A few recent catches

 Matt

DP went out one afternoon last week, caught bait and located these Stripers on his HDS 8. As you can see on the screen shot below he was traveling 5 mph when he went over the school. He turned around and put downlines on the fish and caught this stringer in less than 20 minutes. It pays to trust your electronics!

 

 The left screen in side scan and the right is down scan.

 This is the sonar pic of him approaching the fish on plane on the left half of the screen then slowing down and marking the school under his boat.

Mike, Ernie, John, Art and Joe

Dale

Anthony at SML

 Anthony took some time off and went to Smith Mountain Lake to try out his new boat and tackle some Stripers up in the teens. He is holding his fish next to 24 inches of Lowrance up on his dash. He has another 12 up on the bow for catching bait. Poor Boy!

 Anthony and Jeff holding up a couple they hooked up at the same time., You can see he is pulling boards and covering most of the creek.

 Jeff holding a couple nice ones.

Simrad Screen Shots

 This shot was taken back in late November. We had been working 30 to 40 foot flats catching Striper after Striper. I had just located this school and you can see on the sonar page use dropping a bait and egg sinker down into the school of fish [about 3/4 of the way across the screen]. The white vertical dashes on the side scan are Stripers. 

 This pic was taken the same day a few minutes after the first one and it shows us pulling a couple of downlines through a few Stripers. The baits are the horizontal lines on the sonar page. You can see on my chart that I had laid out a waypoint and was working around it.

 Later on that day the fish had moved up onto shallower flats. We are working a flat in 27 feet of water here with downlines and 3 of our baits hooked up. You can see us fighting the fish on the right side of the screen.

 This pic was taken this week. I took my grandson and his friend out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. These fish were extremely active, we were catching them on boards and downlines at the same time. We caught 18 Stripers in a little over an hour of fishing. The pic below was taken just a few seconds after this one.

In this pic we still are pulling downlines and boards. The light light blue horizontal line at 17 feet is our sinker and the yellowish line is the bait swimming above the sinker. If you look out to the left on the side scan 40 to 60 feet you can see 6 or 8 Stripers with shadows behind them. I was pulling 5 boards off of each side and our 3rd, 4th and 5th board on the left side of the boat hooked up presumably with some of these Stripers. After boating the fish I went back in my history and waypointed the spot, turned the boat around and went to it. We finished out there hooking up with nicer fish.

The water temps this year are warmer than usual and the weather forecast predicts warm weather for at least the next week. Stripers are very active now and will be feeding all over the lake. Look for the upper rivers to be very productive. The stained water and shallow flats will warm in the afternoons and the Stripers should feed heavily up there. Jump fisherman will also have fun mid lake chasing the birds. The bottom three pics were taken this Sunday afternoon. I don't know if it was more fun watching the boys catching Stripers or watching 7 boats running from bird to bird. They would see a bird dive and fire up there motors and run right into where the birds were diving. They would make 8 or 10 casts then do it again and again. I hope they caught some fish but we did not see them catch any. They were competing against themselves to get as close to the birds as they could spooking the fish. A better approach would be to stop at least 100 yards from diving birds and use the trolling motors to silently sneak up on the fish. Everyone would have greater success being stealthy and probably have more fun. December fishing should be great this year. Get out and "get you some".

Simrad Screen Shots

 These are a couple of schools of Threadfin shad. The left screen is traditional sonar and the right screen is downscan. With downscan you can actually distinguish each individual piece of bait.

 

 This is a school of Stripers we worked a couple of days ago. They were scattered for about 2 acres and we could not get bit. I put downlines and pulled boards over them with 0 results. We worked them for 45 minutes then I had to leave them and try something else.

 This is a couple of Stripers around some bait. Whenever we saw this we would hook up. The feeding fish on this day were scattered keying on bait. It pays to be versatile when Striper fishing. Always pay attention  to what puts fish in the boat. Earlier in the morning we were all over Stripers without taking hits. When I saw this we would have multiple hookups. This kind of screen is what we worked the rest of the morning and put 50 Stripers in the boat.

Here again the screen looks almost void of fish but we were hooked up at the time I popped this pic. Notice the large vertical white dash on the right side of side scan with a shadow behind it. That was a nice one that we did not catch.

