Montgomery Walker

March 8th, 2008: Sunny and warm, Water Temp 47* and Clear. Got out early this morning and caught bait, picked Monty up at 7am , ran to a main lake flat, tried again to get my boards out but the fish kept hitting our baits. Traffic was bad, boats running all around us, I just kept putting baits out and Monty kept reeling in fish. We worked over to a little bay out of the main flow of traffic, got all my lines out and proceeded to spank the fish. Before Monty knew what hit him he had boated 25 Stripers , his shoulder was hurting, his thumb was scraped up and bleeding, and his mouth was tired of smiling. We came off the water by 11, releasing all the fish to fight again. He had 2 friends , Jack and Angie, that were suppose to come and didn't, bet they come next time!

Danny, Dan and Joe

March 5th, 2009: Cloudy and Pleasant, Water Temp 42* and Clear. Got out early and caught bait, picked the guys up at 5:30 and tried to set up on a shallow flat. I mentioned try because I only got 3 baits out before they got clobbered and played catch-up for the next 30 minutes. It wasn't till 7 o'clock before I got my whole spread of a dozen planner boards and a bobber out , but we already had 11 fish in the boat by then. We continued to work the area, fish were out off the banks and fed very well the first few hours of the morning. The guys did well today and kept a bunch of fish to take home.

Searching for Stripers!

March 5th, 2009: Sunny and 50's, Water Temps 38* to 50* and Clear.
After 4 days of freezing weather I went out midday for a couple hours to check the lake out, basically to check on water temperatures. Put in a High Point at 11 , 42* , ran uplake as far as I could go, 38* , caught some bait and checked out Sturgeon, 45* , hit Dukes 46* , ran down to Dike 3, 52*. I wanted to check the lake out because I have not been able to get out with the bad weather and I wanted to find fish for tomorrows clients. I took a friend Brian and the first place we fished we put out 6 lines, 5 minutes after the baits were in the water 4 of the rods hooked up, we put all 4 fish in the boat, took a picture of 2 of them, released all the fish and took off. The water warmed quite well today , with the warm spell coming in by this weekend the lake ought to be on Fire!

Rusty, Tony and Brad

March 1st, 2009: Cloudy and Cold, Water Temp 42*. Got out early and caught bait, picked the guys up at 6:30 and set up on a long main lake point and flats pulling boards. Worked it for 25 minutes without a strike so I decided to make a move. A cold front was moving in fast and I knew I had to put some fish in the boat quick or it was going to be a long day. Put out another spread and started taking hits out in the middle of the lake . We caught a few and turned around to fish it again but my bank side boards started going off. I knew then the fish were on the bank to feed and now was the time to catch them, I bumped the trolling motor up a couple speeds and covered as much water a quickly as I could, all the while catching fish. Then someone turned the switch off and the bite was over, all we could catch was a catfish. It was good timing, we were cold and ready to come in, clients caught 16 Stripers, Rusty caught a 12 3/4 pound Striper and a Bass, and Tony caught a Kitty.[Brad caught everyones dinner!] We were off the water before noon today.

March Fishing

Traditional March Catches

I still have a few weekdays

left in March!

Click on pictures to enlarge

Don, Blane, Chris, Brian and Dave

February 26th, 2009; Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 43* and Clear. Went out this morning early and caught bait, picked the guys up at High Point at 6:3o and went fishing. Set up pulling boards, had 12 strikes before we put the first fish in the boat. Hooked up on another and boated it, then all at once 5 boards on one side hooked up. There was so much excitement that one of the guys threw back a nice keeper fish, naturally he heard about it the rest of the day. Today was a fun day, we had over 40 strikes, the crew catching 16 Stripers and taking a few home for the dinner table. With so many strikes and not boating any huge Stripers I just don't think the big uns wanted to eat today. Wind is going to blow tomorrow and another cold front is moving in.

Vince and Walt

February 25th, 2009: Sunny and Cold, Water Temp 42* and Clear. Didn't get on the water today till after 9 am, Caught bait and went fishing. Set up over a 20' flat pulling a dozen planner boards, a bobber and a couple downlines. An hour later we hadn't been hit, we got them in and moved. Set up where we caught fish yesterday with the same spread, same results. Made another move to the mouth of a creek, put out the same spread, pulled a mile with Walt boating only one nice fish. Made yet another move working a bay with numerous humps in it and scored. On our first pass we put 4 in the boat, turned around and had been busted , another boat started to move in but he was nice enough to yield, we got another 6 or 8 hits before calling it a day. Vince is holding the largest fish of the day. We went 3 hours without a hit midday today, tomorrow I will be on the water at 4:30am.

