Nathan and Jim

Sunny and Cold, Water temperature 46* and Clear.

Today's date is always looked forward to by Nathan and myself, he is a client turned friend who reserves this date every year to celebrate his birthday. Every year in the past I have gotten out early enough to have caught bait for the day by daylight, pick him up at the dock at daylight and head for Dike 3. We fish and party till the wind blows us off the lake or till we catch so many fish or till we run out of drink then part our ways, I go home and he usually goes home, takes a power nap then goes out to a game [tonight it is the Wizards and Bulls I think]. Today he brought Jim down to help him reel in a few fish and to keep him straight on the ride back home. We set out a spread of boards and enjoyed the day laughing and reeling in fish. Although it was cold out this morning the day was gorgeous and the fishing was good. We took about 20 hits this morning giving the guys plenty of action. Nathan is the birthday boy on the left, today he turned 31. In the past we would set our sights on catching as many fish as he was old and actually accomplished our goal but as we get older we enjoy not only the fishing but like to catch up on fishing stories from the past year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN

Matt, Bob, Robert and Jay

Sunny, Windy and Cold, Water temperature 47*.
I got out early this morning, hung lights, caught bait and was ready to go before the crack of dawn. I knew the wind was going to blow and lately it has been an early morning bite so I was anxious to get as many fish in the boat before the bite was over and before we got blown off the lake. After putting my third board out we hooked up and landed a nice Striper. I almost got my spread of 11 boards, a bobber and 2 free lines out when 3 fish hooked up. We got 2 of the 3 in and were off to a good start. The wind was none existent, there were no boats around to disturb us and the guys were pumped. We continued to work a similar pattern until about 9 when the wind started to get up and the fishing slowed down. We had 8 or 9 fish in the box and the guys wanted more. After about an hour without a hit I decided to hit another area hoping to catch more fish but it was slow there also, bites were down to one every half hour or so. The wind was getting up by now and I knew anywhere I went I would have issues controlling the boat so I decided to stay in the area. The fishing was slow for the rest of the trip but we managed to boat 13 nice Stripers today. We all had fun today and the guys were able to take some nice fish home for the table.
It looks like the weather may warm a little this week and if the wind cooperates fishing should improve drastically.

Brian and Eric Nickols

Sunny and Cold, Water temperatures 45* and Clear.
Brian wanted to take his son out today to fish but was more concerned with "learning the ropes" about fishing for Stripers on the lake. He met me before daylight to catch bait then we went fishing. We set up on a fairly shallow flat pulling boards and freelines. I was not too stoked about fishing today with the fronts that have been blowing through daily and it being a poor day to fish if you believe in solunar tables. We started off with Eric jumping on the first rod and landing a nice fish. We pulled another 200 yards without a strike so I turned the boat around, crossed the lake and hit a similar area and caught another fish. I thought I had established a little pattern so I stayed in the general area for a while with little success. We hit some other areas but fishing was SLOW, We only took 6 hits today. The guys did well in landing 5 out of the 6 fish.
I would like to thank a very considerate boater who was driving a White with Green stripe Bullet Bass boat today. I had a large spread out of about 100 yards wide taking up most of the creek that I was fishing. He came around the corner about 60 mph and avoided my spread by running nearby the bank. Later on when he came back out of the creek he ran the other side of the creek that I was fishing on, again very courteous. It is nice to see a considerate boater out on the lake, they are few and far between but I would like to personally thank this guy for thinking of other fisherman. What a good world this would be if more boaters handled themselves like this man did!

Patrick

Sunny and Beautiful, Water Temperature 41* to 47* and Clear.
It was such a beautiful day today I had to get out so I took a friend Patrick out later this morning, caught bait and fished for a while. We tried numerous different patterns, we ran downlines over 30 foot flats, 45 foot flats and 20 foot flat plus we pulled boards over all of those areas also. We caught fish on both boards and downlines today. Patrick is holding a couple of the fish he caught today, the fatter fish on the right was caught on a downline and the fish on the left on a board over 34 feet of water.

