Jan, Wilmer and Josh

Sunny and Cool, Water Temperature 66* and Clear

The guys were at the marina before I arrived ready to go. We took off, caught a tank full of bait in 5 casts then went to an area to pull boards. I set out a spread of boards pulling very shallow water. Within the first 20 minutes we took 8 hits and hooked up with 6 but only managed to get 1 of the 6 into the boat. At this point I did not like the ratio so I decide to do something completely different. I made a move about 7:30 to 30 to 40 foot flats and pulled boards and downlines. We first hooked up with the boards then everything we had out got hooked up. Must have been pretty funny for someone to see 4 grown men running around the boat! The board fish would hook up and swim to the other side of the boat, the downline fish would swim under the boat, but it didn't matter much. With 15 rods hooked up the odds were in our favor to have fun. At one time I had a fish in the net that had swam around another line and while I was trying to free it Josh had a fish on a board freight training him around 5 other rods. By the time he got back to the back of the boat following the fish he had a line tied around his legs and had pinned me into the corner. I had to get out because Wilmer and Jan had fish I had to net for them. Quite an eventful moment. I pulled off of these fish to get a chance to breath and straighten thing out and popped these pictures of some other fish in the area. We had emptied the bait tank, were out of bait and full of fish.The sweet thing about the action this morning was that there were no boats around, we were in the fog and the fish nor other boaters did not know we were there. The guys took home 16 very nice Stripers that weighed in excess of 100 pounds.

Greg, Kevin, John, John, Vinnie and Anaconda Neal

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 67* and Clear.

I met the guys at High Point at 6am then went and caught bait. It being the weekend I knew there would be a lot of boat traffic so I decided to start off fishing deep with downlines instead of pulling boards and getting them cut off by bass boaters racing up the lake. That was probably the best decision I made today, 5 minutes after I set up you could hear the roar of motors a mile away running uplake to get to their fishing holes. We worked deeper flats catching a fish here or there but the fish were not real aggressive this morning. I found numerous schools but mostly small schools of 50 to 100 fish. We ran out of bait around 10 and had to go catch more. After catching bait we set up on some different structures and took plenty of hits but our landing ratio was not the best. Today we had 33 hookups, caught 13 Stripers and a couple of Kitties. The guys took home a dozen fish to cook out at Kevin's tonight. We have to thank Neal for most of the fish, he had a unique way of calling the fish to the boat. He would fill his bladder up with beer then have to empty it, and every time he pulled the snake out the rods would double over.

Mark, Juan, and Big Mark

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperatures 67* and Clear

I met the guys about 6 this morning, went and made about 6 casts with the throw net and filled up my bait tank. I set out a spread of Water Bugz before light pulling a very shallow flat. I started getting nervous baits right away but we did not take a hit for about 200 yards. We hooked up and landed the fish then about every 10 minutes or so we would hook up again. The fish were not feeding well but we had steady action. After about an hour we had 4 or 5 fish in the box but I thought we could do better so I moved to pull even a shallower flat. We worked it for about 10 minutes then Juan noticed a spray about 80 yards from us so I headed that direction and we popped a nice Striper on a Pencil Popper. I went right over the school of maybe a thousand fish and only had 1 hit. The fish simply were not hungry! We worked the area for the next couple hours going over fish only to hook up about once every 15 minutes. I had 10 boards, a bobber and 7 downlines out and the fish were simply lethargic. After using up 60 baits I decided to go catch some more bait and try a different area. That turned out to be a productive move, we caught fish on both boards and downlines but only about 4 fish an hour. I popped a couple pictures of my Lowrance when we would hook up with fish. The guys had a great time today, we only landed about half our fish that hit but we ended up catching 18 Stripers and 4 Catfish. The guys took home 16 Stripers.

Dave and Anthony

                        Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 67* and Clear

I picked the guys up at 5:45 and went to catch bait. Five throws later we had a tank overflowing with beautiful baits. It was still 20 minutes before daylight so I decided to do something crazy. I decided to pull boards right up on the bank in water 5 foot or less and once my outer board got close to the bank it went off. Anthony hopped on it and wrestled it in. By the time I got the fish off the hook another rod went off then another. Within 5 minutes we had hooked up every rod on the left side of the boat then the other side started going off. We had numerous doubles and one triple hooked up at once. By 7:15 everything we had out had been hit and the guys incredibly landed every fish, 11 fish were in the box. Well that crazy move had paid off so I decided to head back downlake to do something different. I set up on the inside edge of a flat and pulled it for 400 yards only to catch a Catfish. For a second I was wondering if I should have not left the fish we caught earlier so quickly. I really was not worried, I had confidence in myself and my Lowrance. About 8:30 I started seeing some downline fish and by 9 we were regularly seeing schools and catching Stripers out of all of them. The top picture of my graph show us just entering into a school of catchable Stripers. The middle picture is us coming into the "Mother Load" of fish and the bottom picture of my Lowrance shows us going over 10 or 12 Stripers and 30 to 40 others out to the right side of my boat about 40 feet. Needless to say we caught a whole bunch of fish today.

