Lake Anna Stripers

Ryan, Dave, Jenna Meeks...Bobby Kennedy, Bob and Zack Hammond

Sunny and Beautiful, Water Temps mid 50's

Today I took out old friends Bob and Zack for a lesson on catching Stripers on Lake Anna. Fishing is a pleasure with them because they have been going out with me since Zack was knee high to me. They understand what it takes to get a fish in the boat when it hooks up and the stringer is proof of it. We started off fishing this morning working the mouth of a major creek and before I got my spread out Jenna hooked up with the first fish of the day in 2 feet of water. Good start for the morning but within the next half hour boat traffic had alerted the fish and we didn't take any more hits. I decided to make a move to get away from the traffic so I found an area with clay banks and no boats and put my boards right up on the banks. We started hooking up again and the fun began. For about two hours the only hits we would take were the on the closest boards to the bank. Then next thing we knew the fish moved off the banks and the only hits we would take were on the board the furthest out in the middle of the creek. I move the boat out to where the fish were and we continued to have fun. We ended up the morning with Jenna hooking up with a nice one on the bobber as we were getting all the other lines in. Today we caught 20 Stripers, all but one kept, had 4 or 5 more short strikes that did not hook up, fish averaged in the 5 to 6 pound range. Now the water has cooled down and the oxygen levels are back to normal the fish are feeding up and are very healthy. Looking forward to a great winter of Striper fishing when I am not in the woods looking for Bullwinkle. Kind of ironic...when I am hunting all I think of is fishing, when I am fishing and catching I think of being in the woods.

Simrad Screen Shots

 This is a screen shot of non feeding Stripers stratified between 22 to 25 feet deep. These Stripers are not in a feeding mode. They are very docile and content to stay in that tight formation. We put baits in their faces but after working them for 20 minutes we only caught a couple of fish.

 This is a picture of a small school of bait with a few fish beside them.

 These Stripers are feeding and we are catching them. Notice the arches are streaking. Nicer fish out to the right side of the boat as shown on side scan.

 Stripers feeding and scattered through the water column.

 This is a school of catfish. I had a light hung off the front of my boat catching Herring and this is a shot off of the back of the boat where I was culling the baits I wanted for the bait tank and throwing the rest back into the water. I had fish breaking all around the back of the boat and I put out a couple of lines and could not keep the Cats off the hooks. Notice the differences in the Catfish in this shot verses the Stripers in some of the other shots. Stripers are very hard bodied with a larger swim bladder and reflect the pings from the depthfinder better than the catfish with soft bodies, numerous appendages and small bladders. The harder or denser the reflection, the more color will show in the image of the fish on the screen [in this case red for Stripers].

 This is a school of Herring hugging the bottom. These baits are extremely packed tightly on each other and are very dense. Again the red color shows how dense the school is. If the bait was loosely packed  the school would have showed up yellow in color. This is what I look for when I want to catch daytime herring when they are deep. Even though they are 20 to 28 feet deep, they are so crowed together that when I throw my net they cant get out of the way of it. A big heavy net helps as well.

 Bunches of feeding Stripers.

 Sometimes Stripers school so tight that they are hard to distinguish between fish or bait. Lately I have been finding schools of Stripers that are extremely tight, as shown in this screen shot. I ran over this school about 20mph then I dropped the boat off plane and returned to the spot, put baits out and caught fish. I also called one of my other guides back to that part of the lake and he saw numerous schools like this in the general area. We would only catch fish when we were directly over them.

 This day fish were hard to find and hugging the bottom. This is a Largemouth on the bottom and if you look at the right side of side scan you can see other fish [white dashes] laying on the bottom and also see their shadows out beyond them. Notice on my chart I am up on top of a ridge that dumps off into deep water nearby. More Bass are shallower to the right side of my boat which is a Classic location for nice deep Bass that don't see many artificial baits.

 This is a school of Punks scattered over a couple of acres right in the channel [channel is highlighted in brown on my Navionics chart].

Here I am running over humps about 16mph marking Largemouths on the ledges of drop-offs.

Hope you enjoy the shots, click on them to enlarge.