A 50 fish morning.

Brian

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 62* and Clear

Today I took Brian, Walt and Scott out fishing. Walt has just purchased a new boat and wanted to learn how to Striper fish on the lake. He wanted to go with me not only to see what I do but to make sure he gets the right tools of the trade. Today 's priority was learning not catching. After catching bait I showed him how to locate fish so we set up on some. The screen looked beautiful so we set up downlines and boards and worked the fish for 45 minutes without a strike. We made a short move and I saw some more fish so we set up on them. That's when the action started. We popped fish after fish and boated about 20. After working them we went uplake and pulled some shallow water with boards. With an hour left in the morning I took them downlake to show them how to locate some deep fish. We set up on them and went through 50 baits catching 30 more Stripers. Brian is holding the stringer of fish. A dozen times today he would set a bait out , turn around and within 6 or 8 seconds it would hook up. Shortly after I realized this I had him bless all of the other rods and that is why we caught so many fish today. That's my story and I am sticking to it. We had many double hook ups and a few triples as well. I think they are hooked on Striper fishing Lake Anna. Just made some new friends today.

Opening Day

 Michael 

Michael and Anthony

Yesterday was opening day for gun season in Va. and I was able to take my hunting buddy [grandson] out for a morning hunt. We only had a few hours to hunt because he wanted to go to Anthony's birthday party at noon. At 7:45 a spike and this deer came 30 yards downwind from us and stopped. Michael had his gun up and focused on this deer although it was behind a brush pile. 45 seconds later the deer turned around and headed back the way it came in and Michael blasted him. This deer is headed to Deer Springs Taxidermy for another great mount. I thank God for the precious time Michael and I get to share in the great outdoors. Hunting and Fishing...American traditions we need to preserve. Take a kid hunting or fishing, the memories will last a lifetime.

Chuck and Ron

Tony took these two happy fisherman out for a great morning of Striper fishing.

Ross and Seth

Tony took his clients Ross and Seth out today in the rain and put them on some Stripers.

Classic Furniture of Charlottesville [and friends]

Cloudy and cold, then rain, Water temperature dropping to 63* and Clear

After a 80* day last week we finally had some cold weather move in. This morning it was 31* which dropped the water temperature a bit. We took off with high hopes this morning of slaying the Stripers but after 2 hours of fishing 14 lines and only a couple of fish to show for our efforts things were looking mighty grim. I also had another friend out and he was doing just as bad as we were. We were taking short hits and catching only Hybrids. The Barometer had turned the fish off. I fished the same place I did yesterday but the bite was not happening. Right when it started to rain I decided to move back closer to the marina and try something completely different. The move paid off and saved the day. You are looking at some tough men holding up these fish. They were not prepared for freezing temps or the rain which we fished in for more than 3 hours. Tennis shoes and jeans don't repel the rain or the cold very well. They never complained about the weather and hung right in there with me. The only thing that saved them I believe were the little hotty that Robert brought along for the charter. [not pictured here] The charter today was a gift to Robert to celebrate his birthday, one which he will not forget.       HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBERT!

Fun with the kids

Joe, Hope, Michael and Mark

Partly cloudy and cool, Water Temperature 66* and clear

Today was one of the days I look forward to...Dads with their kids and beautiful weather. When we departed from the dock this morning I told Michael he needed to send me pictures tomorrow of his bruises that he is going to have on his stomach after reeling in so many Stripers. Well he is going to be bruised after today. We started off not being able to keep up with the action. I could not keep up with the kids baiting hooks! They warmed up real fast reeling in Stripers this morning. Fishing was good until boats started coming by us spooking the fish. We had a good two hours of action then we had to leave for a pit stop. We went back out and hit the area where we fished earlier but the fish were not cooperating so I made a move. We got into a completely different pattern and had a ball. We went through 130 baits today. Joe took some video of the kids catching fish, can't wait to see some.

Sunday, November 1

Roger, Kenwan, Craig and Terry

I have been off the water for a week taking care of my wife who had surgery last week so Guide DP took these fisherman out on Sunday morning and showed them a good time. They are holding up 8 of the 20 Stripers they caught that morning. If all goes well I will be back out on the water next week. It is hard to stay around the house knowing the Stripers are biting and the Bucks are Rutting but I won't leave till my wife gets better. Those fish and bucks aren't going anywhere.