Maury Cralle and the 26th Annual Lake Anna Family Vacation

Sunny, Windy and Pleasant, Water Temperature 76* and Clear.

Today we celebrated the Cralle annual vacation by fishing for Stripers. We were scheduled to go out tomorrow but the weather is supposed to crash tonight so we changed our plans and went today. I advised Maury yesterday on the phone that this being the only nice day of a holiday weekend the lake would be busy with bass boats and that once the boats got out fishing would slow down. I usually take 6 people out for a few hours then drop them off and pick up another boat load, take them out for a few hours then do it again. Maury knew the first flight would be the most productive so he sent the kids out to have some fun early. We set out a bunch of boards and started hooking up immediately. The 2 girls jumped on the rods and the battle began, and what a battle it was. After a couple of minutes they wrestled their fish to the boat and we boated both of them. While we were netting the fish another hooked up and Gus grabbed the rod and boated it as well. Fish were breaking all around us and we were in the hot spot. Well, we were in the spot but after 4 boaters ran over us the fish spooked and all we could do was dream of what we could have caught there if only a few boaters would have had the courtesy to not run over top of us. That's fishing on the weekend!   Well we fished for a couple more hours and boated a few more fish then caught bait and picked up the B team. We fished for a couple hours only to boat 1 more Striper. Maury was summoned to return to the house so we went back, took pictures and took the third group of people out but as I was leaving the dock the wind changed direction, picked up speed to about 25 mph, and the temperature started dropping. We fished for about an hour going over nice schools of fish without even getting a strike. It would have been nice to catch some more fish today but everyone seemed to be happy being together enjoying the day as well as the company. It is a blessing for me to see and be a part of a family tradition where a family gets together and bonds like the Cralle's do. Thankfully Gus [the guy on the left, who is available girls] returned from his second deployment with the Marines unharmed and well. 

SEMPER FI

An Fun Day on the water

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 77* and Clear.

I picked Dwayne and Terry at 5:15 then went and filled my bait tank up with beautiful baits. I then ran to a 30 foot flat with some humps and flats rising to 8 feet and put out a spread of boards. Before I knew it we started hooking up and by 7am the guys did not know what hit them. What a good way to wake up, at first light everything I had out had been hit. The guys were fighting doubles and other fish were on but they could not do anything with them. Everyone was running around the boat, fish all over the floor, but it was very organized and the guys did a great job. I rebaited all the rods while I was turning the boat around and at the same time the guys were taking fish off the hooks and feeding me rods to bait. We hit the area again but only had a few hits, the fish had moved on. We fished for a while then caught 50 more baits and fished the rest of the day.We got caught in a major downpour and was unable to take a picture of the fish but I did catch some pics on my Lowrance of what we were fishing today. The top two pictures are of a school of Stripers over a 12 foot flat. We had gotten most of our rods in by then because of the storm. The bottom picture is Stripers hugging the bottom on a ledge where we caught some fish. This afternoon the fish went very shallow before the storm. I sent the guys home with cooler overflowing with Stripers.

Back on the Lake

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 74* Up lake, 75* Mid lake and 77* at the 3rd Dike

First I would like to thank all the followers of my journal for their concern about me not posting any thing for the last few weeks. Many of you have written wondering if I was OK or what was going on at the lake. September is a month that I usually do not fish very much. In September I try to get as much done around my farm as I can so that I can be ready to fish and hunt daily for the rest of the year. Yesterday I got my last load of firewood up [I have an outdoor furnace that I heat 2 houses with] and taken care of most of my "Honey-Doo's". I have trips scheduled for later in the week so I called a friend [Greg Whitlock of Louisa Boat and Motors] and asked him if he wanted to go out to check out the lake and find some fish for my clients. He happily agreed so we got out early this morning, caught bait and set out a spread of planner boards checking out the shallows since it has been so cool lately. After pulling boards for a couple hours with no luck I decided to make a big move and run down lake looking for schools of fish. I found what I was looking for [Picture on my Lowrance] so we set out downlines setting the baits at 18 feet deep and could not keep up with the action. We kept the first 8 fish and released all the other fish we caught to fight again. We went through a tankful of bait and were ready and happy to come off the water and get home before lunch. Greg is holding up a couple we had hooked up at the same time then released the fish back to swim away. I took the picture of my Lowrance as I was walking up to put my trolling motor in the water. I turned the boat out to the left where I was seeing larger fish in deeper water as Greg tried to put down lines out but as you can imagine we could not get too many in before we started taking hits.