Jim_Hemby@hotmail.com   www.JimHemby.com

Fridays Catches

 Henry and Dale

Don and Andre

Plenty of fun on a Thursday Morning

 Melissa, Steve, Cheryl, Chris, Dana and Ray

Jim

 Conrad and Lee

Don

Michael, Corwin and Tom

Tony

Recent Catches

 Lilly helping her sister hold up a nice Striper

 Tim, Don and Donnie

Bubba

 Don, Tim and Donnie

Bubba

Tim and Josh

Don

A Fishy Monday

 Scott, Tony, Anthony, Dave, Joe, Rich and Rich

Jim

Eric Thompson

Don and Bubba

Cloudy and Warm, Water temperature 83* and Clear

Today started out very slow, we would find fish, set up on them and nothing. Between our three boats we must have covered almost 5 square miles of water looking for fish that would eat a bait. At times we would set up over hundreds of Stripers just to get a bait or two slammed but not hook up. I finally got on some fish around 9 o'clock and Anthony hooked up a couple of times so I called Don over and he started hooking up as well. Tony had been setting over a school for a while and they started catching fish. It was like all the stars lined up or someone turned on a light switch but now it was time to have some fun. After hitting 5 or 6 different schools by lunchtime we had gone from a Zero to limiting out. Funny how fishing goes, we can't make them feed but perseverance saved the day.

Saturdays catches

 Ben and Mason

Jim

 Curtis, Richard, Carter and Kyle

Tony

Chris, Ian, Isaac and Ray

Dale

We managed to catch a few in this nasty weather today.

Striper Wednesday

 Dominic, Nichole, Marisa and Ruthann

Tony

 Paul, Dom and Vince

Bubba

 Luke

Fred, Luke and Dick

Tony

Couple of today's catches and a birthday shout out to a good man

 Happy Birthday Anthony

 Lewey, Lisa, and Jamie

Tony

Brittney, Brandon, Doug

Bubba

Jim_Hemby@hotmail.com  540 967 3313

Come get you some!

Stripers are Rockin!

 Lauren, Janet, Ron and Corey

Tony

 Andrew, Kara, James and Joe 

Jim

Cate, Thompson, Clay and Kyla

Tony

Sunny and warm, Water Temperature 87* and Clear

Today we caught bait early and hit the water at first light. It didn't take Tony long to find the Stripers so he called me to him. By the time I got there they had fish all over the deck and still reeling in more! We teamed up with him keeping on the school. Once he lost them I would get them then I would loose them and he would find them. By 7:10 Tony's crew had their limits and were headed back to the marina. They got back in time to clean their fish and go out to a nice breakfast. My group took a little longer but once they got it they enjoyed the madness of power fishing for Stripers. When all of us got back to the marina most fishermen were just putting their boats in the water. We got off the water before the heat and traffic could affect fishing today. Good Day on Lake Anna.

Some recent catches

 Jerry, Bug's and Lee

Tony

Tom and Henry

Dale

 Mike, John, Cole, Chase, Dave and Ryan

Tony

 Johnny, Gary, Avery and Neil

Tony

Debbie and Wayne

Dale

Lake Anna Striper Guide Service

540 967 3313  Jim_Hemby@hotmail.com

Sunday Morning

Todd, Carter, Gary, Robert and Jim

Sunny and Hot, water Temperature 88* and Clear

Today we departed at daylight and I found a school within 2 minutes of leaving the marina. I had to teach the guys how to deploy the baits and turn the boat back to put them back on the fish. I called Tony over in the other boat but shortly after he got there 4 other boats encroached on us. It's not so bad running 50 to 75 yards away from us reeling in fish but two boats that were trolling ran their boats right up to us and threw breaking fish!!! One of them actually pulled right beside me as we were catching fish and left his twin motors running while he cast at the fish we were working. Naturally the fish spooked and the school dispersed not to be found again. Instead of catching a dozen Stripers out of the school we only boated 6. I guess that's what you get for fishing on lake Anna on the weekend. After looking for the school for 20 minutes we went to where no other boats were in sight and set up on some fish and were successful till wake boarders used our boat as a buoy to ski around. We ended up catching plenty of fish but myself and my clients know better than to try to enjoy fishing on the weekend again.

Saturday July 22nd

Floyd Furr and David

Sunny and Hot, Water temperature 89* and Clear

Today my clients cancelled their trip due to the heat so I called up my buddy Floyd and asked him if he wanted to go out for 3 or 4 hours. I wanted to experiment fishing different areas so we went out looking for Stripers to catch. We hit a couple areas and caught one here and there but realized the fish were keying on an exact depth then we had some fun. We got off the water early enough to beat the heat and the pleasure boaters on this hot and busy Saturday. Floyd is the guy you see on a couple hundred electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning vans if you live anywhere near northern Va. Maybe I can get him to change his picture on the back of his vans to this one! FH Furr Heating and Air Conditioning

Monday morning fishing

Doug Roderick and family had fun this morning reeling in Stripers.

This weeks catches

 Donnie, Kenny, Donna and Bubba

 Don, Willie and Doug

 Don, Kenny and Bubba

 Dale, James and Colleen

Justin, Charlie and Kali

Think she was happy?

Today's Catches

 Don put Andre and Donna on these nice fish this morning

Chris, Sean and Juaquan had fun fishing with Dale this morning