Back on the Water

George with a 37 inch 18 pound Striper

I take a break every September from being on the water to catch up with projects around the farm. Many of my clients have emailed me to see if I was OK because I had not posted any pics in September, thank you for your concerns, all is well. I got back out Monday taking Paul Mader and friends out fishing a half day but had to start at 10am due to some timing issues with them. I had warned them that the better bites were early and latter in the day but if midday was the only time we could go we probably would not catch a bunch of fish but we could maybe target some larger fish to make up for the midday blues. I looked for about an hour trying to locate some schools but all the fish I found were in 30 feet of water spread out over 100 acres hugging the bottom. When I see this it normally it tough to get bit. I finally set up over some larger arches and put baits in their faces with downlines. We popped 4 or 5 Stripers before we hooked into this pig. The fish had messed with the bait for about 75 yards but would not engage it. George stood at the rod for 6 or 8 minutes then all of a sudden the drag started screaming. It pulled off about 50 yards of drag and George dig great fighting the fish. When it finally came to the surface we knew we had a nice one and I netted it. I knew we could not release the fish because it was hooked deep and was bleeding profusely. I measured the fish and saw it was a Citation so we got all of our rods in and and took it to the marina for George to make it official. Lake Anna welcomed me back with a beautiful day with old friends and the largest fish George had ever caught. Great way to start the fall fishing season!