A Fun Fall Morning

Allan, Louis, Dan and  Stuart

Cloudy and Cool, Water temperature 65* and Clear

The leaves are turning, the weather is getting colder, the days are getting shorter and the fish are biting. Its fall. Nature is pretty predictable. Wish the Stripers were. Well they will be once the lake turns over which should be real soon. Until then Striper fishing can be a challenge. One day they are in ten feet of water and the next hugging the bottom in 25 feet of water. Today being cloudy I hoped they would be shallow so I pulled shallow flats nearby deeper water and found scattered Stripers. We fished the morning with planner boards and nailed the Stripers. Days like today are great for the jump fisherman who don't know how to read a depth finder. They can chase the Gulls around the lake and occasionally catch a fish or two. The next couple of days will be perfect for running and gunning.

Fishing is getting better

Jason Mills

Sunny and Beautiful, Water temperature 65* and Clear

Today Jason had some friends out [who bailed out for the pic] for a morning of Striper fishing. It was a fun morning with sporadic action but we managed to catch some nice eating fish. We worked a combination of planner boards and downlines today but caught most of the fish nearby the channel. Yesterday and today the fish were not positioned where they should be for this time of year. Once the lake turns over they will become much more predictable. Need to be versatile this time of year to keep the rods bending. 

A beautiful morning on the lake

Whitney, Isaac and Clark

Sunny and Pleasant, Water temperature 65* and Clear

This morning we caught bait and fished many different patterns but all we could do is catch a fish here and there. We would catch a fish on a ledge, then out near the channel, one on a point then one up on a shallower flat but never could we pattern the fish. We kept baits in the water and I never made a big move because I had no pattern to fish??? Anyway it worked out well and caught some nice Stripers.

A early morning bite

 Rick and Rick and his crew

 This is a screen shot I took today as we had numerous hookups. In the center of the screen is a ball of bait and to the right of the bait are Stripers going Nuts! I should have waited to take the pic but I was too busy netting fish when the good stuff was on the screen.

This shot is typical of feeding Stripers. In the top half of the pic is bait fleeing from the Stripers. The Stripers are obvious just below the bait. The fish with the most color are in the cone of the transducer and you can see fainter arches and streaking without dark color which are on the outside of the cone. I was only in 20 feet of water here and the width of the cone where the fish are is not very wide. In the picture above this one the boat was only in 15 feet of water and all of the arches were directly under the transducer. There is a whole lot going on in these two screen shots. Love my Navionics!

Screen Shots

I got bored with all the bad weather lately so I put this together for you all to enjoy. Click on the picture for explanation of shot.

Catching Bait

 A nice catch of Gizzards

This is a whole lot of Giz, many thousands of them, over an acre of beautiful baits. They were certainly catchable with the right net. Side scan discriminates better and shows each individual bait and its size better than the sonar does. You could also change your page to  use side and down scan to see more clearly.

"This is Kevin. I was catching bait during the day this weekend and it wasn’t easy. I used popcorn to mark the spot and it worked after about four tries on Saturday. I had 95 blue back herring and I was on top of the world!
                But it was a lot tougher on Sunday. I thought, if the bait was in the center of the screen, they would be directly under the transducer. Is that true? If not where are they in relation to the screen? I looked at your last post and it seems to indicate that they are more at the front of the screen going left to right.
                After about twenty tries; I had 75 baits, but I didn’t know why it was so hard. I went up stream to see if I could find bigger bait balls. “I should have went fishing, but I wanted to learn about catching bait in the day.” At one point my whole screen was yellow. How could I not catch bait: I wondered? I was on med chrip about 85 color line and maybe 55 sensitivity. I know I need to pay more attention when I am catching at night, but I do remember seeing patches of red when using the lights to catch bait at night. It gets confusing because I am experimenting with my new sonar and chirp. Should I not be looking for yellow when looking for bait?
                I appreciate any help you can give me.
Signed frustrated bait catcher."

