Saturday, May 28, 2016

Happy Memorial Day

Tony, Mack, Mutt, Shawn and Melvin

How is this catch for a Memorial Day weekend?
Tony took his friends out this morning and turned 
them on to a great start to the weekend.
Good job especially for a busy weekend.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Summer is here!

Nathan, Junior, Sam and Tony

Tony took these guys out yesterday and put them on a limit 
of nice Stripers. Soon the downline bite will kick in and we
will enjoy catches of 50 to 200 fish per morning.
Come on out and get you some!

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Recent Catches

 Paul

 Bob

 Bubba, Tod and Hunter
Don
Lee and Don
Bubba

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Couple of nice catches

 DP put Rodney on some nice ones this morning

Tony turned on these happy fisherman to a nice catch

Saturday, May 21, 2016

SIMply RADical SIMRAD

Click on image to enlarge
I am constantly amassed with the performance of Navico products. This screenshot was taken off my Simrad on my console yesterday seconds after every rod hooked up in the boat. Check out the clarity of this unit! I am using broadband here but still you can count each and every fish on the echo screen and side scan screen as well. This technology leaves nothing for the imagination...heck I can even tell what sex each Striper is. Well not really, I don't know how to sex a Striper until they hit the boat and turn the floor white. You can see I had just entered the school but my screen just kept filling up with Stripers. I was torn between rebaiting hooks or popping screen shots but with clients on board I opted to rebait. We were over this school for a few minutes and the school kept getting larger and larger. At one time on side scan fish filled the entire screen. I was on a 120 foot scale, that is 120 feet to the right and 120 feet to the left side of the boat, 240 feet of Stripers. I am sure if I had taken a moment to expand my range on my side scan I could have easily seen more fish. We were just too busy catching fish for me to play with the unit. Yesterday was the first day the Sun had been out which encouraged the fish to school so well. Don't go out tomorrow and expect to see this, the lake rose 5 inches while I was out today and the water temp dropped 4.5 degrees.

I am not sure what Simrad stands for but in my book it stands
SIMPLY RADICAL

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Simrad Pics

 Just got and installed my new 3D Structure Scan just in time for the deep summer bite. For the next few weeks while we are not reeling in Stripers I will be experimenting with 3D to see if it can help me in the type of fishing that I do. It will have to be good for me to replace my LSS2, I know everything I see on the old one.

 This is a pic from today where I had located Stripers running about 25 mph and I turned the boat around, put baits out [one of which is the horizontal line at 40 feet], and moved right into the school of Stripers. We had 8 rods out and within 30 seconds every one doubled over.
 Here is another shot of the action.

 In this pick we had already caught over 80 Stripers and were done for the day. Notice more fish on the right side of my side scan.

Same day 2 minutes earlier when we were in the thick of things.
The horizontal lines are baits that had been hit and were dead.
In the madness it is hard to keep up.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

East wind kind of day

 Herb, Vern, Blaine and Brian

DP and the ITAC Crew

Cloudy and Warm, Water temperature 68* and clear
First day in awhile with no rain....sweet. East wind....challenging. We started out the day with a bang, we caught about 30 fish in the first hour of daylight. About 7 a slight wind got up out of the East which caught my attention. I do not like fishing in an East wind. East wind is a wind that is pre-frontal usually right before a cold front hits. Stripers don't like much change. Four days of rain or four days of sun is OK but before a front when the barometer starts to drop Stripers tend to not be aggressive. We kept seeing the Stripers but instead of constant fish on like the first hour we were only taking hits every 5 minutes or so then as the day progressed it got worse. Don't take me wrong, catching 85 Stripers today was great but the decent Stripers don't feed well and they let the punks eat in adverse conditions. DP had a similar experience and his catch ratio declined as the morning wore on. All is good though, everyone caught plenty of fish, everyone had plenty of laughs and everyone did not have to work today. DP's crew caught 35 this morning.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Another Great Morning

 Elmer, Monica, Brandon and Daniel

My thumb after two busy days of fishing

Cloudy and Rain, Water Temperature 65* and clear
This morning I put 225 baits in the tank, picked everyone up at High Point and went looking for Stripers. I eventually found what I wanted and started to put baits out but I had only deployed 2 when the first rod went off and Monica jumped on it. Took her a while to get it in but it was her first Striper ever and the largest fish of the morning. Before she landed her fish we hooked up again. It was pouring down rain but for 2 1/2 hours no one really noticed, they were too busy reeling in fish. Now there is usually a clown with every group and Elmer took center stage today. There are only a few things you can't do fishing the way I do but he hit them all and made some more up. Instead of counting the pulls correctly he 1..tried to cheat me by pulling 20 inches rather than 24 at a time..2..set the hook instead of just picking up and reeling..3..picked the rod up without reeling first..4..constantly held his thumb on the line...and here is the new one...I was netting the fish knowing the fish were keepers and kept hearing splashes as I rebaited the lines and after awhile I looked while he measured the fish and he was throwing away fish over 21 inches. I asked him what he was doing then he realized my golden rule was 22 inches long, not 20. Elmer is a good sport and once he caught on he couldn't do any wrong and really helped in the boat with taking fish off the hooks and deploying baits. We all had a great time and I am sure they all will remember this fishing trip for quite awhile. This morning we caught 93 Stripers by 9:10, great teamwork! My thumb looks bad but theirs is probably worse, they handled most of the fish today while I baited.