Jim and Tim

Sunny and Cold, Water temperature 44* and Clear.
Picked the guys up early this morning, caught 80 pieces of bait and went fishing. Due to the cold front blowing through yesterday I thought the Stripers may be deep so I set up over a deep flat with downlines where I was seeing a few fish set at 38 feet deep. We starting taking hits immediately but the fish were not taking the baits to eat them, they were simply killing the baits. I knew they were decent fish because I could see them on the Lowrance and after a dozen hits we had 3 fish hook up at once. The largest of the three was about 8 pounds. We worked deep flats for about 2 hours then I decided to go check some other places out. I looked while on the big motor for about an hour or so. I found a bunch of fish up on a hump in 22 feet of water with depths of 45 feet surrounding it so we put a couple downlines out only to catch punks. We got the baits in and looked a little more without seeing what I wanted to see. The wind was getting up pretty good so I decided to put out a spread of boards to see if the fish would eat over shallower water. We had only pulled about 200 yards when 3 boards over 20 feet of water hooked up. The guys reeled all of the Stripers and I turned around and hit it twice more without taking a hit. I then decided to hit another flat nearby and as we were over 48 feet of water we hooked up with the largest fish of the day, on a board, go figure! By now the wind was howling and the guys were getting uncomfortable. I hit one more area with downlines , caught a keeper and the guys were ready to call it a day. Today we landed 12 Stripers, had probably 30 hits and kept a few to take home for dinner tonight.
We are having front after front passing through keeping the Stripers pretty confused. Also the aftershocks we had yesterday didn't help thing much today. We have another front passing through tonight and yet another front passing through on Friday night. Hope the weather calms down soon.

Tony

Cloudy and rain, Water temperature 42* up and 47* mid lake.
Well now that hunting season is over I have to go back to work so I called Tony yesterday and invited him to go out with me for a couple hours to locate bait and fish again. I mainly wanted to drive around the lake checking out the water temps and color of the lake so we cruised for awhile, located some bait and kept about 80 baits to fish with this morning. My wife wanted two fish for dinner and Tony said he would like a fish diner so we decided to keep a couple today. I located some fish on our first set up and within 30 minutes we had caught enough for dinner and were already throwing fish back. We left that area so I could take clients out on it later in the week and hit 2 other areas this morning before deciding to get off the water before the hard rains hit. I am glad to be back out on the water again.

Kathy, Bonnie and Todd

Sunny and Pleasant, Water temperature 50* and stained.
I got out early to catch bait then picked my crew up and went fishing. I concentrated on areas this morning where we had success yesterday. I started off deploying boards on the bank side of the boat when the closest board to the bank started skipping across the surface. Before I could get another bait in the water a second board got hit. I started thinking to myself that my worrying last night of the fish turning off due to a cold front blowing through was in vain. Todd had called many times wondering if we should reschedule the trip due to the weather and after him changing his mind several times at 7 o'clock last night he decided to go today. It actually was a beautiful morning with the sun out and little wind but that did not last very long. It took me a little while to figure out what the fish were doing but once we did we worked on them. I figured out a pattern they were using and every spot that we hit that fit the pattern we caught fish. Kathy had been the luckiest today reeling in the largest fish until Todd hooked up with his big fish. He had fought a nice fish prior to catching this one but messed around with it until it got tangled in another line and broke off as I was ready to put the net in the water. He was having trouble with this other fish and I was teasing him about loosing the big fish of the day but he came through for us and we landed the nice Striper. This family really enjoys fishing and have been clients of mine for many years. Although we have had plenty of great trips in the past this trip will stand out in their mind and as Todd put it what a wonderful Christmas present.

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope all my friends and family will
take time to remember our loved ones who are ill or who can not be with us this Christmas.

PS...A long time Striper fisherman of Lake Anna, Allen Worsky, aka...TRASH CAN... is in the hospital recovering from surgery. We will keep him in our prayers.