" Hey Jim, can you post photos of the baits? I.E. gizzards large and small, blue-back, threadfin, alewife, etc. Would be a great add to your sonar shots. Joy . "

These are two emails I received from from my clients, journal followers turned friends this week. I can interpret what I see on a Lowrance or Simrad due to the many thousands of hours I have spent on the water using my electronics to locate and catch bait and fish. I know what almost every mark is on a screen due to the fact that over time when I see bait I throw a cast net and catch the bait and recognize the sonar signature that is on the screen. The same with fish arches. I will put baits in the fishes faces and catch the fish then store the screen shot in my memory. I will then relate my experience to future views on the screen to determine what bait I am looking at or what kind of fish are below the boat. I refine my thoughts to is the bait worth throwing on [correct type and is it actually catchable]  or are the fish I am seeing the kind of fish I want to catch , the size I want to catch and are they feeding and worth the time to stop and put baits out on them.

The bait in this lake school. You can look for miles sometimes wondering if your depth finder is working then trip over schools [usually clouds] of bait. Once I find the bait I determine what kind of bait they are [by the configuration of the cloud and size of tiny specks or arches on the sonar screen or the size of the vertical dashes on side scan]. I will only throw if I think the bait is dense enough to catch in my net at whatever depth they are at. I determine that by the density of the bait school. the more color in the school the more the bait is congregated and obviously more catchable.

Regarding setting upon catchable fish, I look for numerous arches again with plenty of color in the arch along with the size of the arch. Once I find them I look for how they are relating to the bottom or what part of the water column they are in. Then I want to see them moving, not just suspending. Feeding fish will have streaking arches on the screen depicting them swimming trying to catch bait. You usually will see streaking on your screen. Non feeding fish usually are bunches of perfectly drawn arches under the boat simply hanging out. I also want to see tall vertical dashes on my side scan with shadows behind them. The larger the dash and bigger the shadow the bigger the fish.
I will visit locating and catching Stripers in another posting. I want to answer some questions here on catching bait.

Kevin is a dedicated Striper fisherman that has no problem catching bait under lights at night but needs to catch daytime bait as well. When bait is plentiful just about anyone can do it, but those times are few on this lake. Catching daytime Herring requires an understanding of where the bait is in relation to the boat and perfect timing to throw the net exactly on top of the bait. I locate bait by running about 20 mph until I see it then note where it was either by a marking it with a waypoint, visualizing it or throwing a peanut or in Kevin's case popcorn. I throw my net off of the front of my boat so I put my trolling motor in the water which has two transducers on it, a sonar and structure scan. I use the big motor to go back to the bait and I usually locate it on side scan before sonar. The combination of sonar and side scan is deadly on catching bait. You can determine exactly where the bait is.

Back to the questions: The sonar screen scrolls from right to left. What is happening right now [directly underneath the transducer] is on the extreme right side of the screen. As the screen moves to the left it become history. Depending on the direction you are traveling and your speed what shows up in the middle of the screen could be 20 to 30 yards behind you. You can determine exactly how far back it is by touching the school on your screen and looking at a box that appears showing you how far it is from your current location. You could also waypoint it if you wish. The settings on your unit help with density of the school. Depending on the palette you are on, more or brighter color represents density. Kevin your color may be set a little too high. Also depending on your depth your sensitivity may have also been to high and displayed a more aggressive screen. Maybe try auto sensitivity and color line for awhile. It is great that you are experimenting but use your side scan as well to see what side of the boat the majority of bait is and exactly how far it is. Use an educated decision in throwing the net over top of them and your results may be better. Don't get frustrated in not catching daytime bait with regularity, sometimes it takes me hours to locate and catch it. If the water is clear the the bait is deep, it is tough!
Hopefully you understand your screen a little better and can time your throws using the combination of sonar, side scan and your popcorn. If you wait long enough you may be able to catch a gull diving down on your popcorn.....

I will be happy to help anglers with questions about Navico products. Screen shots and settings help me determine what you are asking about. Don't worry about me posting them, I am using this post just to let you know I am out here and maybe can help. My email is jim_hemby@hotmail.com, or you can comment me on my journal or facebook me.