Striper Al

February 24th, 2009: Sunny and Cold, Water Temp 42* and clear. Today was the first day of little wind, I couldn't stand it, called a friend at noon and told him to meet me at the lake. We caught some bait and put out a spread of a dozen boards and pulled a creek , not getting started till 4pm. We were distracted by a hen Turkey clucking up on the bank and a Gobbler dogging her gobbling every minute or so strutting his stuff. Didn't get far and fish started messing with our baits but were not very excited about eating them. The last week has been brutal with wind and cold nights [15 degrees this morning]. I noticed the temp gauge said 41* and was worried but we started hooking up finally. This fish is the first fish that we put in the boat. The second fish Al hooked did not want to cooperate and ended up fouling up 5 other lines. After we got them straight we caught more fish and came off the water before dark. Not bad for a couple hours of fishing. I will be on the water the next few days, hopefully if it warms some we will catch some of the big boys!

Walt Weeks and Vincent Sherman

February 10th, 2009: Cloudy and 60*, water Temps 42* to 48* and Clear. Caught bait , picked up the guys and had our spread of 12 Water Bugz planner boards, a bobber and a downline out by 6:40am. At 6:45 we were 75 yards from a hole where I knew some Large Stripers were feeding. As luck would have it, a boat came roaring in, had to cross between us and the point, ran a ground, had to raise its motor to get past the point, ran right in front and over top of where we wanted to fish! To make matters worse, he had at least a half a mile he could have gone behind us, but elected to cut in front of us instead. I told the guys he spooked everything for 500 yards around us and we should pick up and relocate now, but we were so amazed of what just happened we continued to fish. Well, my intuitions were right , didn't hook up for an hour. We kept fishing hitting different areas and at 10:30 decided to change up and try something else. Before we left we did have 3 fish on at a time, a Striper and 2 Bass, all hooked up over 40 feet of water. We moved and pulled a shallow flat for a couple hours with minimal success and decided to move again and work some 20 foot flats. This move paid off, we hooked up every 15 minutes or so, numerous times with doubles. Although we lost count of the Stripers, we caught well over 20 along with 4 Bass and 4 Catfish. The guys only kept 5 Stripers and released all the other fish. Vince is pictured holding a small Bass with interesting coloration and a larger Bass, both caught off the bottom in 40 foot of water.

Terry, Bud, Sue and Wade

February 9th, 2009: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temps 42* to 47* and Clear. Caught bait early and was on the water with a spread of 12 boards and a bobber out by 6:30 am. Pulled an area that I had been catching Stripers in but did not get a strike! Went a couple hundred more yards and put a Striper in the boat. Turned and pulled out of that area and headed across the lake to the north side hoping the warm south winds this weekend had relocated the Stripers to the warmer water. Caught a fish on a downline over 50 feet of water and shortly thereafter popped a couple on boards over deep water. Finally found where the fish had moved, they were spread across a 300 yard 30 foot flat, hugging the bottom. We worked it with downlines and boards with little success. Lately when I see the Stripers like this they are not feeding. We picked up and moved, ran a spread of downlines over a deeper flat picking up 3 punks, didn't like that and moved again. This time I set up in the back of a creek and pulled all the way out, only to catch 1 Striper! Set up again on another deep flat and pulled a spread of 5 downlines, a bobber , and 10 planner boards, working them till we came in. We ended up catching 22 Stripers and 2 Bass. Terry and Wade are pictured holding the Bass. Clients kept 7 fish and all other fish were released alive and Happy.

Jim Stryker

February 6th, 2009: Sunny and cold, Water Temps 41* to 47* and Clear.

I was a little concerned about today, a major cold front came through a couple of days ago, hasn't been above freezing for 48 hours. I thought bait and fish may be a problem so I got out on the water very early this morning and caught bait. It was only 14* and my boat was like a skating rink. Tried to get my spread out but as usual the fish wouldn't let me and I struggled to keep up with netting fish and putting lines out. Our first pass over a 20' point that dropped into 40' on both sides was the best, after the sun showed it's self fish went deep and stayed deep. We hit numerous flats , humps and points with little success. We kept seeing Stripers schooled on the bottom between 35 and 40 feet deep. We put downlines in their faces and caught a few of them, but none of any size. We caught only 15 Stripers today, I guess not too bad for the conditions. Jim is holding one of the fish we caught this morning.

