulders. You can actually see a vein of rocks going out to the right side of my boat about 60 feet. I was moving pretty fast here, the sonar shows the fish coming up on the left side of the screen about 12 feet deep where at higher speeds the down scan does not show fish quite as well. Speeds under 5mph the scan shows up better.

Here is a shot of my sonar showing a major school of Herring at 15 to 30 feet deep with a school of Stripers underneath the bait ball. Notice the few diagonal lines moving upward from left to right. These are fish streaking up to feed on bait. The majority of fish are simply suspending under the bait. The majority of the Stripers are not feeding in this picture and I did waist bait fishing here. If the bait was more broke up and there were many more streaking fish I would have worked it more. I did come back to the area a couple hours later and saw the bait broke up, put downlines out at 30 feet and wore the Stripers out.

A Whole Lot of Catching Going On

Bob, Paul, Dave, Ron and Errol

Fog in the morning turning into sun and Hot, Water Temperature 73*

I got out early to catch bait but bait collection was tough. I picked the guys up at 6 then took the bait I had and went fishing. We set out a spread of boards pulling a bank ranging in depths from 5 to 20 feet deep. We popped about 10 fish there before I had to make a move to catch more bait. I caught bait and we were ready for action. I have had this motley crew out many times before but I never had experienced anything like what I went through today. I believe the fog got into their brains this morning and clogged up their receptors, and that is all I have to say about that. When we fish together we have a whole lot of fun and today was no exception. I put them on so many fish they were running around the boat for 5 hours in a state of confusion. Bob got in a corner of the boat for a couple hours and spanked the Stripers. He ended up catching over 20 himself. He made the mistake of leaving that corner for a second and Ron took over where Bob left off. Today we took over 200 hits, caught over 70 fish and everyone went home with torn up thumbs from handling Stripers. 

This is the beginning of the summer season. It is common to take up to 300 hits a morning 

and to catch unbelievable amounts of Stripers. When booking trips for the next couple of months 

you will need to bring at least 4 anglers  in order to keep up with the action.

What happened to Spring?

Farley, Darrell and Dwanye

Sunny and Hot, Water temperature climbing to 75* 

This morning the guys wanted to see how I catch bait so we met at five and went up lake pounding the banks for Gizz. After throwing for a couple hours we had a tank full so we went and set out a spread of boards pulling 15 to 25 foot flats. We worked them for a couple hours then we had to go catch more bait. One throw later we were set. I couldn't get baits out without taking hits and for the next 4 hours it was non stop action. I did not count fish today but we caught over 40, maybe over 50.

 Darrell is holding up a nice Bass

This is one of a few Bass Dwayne caught today.

A busy day of Catching Stripers

Maggie, Jim, Hamid, Senior and fast Eddie 

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 68*

This morning I caught bait and was ready for the guys when they showed up at the marina. We headed off to the fishing grounds and I set out a spread of boards about 100 yards before an area where I knew fish were holding. I got my boards out but the plan did not work well, a guy motored in in front of me and fished with his big motor running???? Naturally he did not catch any fish and spooked most of the fish in the area. We still managed to catch 12 to 15 fish in a couple hour span before making a move. We moved about 4 miles where I found a nice school of fish. I no sooner put one bait in the water and immediately it hooked up. We scrambled to get as many lines out and caught a bunch of fish. I decided to make another move which really paid off, we ended up catching over 60 fish with the guys keeping their limits. It was a good day of fishing especially with some clients that have been going out with me for about 10 years. My job is great, I can earn a living, go fishing and be with good friends,,,, it just doesn't get any better than that.

Lowrance Screen Shots

 This is a stack of Crappie. Pic was taken in April after a cold front passed.

 Here is a picture of Stripers in 15 to 20 feet of water. Notice to the left of them on the sonar and downscan pages is a ball of bait. You can also see on the side scan page Stripers off to the right of the boat 40 to 60 feet.

 This is an example of Stripers feeding. The Stripers are actively "Streaking" as is evident by the trails they are leaving. There are traces of bait in the same part of the water column.

This is a great example of how down scan clearly defines what is under the boat. On the sonar page you can see the bottom, see something clustered on and off the bottom rising up about 10 feet with a couple small fish near the top of the structure. Looking at the bottom right [down scan] screen you can clearly see trees laying on their side with limbs protruding upward. Notice the main trunk of the trees about a foot or two paralleling the bottom. Looking at the side scan screen you can see not only the trees under the boat but also trees on the bottom 30 feet to the right of the boat. You can also see that I made a waypoint of structure in which I can return to on another day if I choose to. 

Lowrance HDS is a technology that every angler can benefit from, I just can't imagine a fisherman that fishes the lake not utilizing this kind of information to improve their catches. Stop by Greentop Sporting Goods and check out the Lowrance HDS products, could be the difference in going fishing or Catching!

Sixty fish morning

Lou, Bruce, Jeremiah, Francois

Sunny, windy and pleasant, Water Temperature 68* 

Today Tony had a charter with some of my regular clients so he picked them up at their dock at 6:15 and went fishing. I texted him around 8 this morning asking him how many he had caught and he came back with 19. A couple hours later I texted him again and he replied 60 but should have caught 100. That's a whole lot of action! Tony had the guys back to their dock by lunchtime which gave them plenty of time to clean fish this afternoon. They kept 20 Stripers and released the rest to fight again. Pretty good morning on Lake Anna.

Lake Anna is a Wreck!

 Water this morning was over the bulkhead and no docks were visible.

 Hunters Landing Ramp

 Where are all the docks?

 5 Miles of this.

One of five boats we saw in a couple mile span that had broke loose.

After all the rain the lake is tore up. The water got higher than I have ever seen it. It picked up everything [mulch, leaves, chairs, tables, gas cans, floats, literally everything that was not tied down] The lake looks like a mud bog all the way down to Jetts Island and to Rose Valley. If the wind would get up it probably would blow the debris to one side of the lake so that it could at least be navigable. Fish can still be caught, but you have to fish where your line can get through the water without picking up trash. Downlake from the splits should be fish-able this afternoon. With all the water that fell west of the lake I would imagine debris will continue to inundate the lake for a couple more days pushing the mud line further down the lake.