Hopefully this help some of you frustrated bait fisherman

Simrad Screen Shots

 These are a few scattered Stripers on a 25 foot flat with some catfish mixed in. Many of my clients want to understand how I know how large a fish is by looking at my unit. Sonar works kind of like a small pen-like flashlight. If you were to shine the light straight down the cone angle is very tight near the light [or transducer] then spreads outward the deeper it gets. The closer the object is to the center of the cone, the better the reflection will be. The fish at 8 feet on the left of the screen is directly in the center of the cone. It shows almost a perfect arch and has some color in the core of the fish. The fish at 12 feet just to the right of the first fish is off slightly to the side of the center of the cone. It is more flat in nature and barely has any color in it. Then the yellow flat signature to the right of it is on the outer edge of the cone angle, displaying no color. The size of the fish are relative to how far the fish is from the transducer. The fish at 8 feet appears to be nice but it is only 8 feet from the transducer. The closer it is to the transducer the bigger it appears. It may have been a 1 pound fish. Now if that same fish was in 24 feet, the arch would have been about a third of that size. Consequently in determining how large a fish is you must take into consideration how far it is from the transducer. The Stripers on the screen were probably 2 to 4 pound fish.

 This is a brushpile with crappie holding on top of the brush and next to the brush. You can see tiny arches on the left side of the brush, on top of it and a suspending school just to the right of the brush. You can tell that it is brush because it is connect to the bottom. If it were bait for example the fine yellowish line that is the surface of the bottom would come underneath the object just like it does underneath or the two catfish laying near the bottom.

I took this shot while looking for Stripers. There was about 3 to 4 acres of bait that I was searching to see if there were any Stripers that might be feeding. I looked for about 10 minutes but all I could find was bait. The small vertical arches that are stacked vertically are white perch. The school of bait on the left side of the screen is 4 to 5 inch Gizzards and the small school near the middle of the screen is Threadfin shad. Threadfins always look kind of like a rocket ship, they have a point on the top of the school, very dense center then have two downward "tails" underneath the school. The way I know what they are is that I have been throwing cast nets on bait for the last 25 years and I recognize the correlation of what I catch in the net to the shape and size of  what I see on my depth finder. When I target specific types of bait I throw only on what I know to be what I want. That 10 foot 1 1/2 pound net gets heavy after 20 to 30 throws!

A Relaxfull Fall Morning

Doug, Jan, Joyce and Doug

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 77* and Clear

Today's charter was a fun morning spent with two couples from Pennsylvania. We started the morning off by pulling boards and running downlines checking out flats and points from 5 to 25 feet deep. Today's fish were caught in "places". We never located any schooling fish today. We had just enough action to keep everyone happy and plenty of fillets to take home for the table. Looks like the wind is going to blow out of the Northeast for the next week or so with plenty of rain on its way.

Dialing in a new outboard

Greg and Carlos

Today I wanted to take my boat out and set up my new motor so I called Greg and he said he could get off around lunch time. He came over and we hit the lake around noon and we took the boat for a ride. I had water in my bait tanks so I could prop the boat out properly and we decided to catch some bait and fish for a hour or so. I did not see any bait main lake so we ran into the back of a creek and caught about 120 baits. We hit one place and popped two in ten minutes but we released them. We made a short move and set up on a 100 yard stretch. Five minutes after getting our baits in the water we had a deck full of Stripers. We rebaited our lines, counted the fish and needed 2 more for a limit. Before we knew it Greg had boated 2 more Stripers and we were done.  He threw those fish in the box and before we could get our other 8 lines up we hooked up numerous times and released those fish. Not bad for an hour of fishing! I have been off the water for about 2 weeks now with the exception of breaking my motor in a couple hours last week. The reason Greg is smiling so much is that the big fish he caught is 34 inches long. Carlos is in the picture because he just wanted to see what it was like to hold up a stringer of fish....I should have made him hold them up for 10 to 15 seconds like he sometimes does my clients but I couldn't do that to him.