Striper Al

February 2nd, 2009: Sunny and warm, Water Temp 47* and Clear.

Caught bait early and was on the water at daybreak. I wanted to get my spread of boards out before we got hit but only had time to get 7 out before we started hooking up. I finally got 12 lines in the water 30 minutes later, every time I thought I would catch up Al hooked another fish. We had fun with those fish and decided to hit some similar areas and moved on. We found numerous schools of fish stacked from 22' to 35 ' over 40 foot flats. We lost count of fish today but a heck of a front blew in , the air temp dropped 20* and we headed for the barn. All but 4 fish were released today.

PS....Striper Al is one of my oldest clients,[ not in age ] many years ago we fished every Saturday of the year. He came back in town and just wanted to see if there were any Stripers left in the lake. There are, thanks to Va.Game and Inland fisheries!

NATHAN

January 30th, 2009: Sunny and Windy, Water Temp 45* and Clear.

Spoke to Nathan last night about the wind that was suppose to blow today giving him his options of fishing today or rescheduling to another day. He said the other 2 guys that were going to go backed out, that it was his birthday and he wanted to catch fish on his birthday. I thought I could oblige him, at least for the first part of the day, so we went. We met at o dark thirty, went out in the fog by GPS, set out my spread of boards, told him to throw some excess baits I had in the lake and before he knew what happened [Thirty minutes] we had 8 Stripers in the cooler and had been throwing others back. It was so early still we could not see the bank in most places due to the fog. At 7:30 we decided that since it was his birthday and him being 28 today we would try to catch 28 Stripers this morning. We ended up getting blown off the water after boating 26 Stripers, 2 shy of our goal. We both had a great morning, Nathan is a very good fisherman, he listened well and understood what it would take for us to catch the fish we did today in the windy conditions just by ourselves. He probably won't forget his 28th birthday. Pictured are the stringer of keepers from early this morning and a couple of other fish we caught later. Eighteen Stripers were returned to the lake to fight another day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

NATHAN

Bill Hamilton

January 29th, 2009: Sunny and Cold, Water Temps 40* to 45* and Clear. Bill and I caught bait early and hit a 20 foot flat first thing this morning. In the first hour we boated 8 or 9 Stripers then went to pick up a friend at the dock. Set up on another deeper flat, boated a couple and Bill caught the first Bass. We moved on and hit yet another flat with some brush on it and Bill boated another Bass. We finished out the day pulling 10 to 40 foot flats, getting numerous hits, catching a few but not hooking up well. Although we caught 14 Stripers and a couple of Bass fishing was SLOW today as I knew it would be after 4 days of clouds, snow and rain then followed by a Bluebird Day. Alot of strikes we had today the stripers just mouthed the bait. The water temps had dropped also making the fish more lethargic. Bill released all the fish today to fight again.

Striperholic

January 25, 2009: Cloudy and Cold, Water Temp 41* to 46* and Clear. Anthony got out early and caught bait while I stayed home enjoying my grandson. I looked at the thermometer around 6am and it was 14*, had a cup of coffee and turned a fishing show on TV. Didn't think much of going out on the water today, Mike [my grandson ] and myself having a ball playing indoors where it was warm. My daughter came to get Mike and I called Anthony, he said fishing had been slow, caught a bunch of punks, but thought he was on to something. I told him I could not stand it , come pick me up at the marina in an hour, we would have a couple hours to fish. Got on board and asked to see his fish, he had been releasing them and had none. We set up pulling boards and hit his spot, everything hooked up, we got these 6 fish in on the first pass. We released these and hit another area similar to the first and Anthony caught the 14 pounder. We hooked up with a few more on different areas and called it a day. I got my fix for fishing for the day, got a few pictures and was home by 5:30 for dinner.

Walt Weeks and Mark Mautte

January 23rd, 2009: Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temp 41* to 46* and Clear.

We set up before daylight way out on a long tapering point that dropped off into a 40 foot flat, hoping to get a spread of 12 boards and a bobber out without getting hit, but before we could we hooked up with doubles. We were really waiting on Mark to show up and

was fishing an area nearby the ramp. We picked Mark up an hour after daylight, by then we had already caught 8 Stripers. We had to go elsewhere to set up again because we got busted reeling in fish and a guy kept trolling back and forth where he saw us boat the fish. We pulled 40 foot flats with humps on them rising up to 10 feet and ended up catching 18 Stripers today. The guys had to hold the fish by hand today for the camera, I had misplaced my fish stick. Mark caught a nice Bass, the largest he has ever caught. The wind got up pretty bad around noon and ran us off the water. All day Walt kept mumbling something about Mary Tracy comparing her to Joan Devoe and fish, I am really not sure what they all have in common!