Monday, May 09, 2016

What goes around comes around!

Ricky Jerrell

Ricky has been fishing the lake since it was inundated and anyone who has ever fished at the third dike will recognize this man [although a lot grayer]. He has helped everyone who has fished the dike and brought his children up catching Stripers there. I can't remember how many times I saw him either there or out in his boat with his son Timmy [works at High Point]. Well Timmy has taken the reigns form his master and is now one of the top Striper fishermen on the lake and dragged his Daddy out on the lake this morning for some payback. They went out for a couple hours and "Spanked" the Stripers this morning. Ricky is pictured with only 8 fish because that is the limit for two anglers but I saw them hooked up continuously for two hours this morning.I am sure Ricky is not very impressed with the catch, he is from the generation when fishing at the dike they threw back 15 pounders all day. Looks like Ricky is waiting for Timmy to quit taking pictures and clean his fish for him.
Great to see these two fisherman on the water together.

Summer Patterns using Simrad

 This is a screen shot where I was dragging some baits at 35 feet with some isolated Stripers nearby then came into a major school of Herring. The vertical stack in the upper water column just before the Herring are white perch.

 Here I am using Chirp and looking at a few downlines going through non aggressive Stripers.

 We are banging um in this busy screen.

 This is a good example of locating Stripers. I was running 25mph on the left half of the screen when I noticed Stripers from 25 to 40 feet deep in the middle of the screen. I slowed down on the right third of the screen and watched the Stripers develop into arches. Naturally I turned the boat around , set out downlines and wore them out.

 Here I am using my Navionics chart in combination with sonar and side scan. You can clearly see the Stripers on the sonar page as well as the white vertical dashes on side scan. Notice all the way out to 120 feet to the right there are fish.

 Man we are on um here and can't keep up.
When you see this on your Simrad or Lowrance
you get the results below!


The summer downline bite is beginning to develop which means Lake Anna Striper fishing is about to explode! This morning I only had 2 anglers and wore them out by 8am catching over 50 Stripers. It was way too much action for just 2 people to handle. From here on through July I will only be taking parties of a minimum of 4 anglers but 6 would be better. It is not uncommon to catch 100 to 200 fish a morning on this lake and this year is shaping up to be a record breaking year. Two years ago I took the lake biologists out and they caught 270 Stripers by 1pm! If you want to get into some of this action better reserve a trip early to avoid getting shut out. This is a great time to turn children on to catching fish vrs just going fishing, it will prove to be a memory of a lifetime!

Saturday, May 07, 2016

A peacefull Saturday on the water.

Charlie, Chris, Mike and Jason

Cloudy and warm, Water temperature 60* 
After throwing for 3 hours I picked up the guys and headed out. We had about 10 hits on our first set but only boated a few of them, someone was having a problem getting fish to the boat. I decided to make a big move and hit something else only catching one keeper. Then I got on my horse and looked for fish. I stumbled over some and we set up on them and worked on them hard. Jason saved the day by catching most of the fish that hit his rods. Met some new friends today and we all had fun on the water. With all these fish I asked them what they were having for dinner tonight and Mike said 16 oz. rib eyes! I might be going over to his house tonight.

Friday, May 06, 2016

A Tough Day on the Water

Karen and Jerry
Tony took this happy couple out on a cold and rainy Thursday to catch some Stripers. 
Bad weather and slow fishing make for a long day.

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Monday, May 2nd

 STRIPER AL
Al is a client-friend that has chartered me since the beginning of my service. For about 5 years he fished with me every Saturday of the year with the exceptions of foul weather. Living in Belize he does not come to VA. often but he scheduled a trip a month ago and flew up to see what the lake was like now. We hit the water around 9am yesterday and took an hour to catch bait then went fishing. We had already missed the morning bite so fishing was slow but we managed a nice limit. Slow fishing allowed plenty of time to catch up and BS about the many hundreds of fishing trips we experienced together. For old time sake I bitched at him a little just to get a reaction out of him. Good day on the lake.

 Here is Tony holding up a Striper DJ caught in the morning which was too big for DJ to hold by himself.

 This is Janet and her grandson DJ holding up a stringer of Stripers. They fished early morning and came off the water early catching plenty of keeper Stripers but only keeping a few.

Don took Bubba out yesterday afternoon and caught some nice fish. Don needs to clean the bait slime off of his camera lens on his phone so we can see the fish better. The lake is in transition now and very soon we will enter into a summer pattern of 50 to hundreds of fish a morning. Better book your trips soon to avoid getting shut out of this great Striper fishery. Limits are the best in Va., 4 fish per person per day over 20 inches. Come on down and get you some!

Sunday, May 01, 2016

Some of last weeks Catches

Justin and the Fart Gang
 
 Bill and Phil
Tony

 Paul, Mike and Shawn
Tony

Doug and Jimmy
Don