Scott and Mark

Cloudy and warm, Water Temperature 51* and Stained.
I got out early to catch bait this morning but after a couple hours of throwing I only had 2 baits that I wanted to use so I picked the guys up at 7 and went back out to catch bait. Finally caught a beautiful tankful of bait around 8, located some fish and set up on them. The fog was thick this morning and didn't clear off till around 10 o'clock. Fishing was slow so I relocated to an entirely different area and set out a spread of boards. Once the sun came out of the clouds we started taking hits. For the next couple of hours it appeared when the sun was out the fish would hit and when it was cloudy we didn't. Hopefully the sun shines tomorrow and everyone catches fish. Although it is December 22nd it felt like October with light winds and air temps into the 60's.

Lowrance Pictures

Quite often I receive emails requesting more depth finder pictures with explanations of how to interpret what I am seeing on my Lowrance so that my viewers can understand what they see on their own units. Although I am not an expert I can relate to my experiences of what we catch when I see different scenarios while fishing for Stripers. Last week while on the water I took this picture [lower picture] at 7:50 in the morning. The screen is set up with 3 screens showing bottom lock on the left of the screen set to show from the bottom up 7 feet off the bottom, the center screen traditional sonar in a 30 foot scale and on the right half of the screen side scan set on a 80 foot scale. I was looking for Stripers on 30 foot flats at the time and crossed over the channel which was 36 feet deep. I saw a couple arches on the center screen but when I looked at the side scan I noticed actually how large the fish were. I was traveling 7 tenths of a mph and noticing extremely long lines with large shadows out behind them. The boat is at 0 in the top middle of the right screen and fish were showing up around 20 feet with the larger fish showing shadows further out to the side on the screen. In the past seeing lines this size at this speed produced Stripers usually in excess of 8 to 10 pounds. The problem with fishing here is that they are in the middle of the channel, an area where Stripers seldom feed. I continued to search for fish and at 8:30 found a school of Stripers up on a flat where they will feed. After observing the screen seeing smaller fish above the larger fish we put our downlines down to 20 feet immediately hooked up with 6 Stripers at once. After boating the fish I changed my left screen to show the middle of the water column [12 to 22 feet] where I could see the fish more clearly. I saw more fish on the right side of my screen so a gradually steered the boat in that direction to stay on the fish. After about 10 minutes of working the school a couple of boats came nearby us with their big motors on and we watched the fish break up into all directions, time to get our baits in and find another school of Stripers!
Click on the picture for a larger view.

Jeff Prather

Cloudy and cold, Water temperature 50* and Stained.
A friend and I got out early this morning to catch bait then we picked Jeff up at 6:15. We went back out and spent about 30 minutes catching some nice Gizzards then set out a spread of boards and downlines pulling flats nearby the channel. We had no sooner got our baits out when a couple downlines went off. Jeff boated them and before we could rebait boards started skipping across the surface being towed by Stripers. For the next hour and a half it was all we could do to keep baits in the water. I had taken a friend Brian out to do some video filming today. He had his camera running when we had 6 rods hook up all at once. Jeff wrestled all of the fish to the boat without loosing a fish. I guess the action was a little too reveling because before we knew it jump fisherman were all around us. I eased off of the school and popped a couple more a few hundred yards away before the front blew in around 9 this morning. We had caught 21 by then and had enough of other boaters so we got on our big motor and looked for other schools. The temperature falling about 10 degrees coupled with the wind howling made it quite uncomfortable for awhile. The front took its toll, we only caught 5 more fish the rest of the trip. We still were happy catching 26 fish for the day but we were also bummed out knowing that if the front had not come through till later in the day we could have easily doubled our catch.