Tony's clients recent catches

Simrad Screen Shots

 In this screen shot I had caught bait and was running back to the marina to pick up my clients. I noticed a bunch of fish stacked up on a contact point adjacent to a feeding flat. This is a classic example of how Largemouth Bass and Stripers work in the summer months. They both use contact points [areas of a large flat that have a lot of definition nearby a channel] to congregate prior to moving up onto the flat where they spread out and feed then they use the same contact point to get back together after feeding to group back up and move off the flat to suspend till another feeding session. I did not have to pick my clients up till 6am so I waypointed the spot and went back to it. I dropped two herring down to 18 feet and hooked up with two 3 to 4 pound Largemouth. When I was a Basshole I would check 20 to 30 contact points a day trying to catch the bass congregating and when I did 5 casts later I would have a limit. I would use a weighted DB3 that I drilled under the bill and filled with lead to get the bait to run deeper. When the Bass would pull off the point to deeper water they would suspend in the same depth. Sometimes I could pull off the point as well and catch the suspending bass once I relocated them. Anyway I was hoping these fish might have been Stripers to put my clients on first thing that morning but that wasn't the case.

 This was the first school of Stripers I located in the morning. This was the tail end of the school where most of the punks were. There were hundreds if not thousands of fish in the school but I could not find the front of the school where the more aggressive Stripers would have been.

 This is just another shot of the school while I was looking for larger fish.

 Here I had located another school of Stripers and was using my side scan to look for the larger fish. We were catching fish here but mostly punks. The fish were not active at this point. I continued to look for more aggressive and larger Stripers until I found what you see in the pic below.

I found the lead pack of the school which were noticeably larger fish. If you look to the left of the side scan screen you can see the larger vertical dashes compared to the smaller ones on the right of the screen. It doesn't take a genius to steer the boat to the left to get on the nicer fish. We caught  four or five nicer Stripers there but the fish were still not active [no streaking and very compressed in the sonar page] and by then 5 or 6 boats had seen us catching fish and has moved in on us with their big motors spooking the school even more. I left these fish to find other schools with no boat traffic in hopes of catching non pressured schools. Stripers do not like fishing pressure and especially do not like Barometric Pressure changes. A cold front had moved in lowering the water temp a degree or two but the Barometric Pressure climbed significantly enough to shut them down. When you see so many fish like there are in these screen shots and you put your baits in their faces only to catch punks and Catfish it is time to move on.  When nicer Stripers are feeding they will not allow a punk or Kitty to eat. The move paid off for us and we caught a 10 pound Striper and numerous other keepers.

Good Electronics are the key to success on lakes in the summer months. Understanding how to set them up and how to interpret what you are seeing are the keys to utilizing their potential to the fullest. Simrad and Lowrance are the best money can buy. They make the difference in fishing or catching!

Thousands of Stripers not wanting to eat.

 Mark, Carmine and Reed

Carmine with a nice Striper

Sunny and warm, Water Temperature 85* and clear

I filled the tanks up with 230 baits this morning, picked my clients up at 6 at High Point and took off in search of Stripers. I checked a couple of areas but boat traffic kept running through where I wanted to fish so I made a move back downlake. I found a school off of a mainlake point so I stopped and we set up on them. Just after stopping fish started breaking nearby us and we started hooking up. I saw hundreds of fish but the bite was not in line with the amount of fish I was seeing. It was quite cool this morning and I believe the front had contributed to the lack of hook ups. After loosing this school I looked around and found remnants of them and worked them for a few minutes. Fish were everywhere but pretty well scattered, not schooled tightly. A friend Dale was trolling across the lake from me where I had found thousands of Stripers two days ago and I noticed he turned around in that area so I called him on the radio and asked if he saw any fish over there. He had run over them and had turned around to hit them again. He had 3 hook ups and hung the other rig up. He called Tony and myself over to fish it with bait because there was too much irregular structure for him to work. We went over and the mother-load of Stripers were there. We set up on them but again for seeing thousands of fish on the depth finder we were only catching a few here and there, and mostly punks. After 45 minutes of working them and catching maybe 20 fish it got way too crowded with boats so I moved on. We hit a couple of other areas catching fish everywhere we went. Reed was hot this morning catching well over half of the fish while Carmine sat patiently up front. He got the last laugh by catching the biggest Striper of the day.  Although we found thousands of fish today the Stripers really did not cooperate and we only caught about 35. The guys had a great time with that but I know what it could have been if the fish wanted to eat this morning.