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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

Some of last weeks Catches

 

Justin and the Fart Gang

 

 Bill and Phil

Tony

 Paul, Mike and Shawn

Tony

Doug and Jimmy

Don

Buddy and Charlie

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 67* and Clear

These two characters wanted to take a day off from Crappie fishing and try their luck at catching Stripers this morning so they met me at 4:30 to experience the whole process. After throwing the net 30 times they figured out catching bait wasn't so easy so we set out a spread of boards and pulled about 3 miles of water looking to catch some nice Stripers. They are holding up a couple of the fish they caught. Good Guys to spend a morning on the lake with.

Saturdays Catches

 Tony put Jed, Paul and John on some nice Stripers this morning.

Don took Bubba and Larry out this morning and got their lines stretched.

Going to be a good year for Stripers,

come on out and get you some.

Today's Catches

 DP and Corey

Tony's clients Tommy, Bob, Marty and Jim

Recent Catches

 Phil, Christian and Travis

 Chief and Lee

Shane and Joe

A couple of Tony's recent trips

 James, Drew, Ricky, Brady and Devin

Jeff and his Crew

A beautiful day on the lake even if it was a Saturday

 Evan, David and Jeff

Evan with his largest fish ever! Over 36 inches and almost 19 pounds.

Sunny and Beautiful, Water Temperature 62* and Clear

A month ago Jeff called and said he just found me on the net and wanted to go see what this Striper fishing was all about. He said they had tried it with 0 success. We had a great conversation on the phone and he booked the first and third Saturdays in April. After spending a few hours on the boat on April 2nd I realized these guys were cool and we became friends. We slayed the fish that day so this morning I told them at 4:30am that we were going to try something a little different and target big fish. They were all in so we went and caught bait then went fishing. I started in a visible area since it was a Saturday and lured a lot of Striper fisherman in to the area. Once there was about 7 or 8 boats there we got our baits in and went elsewhere to have some fun. We took it easy and casually fished till we found what we wanted to then proceeded to work on um. We hooked up with 3 big fish all at once, turned around then hit them again. Boats were homing in on us so we left and went to refresh our bait tank. We came back and banged them again and that is when Evan hooked up with this nice Striper. In the two days we fished together we had so much fun with each other and made memories we will never forget. Good People, Good Weather, Good Fishing, Good Times....makes all my hard work worth it.    Got to Love the Outdoors.

Another day on the water

Jim, Linda and Carlos

Sunny and Nice, Water temperature 60*

Took the same people as yesterday out and put them on some nice ones today. Carlos is helping to hold the stringer because it was so heavy. As usual the big ones got away today. I expect the stringers will continue to look better with larger fish over the next few weeks. Can't wait to get back out to catch the big ones.

A slow morning

 Jim and Linda

Brad

Sunny and Cool, Water Temperature 62* and Clear

Today fishing was very slow and we had to work for every bite which wasn't many to put fish in the boat. We started off with 3 fish before I could get the boards out but after that we went an hour for 2 more fish. I ended up changing tactics we nailed a few more nicer fish. Tomorrow should be better.

Cold and Wind

Don took Tony and Janet out yesterday and showed them you can still catch Stripers when the temps plummet and the winds howl. That combination makes for a very uncomfortable morning on the water.

Navico Screen Shots

 Simrad Screen Shot of Stripers [arches] beneath balls of bait. I was using chirp at the time of this pic and notice the individual pieces of bait within the bait balls. Chirp is also clearly identifying each Striper very clearly.  Stripers were not feeding here as is evident of the lack of streaking arches.

 Another Simrad shot of a couple of Stripers [arches] on the left side of a couple balls of Herring.

 This is a Lowrance shot with a very busy screen. Notice in the history bar that I had been over this for some time. The sonar screen on the bottom shows a whole lot of bait [mainly on the left] but if you look closely the right side of the screen is drawing arches. The Side scan confirms with the white vertical dashes that in fact there are some fish next to the bait. This is a broadband shot but if I would have had chirp enabled it would have distinguished the bait vrs the fish better.