Shelton, Greg and Vinnie

Partly cloudy and Pleasant, Water Temperature 49*to 53* and Stained.
Anthony took Vinnie and Shelton [Ferguson Enterprises] along with Greg their Kohler rep fishing today. Anthony and Vinnie got out early enough to catch bait, picked the rest of the crew up at 7 and hit a flat that had been producing some nice fish. After pulling the are for an hour and a half without much action he change tactics and converted to using down lines over deeper water. Before they knew it the action got hot and heavy. By noon they were out of bait so they ate a great lunch prepared by Greg and caught more bait. Anthony wanted to try fishing boards again over shallow flats so he converted back to pulling boards hoping to catch some bigger fish that we know are feeding this time of year. Unfortunately the water is still very stained [6 inch visibility] coupled with the cold water making fishing difficult using this method. Today was a great day on the water, little wind, warm air temperatures and plenty of fish to take home for table fare.

Reed, Todd, Matt, Johnny and Bruce

Cloudy and Warm, Water temperature 50* and clear.
Got a late start this morning, one of the guys got lost so we left the marina around 7. I threw for bait for a an hour and a half, caught enough to get started so I put out a spread pulling shallow flats. After getting 3 baits in the water one of the boards started skipping across the water and after a short battle we had our first fish in the boat. The guys faces lit up with smiles, there was a lot of chatter about maybe they may catch some fish today. Later I found out that some had bad experiences of fishless trips with other guides and some others had not caught fish so large before. We continued to put baits out and catch fish. We fished till about 11:30 taking strikes about every 15 minutes or so. I decided to make a move to collect more bait and hit another area. After throwing for a couple more hours I had what I wanted and tried once again to put a spread out. I had only gotten 5 baits out when we had a double hookup so the guys wrestled them into the boat. The rest of the afternoon was slow, the fish had turned off. I was hoping for a big bite in the afternoon like we had yesterday but it simply did not develop. The guys had a great day and had plenty of fish to take home for the table.

Anthony and Greg

Sunny and Beautiful, Water Temperature 50* and Clear.
After hanging around the house this morning wishing I was on the water I called a couple of friends to see if they wanted to go out for a couple hours this afternoon. We left my house after 1, put the boat in the water, caught bait and went fishing. Less than 2 hours later we had these fish to show for our efforts. The guys had no smiles on their faces, we left while the fish were still biting because I had to get home to prepare the boat for a trip tomorrow. While we tried to take this picture the largest fish of the day hooked up but it was released to fight again. This afternoon we had about 22 to 25 hits.

Anthony and DP

DP also decided to fish today so he got his son and a friend and headed to the lake. DP is pictured holding up all the fish Anthony caught today. Anthony is holding up his biggest fish of the day and is smiling because he doesn't have to clean all the fish, he has to get ready for school tomorrow while his daddy does the dirty work. There was another picture that I wanted to show but it did not come out very well. I was playing with Anthony on the radio today and after awhile he said they finally caught something, a leaf. We all had a good laugh but he got the last laugh of the day, he caught more fish than we did! Sure is great to see kids enjoying the outdoors.
If anyone would like to book a trip with little Anthony, let me know and I will set it up. You have to supply the boat and gear, he will tell you what to do and where to go.

WT Carter

How about this Deer? A friend who belongs to my hunt club harvested this one yesterday. The buck was with another buck chasing a doe that was in estrus. I heard from many people yesterday that they witnessed Bucks chasing does. Looks like the rut is late this year!

Pat Kelly

Sunny and warm, Water Temperature 55* and Clear.
Anthony took his neighbor from when he lived on the lake fishing today. They got out early before daylight to catch bait with intentions of catching fish this morning. They caught a couple fish early but before they knew it boats were everywhere, not only fishing boats but skiers and Jet skiers. The fish turned off until boat traffic settled back down later in the afternoon when they caught plenty of fish. Pat kept a few fish and released the rest of the days catch. The holiday weekend coupled with the beautiful weather prompted most people with boats to get out on the water to enjoy one of the last pretty weekends of the year.