Todd and Cathy

January 19th, 2009: Cloudy and Cold, Water Temp 42* to 48* and Clear.

Caught bait this morning and at first light we were putting baits out over a 20' flat. We only got 4 out before we got our first strike, and things did not slow down for 30 minutes. We could only imagine what it would of been like if we had our spread of 13 baits out when we hit that area. It was fun while it lasted, I could have turned around and baited up and hit it again but Todd was looking to learn the lake and fish different areas rather than fill the livewell so we moved on. We next set up over 40 feet of water wanting to pull a couple of 20 to 30 foot humps but again we got fooled, only had 7 baits out when the fish started banging the baits and every rod hooked up. By the time I got over the first hump we had no baits in the water. We scrambled to rebait and fished the humps and moved on. About noon the wind changed direction and started blowing out of the west, all the gulls sat down on the water and we never caught another fish. Before the wind changed and while it was blowing out of the south we boated 21 Stripers, the guys keeping a few to eat and releasing the rest in great condition. Todd also caught this citation Bass and released it also.

Brian, Joe and John

January 18th, 2009: Cloudy and Cold, Water Temps 38* midlake and 48* downlake.

After 3 days of extremely cold weather it warmed up just enough today to go out. We got out on the water at noon , caught bait and went downlake to the warmest water we could find , at the 3rd Dike. It was so windy that I just ran the trolling motor while Brian baited the lines. We set up a spread of boards and pulled the whole bay, waisting a couple hours only to catch a couple punks. The wind around 3 o'clock laid down to 10mph so we got our lines in and ran uplake to a bay where I located some fish earlier in the week and put out our spread there. We hooked up before we got all of our lines out and played catch up for the next hour. We saw fish deep between 25 and 30 feet but they would not hit, we only caught fish less than 10 feet deep, in the wind. With the wind it was hard to know how many strikes we got but we do know we caught 15 Stripers with the largest one over 12 pounds caught by Joe. The guys kept a couple and released the rest to fight again.

An afternoon of fun

January 14th, 2009: Sunny and Cold, Water Temp 48* and Clear. Got to the lake at noon, caught bait and looked for Stripers. Went right to a hump that was loaded, less than 20 seconds after putting a bait out we hooked up. Brian was gitty, he hadn't ever expected to catch fish the way we did. Since I was looking for fish for clients I left this school and searched for others. We fished 10 to 45 foot flats this afternoon, had over 25 Strikes, Brian boated about 15 and released them all to fight again.

Howard Manweller and Larry Jones

January 12th, 2009: Partly Cloudy and Cold, Water Temp 41* and Clear.

Got out early and caught bait then picked the guys up at 7am. Set out a spread of 10 boards , a bobber and some downlines and pulled 40 foot flats. Before I got them out we started hooking up. It took probably an hour for me to catch up and get the entire spread out due to the action we were having. We fished 40 foot flats till 11am and went and hit some shallower areas for a couple hours only catching a couple of fish then finished the day back over the deeper flats. Today was a great day of fishing, we caught over 20 Stripers , the guys taking home a couple for the table. We had well over 35 strikes today, not bad for a cold January day.

A Cold Rainy Day

I'm Back. I have been off the water hunting lately and today is my first day fishing this year. I will resume my regular postings.

January 7th, 2009 . Cold and Rain, Water Temps 41* Mid Lake to 53* Downlake.


I had today booked with a good client but they did not want to fight the 2 inches of rain today so I called the only other person I knew that was idiot enough to go out on a day like today, Anthony. I got out well before daylight to catch bait while Anthony stayed in town to get his crews off to work. I was having trouble catching bait, caught thousands of 2 inch threadfin. Anthony got to the lake finally and we checked a hole out downlake for 20 minutes getting a couple weak strikes so we decided to move on. We set up boards and pulled a couple 20 foot flats hooking up with a 6 pound Striper and 4 Bass, the one in the picture was a 6.12 pound 22" citation. We had discussed last night where and what we wanted to fish today but bait collection and starting at 11am messed us up a little but we decided to go with our original plan and took off. We set up fishing with boards and downlines working 40 foot flats and the points adjacent to them. Before we got our spread out the action started and for the next 2 hours we played catch up trying to keep our lines baited. [ Anthony's 20 calls from work did not help things much] Although today was miserable weather, it did keep the other boaters off the water which allowed us to fish uninhibited.