 I took this shot off of my bow mounted Lowrance. I am using sonar and Side Scan to locate and catch bait. I had seen bait hugging the bottom and threw the net [in the water column just to the left of the boat between 0 and 20 feet] a little late and missed my target. On the right side of the sonar screen you can see the net falling to the bottom. You can actually see the individual 1 inch round sinkers on the bottom of the net in the side scan view. The net opened perfectly and is sinking to the bottom [at the 20 foot mark]. It appears on the screen that the right side is sinking faster than the left but remember...this is side scan...the transducer is looking out to the side of the boat therefore the 0 line is the surface and 20 is the bottom...the sinkers nearer the bottom and the center horn is closer to the surface. If you were underwater looking at the net fall it would look exactly like this.

In this Lowrance bow mounted pic I threw the net off of the front of the boat. You can see in the sonar the net falling threw a major school of bait but since I threw it forward of the transducer it did not show up out to the side in side scan. I have a LSS2 mounted on the bottom of my trolling motor and simply turn the motor with my remote to locate the bait then in this case I threw on them in front of the boat before the boat got over them and spooked them.

If you are not seeing pics like these on your depth finders check out my setting to see if you are set up right. If you are ready to upgrade, stop by Greentop and talk to the Pros there. They have more knowledge of the products they sell than anywhere else I know. When you buy from them they will go over the unit completely, pull the one out of a box when you purchase it and check for updates and update them, set up the unit for the body of water you fish but most importantly will accept any of your calls while you are on the water to help you get the most from your depth finder. There knowledge of Navico products is comparable to the owners manual,  but it is easier to speak with someone rather than fumbling through a complicated manual. Even I check with them on occasion when I can't figure it out. The Guru's at Greentop are Steve Lane and Thomas Harris. If you are looking for a Lowrance that has GPS, Sonar, Side Scan and Down Scan including a total scan transducer in a 7 inch format check out the Elite 7 TI for around $800. That will be the next unit I put on my bow.  Go see them, you will be glad you did!

Quite an Interesting Day

 Evan, David, Dean and Jeff

 Fish on the ground wouldn't fit on the stringer.

Sam, Nathan, Janet and Kimmy

Funky weather today...Warm and rain in the morning with South wind, then cold front blowing threw with the wind changing to the north dropping air temps 10 degrees in 2 hours then east wind and showers then South winds and full sun????? Tony and I both fished today and laid the smack down on some Stripers. He took Janet, Kimmy and Sam and I took the other crew and together we caught 80 Stripers today. Smallest fish on the top stringer was 24 inches and the smallest one on the ground was 21inches...lots of nice fish. Our fish when they hooked up today clobbered the baits. The Water Bugz planner boards were skipping across the water in all directions but my crew met the challenge and did an exceptional job of controlling the fish. There was great action not only in the water but also in the boat. We filmed some of the nicer hook ups today and hopefully in the near future they will edit it, send it to me and I will post some of the chaos that went on today. My group had never done well on Anna before but after 10 minutes of throwing the net this morning I think they knew they were in for a treat today. Lots of fun on the water today.

This is just the beginning of a great Spring season. Contact us and come get you some!

Finally caught a BIG ONE

Michael Ward

Cloudy and Stormy, Water Temperature 58*

Michael booked a trip with me today with hopes of catching a big Striper. We went out at 3am to catch some 15 inch Gizzards. After throwing for 3 hours I finally had about 20 in the tank so we hit the water between lighting bolts. About 7:30 the bobber hooked up and the drag was Screaming! The fish headed for the front of the boat and I don't know what was louder...the drag screaming , the line singing as it passed the boat about 10 mph or me hollering at Mike to avoid the rest of my planner boards. We chased the fish for at least 300 yards then it decided to go into High Point Marina. It got around the new docks there but we managed to get it away from the pilings. Carlos saw what was going on when he was on his tractor and by now the fish was close to the ramps. I knew we could not net the fish so I yelled to him to put the front end loader of his tractor in the water and we lead the fish into the bucket. Carlos did a great job of bucketing the fish. After 2 hours the fish was ours. Not bad for a April fools  joke!!! Don't know where this fish really was caught but is is a nice one. 41.5 inches, 45 pounds. Great fish...like to catch one tomorrow half it's size!