Michael

Although fishing has been very good lately I have been looking forward to hunting this year with my grandson Michael. I fish for a living and one of my other passions is hunting. The lake gets pretty busy this time of year with fisherman so I take time to avoid the traffic of the lake by relaxing in the woods. Michael has been hunting with me since he was 2 years old and is as passionate as I am about the outdoors. I have passed on dozens of Bucks this year and was hoping to see a nice one while Mike hunted with me over his Thanksgiving vacation from school. He is 6 years old and still a little too small to use and even fit a weapon that will kill a deer with an ethical shot but next year will be his first year of carrying a weapon. His best friend [Mosby] is a bird dog that I converted to a Deer dog that we take out into the woods whenever we can. This morning we were hunting a 400 acre property with 10 other hunters putting on drives to move the deer around. Mike and I were the drivers and we were taking Mosby in to an area where we knew big Bucks were living. We had only walked about 200 yards when I saw Mosby's head rise up into the air then immediately he took off. Within seconds he was barking every breath. He ran the deer almost out of hearing then the next thing we knew he had turned and his barks were getting louder and louder. I told Mike that the deer was coming our way and to get ready and be alert. Mosby was only about a hundred yards out when Mike whispered "Its a big Buck". I threw a round of OO Buck into the deers shoulder and the deer expired immediately. I don't remember who's heart was pumping the loudest, Mosby's for running the deer and bringing it to his two best friends, Michaels for experiencing the excitement of the hunt or my heart, being able to share my life's passions with my grandson who is as enthusiastic as I am about hunting and fishing. Hopefully next year Michael will take his first Whitetail Buck.
The deer was a 4 1/2 year old buck that had been seen on the property over the last 3 years. It is a main frame 8 point with 6 stickers. Its antlers were well developed with a lot of mass and long tines.
I will be back on the lake next week chasing Stripers but in the back of my mind I will be counting the days until Mike comes back to spend time with him. He will make the decision whether to hunt or go fishing.

Anthony Seay

DP wanted to take his son Anthony fishing today so he caught bait and put out spread of planner boards pulling shallow flats. The boat traffic was pretty bad today but they managed to hook up with some nice fish. Anthony really enjoys fishing taking after his daddy DP and his granddad Donnie Seay, long time resident of the lake who many moons ago use to take everyone's money in Bass tournaments on the lake. It is great to see traditions passed down through the generations.

Anthony

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 55* and Clear.
Couldn't fish yesterday due to the high winds and after looking at the weather this morning it appeared today was going to be the best day of the week to fish so I called Anthony up to see if he could get off work this afternoon and it didn't take him long to answer. I met him at the lake about 1 this afternoon, caught 40 10 inch Gizzards and set out a spread of a dozen boards and a bobber. I found an area where there were no other boats and where the "Jump fisherman" would not encroach on us. Just as we put our spread out a guy that had been winterizing his jet ski put it in the water. I told Anthony this guy was going to be a jerk and low and behold he ran a couple circles around us barely missing our boards. Well he messed that area up so we moved to another area that I knew held fish. On our first pass on the area we had every rod on the bank side take hits. The Stripers would blow the baits out of the water a couple times before hooking up. Watching the baits get hit was as much fun as reeling the fish in. We boated 5 on the first pass them made a big circle to hit it again. Anthony did not want any fish today, I wanted 2 and had a friend that wanted 3 so we kept the first 5 fish and decided to release all the rest of the Stripers that we would catch today. By the time we got back to the area where we caught the fish we had baited all the rods and were ready for action. The Stripers seemed mad at these big Gizz and would chase them to the surface and punished the bait before taking it. We worked the area until just after 3 when a front blew through the area. It looked like it was going to pour down rain. We looked at each other and thought the same thing, we had already gone through 30 baits, caught 15 or 16 beautiful Stripers and neither of us wanted to get wet or ruin the afternoon. We emptied the tank of the remaining baits with fish still slamming our Gizzards that were still out. The fish we kept today had big shoulders and were very healthy. The fish we released were all in good shape and will certainly live to fight again. Tis the season for great Striper fishing.