A Wet Morning

This morning when I left the house at 4 am weather.com said there was only 20% chance of rain this morning. Well, we got all of the 20% and more. It rained almost 2 inches in a few hours. I located a couple of schools this morning before my clients couldn't take any more rain. These 2 Lowrance picture are of the same school that I followed about 3/4 of a mile and for about an hour. The lower picture shows 3 screens, the left screen is on bottom lock showing the bottom up to 7 feet off the bottom. The middle screen is traditional sonar showing the fish from the top to the bottom [note the fish streaking at the surface which was actually busting bait right at the back of my boat.] The right half of the screen is side scan showing fish all the way out to 60 feet on both sides of the boat. The upper picture was taken as I was loosing the school before I had to get back on my motor and move to catch up with the school. As you can see the fish at the end of the school were punks and not worth fishing for. Lately when I locate the school the nicer fish have been leading the pack and much more aggressive. It was raining way too hard when we got back to the dock at 9 to take pictures of a stringer of fish.

Michael,, Craig, Charles, Scott the Groom, Nik and Raj

Sunny and warm, Water Temperature 84* and Clear

Today was newlywed Scotts buddy fishing trip for Stripers on the Lake. He got married last week to the most beautiful woman on the lake, Sara. I had caught bait early this morning and picked the guys up at 6am on their docks. They have been partying all week and some of them had not even gone to bed for the night. That did not stop them from bringing a cooler of beer on board nor did it dampen their spirits for wanting to catch some Stripers. I had a plan to do something different so I drove to where I wanted to set up a spread of boards and before I could get my trolling motor down I glanced at my Lowrance and saw a major school of fish right up on the bank. I had not even had time to explain how to put baits out or anything so I scrambled trying to get as many baits in the water as quickly as I could. Before I knew it fish started breaking all around me so I struggled to get my topwater baits untangled so we could catch some on top. I asked if anyone knew how to cast and got no reply so I fired the bait out to the Stripers, twitched it twice and it got clobbered. I handed it off to Scotty and picked up another topwater with intentions of throwing it into the action but downlines started to hook up. If this sounds like action this was just the beginning, this went on from daylight to 8 o'clock when we ran out of bait. I went and caught more bait but the feed was essentially over, we fished a couple more hours and took about 6 or 8 more hits. Poor Nik, every time he would grab a rod with a fish on it he would loose the fish. Every time he would loose a fish the guys were a little bit more high and they would harass him more and more. Nik was cussing in English most of the time but toward the end he was saying some words in Greek that I could not understand but knew the meanings to. Once when he was trying to get a fish in Scotty attempted to stuff a 8 inch Gizzard down Niks pants. I think that brought Nik some good luck, he finally reeled in a nice Striper to end the morning of fishing and fun. This morning was a special morning, some of Scotts friends had never fished before plus this was a morning when they could get away from the girls and let it all hang out. Everyone was in great spirits and had a great time. Best wishes to Scott and Sara, may they be as lucky in love as their parents are.

David and Earl Mielke with guest Christian

Sunny and Warm, Water temperature 82* and Clear

Earl married off his daughter this weekend and needed a short break before spending the week doing "Buddymooning" events dreamed up by the married couple. Dave and I caught bait and picked Earl and Christian up at 6 at Earls dock. I told them it would only be an early morning bite so we had our baits in the water at first light and it didn't take long for Earl to hook up with a nice Striper. Before he could get his in the boat 2 other rods bent over and everyone joined in the chaos. We boated all the fish, rebaited and continued to catch fish till an Osprey decided to eat one of my baits so we had to reel it in and release it unharmed. We caught a couple more fish within a few minutes but a fisherman in a pontoon boat decided he wanted to spook our school of Stripers and try to run over my planner boards. Well that was the end of catching fish there. We fished for a couple more hours only to catch a couple more fish. Earl is having a big cookout for the newlywed celebration on Saturday and needed some Stripers to go along with the ones they catch on Thursday when I take out Scotts buddys fishing.

Congratulations to
SCOTT and SARA HARBERT
8/25/12

Lela and Jim Haltergan

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 85* and clear.

I picked Jim and Lela up at 5:30 at High point and took off to catch bait. Lela got up very early this morning so she decided to take a nap while we caught bait. I had a tank full of bait by 6:15 then made a short run to where I wanted to fish. I set out planner boards and downlines so I could determine where the fish were and it did not take long to find out. Once I got a board within 10 feet of the bank it got clobbered. It was only 6:30 and the fish were still right up on the banks. As Jim reeled the first Striper in I moved the boat closer to the bank to put the next board in the zone and it hooked up before we even landed the first fish. Jim hollered to Lela to wake up and grab yet another rod that was bent over. We boated these 3 Stripers and had to regroup rebaiting our rods. I also turned the boat around so I could put the other 5 boards up on the bank where we just caught our fish. It only took about 10 minutes to get back on the bank but this time our outer boards started hooking up. The fish had already pulled off the banks and moved to deeper water. That was fine with me, I had all my downlines ready so I turned again and headed to where I thought the fish would be heading. I had only gotten out a couple of downlines when both rods buried into the water. The picture of my Lowrance was taken as Jim was reeling in a downline. Before I could get more downlines out our boards started hooking up. Lela had laid back down and was sound asleep. We had rods bent all around the boat and Jim nor myself could wake her up. We did our best to get the fish in the boat but we could not handle the action. We lost the school while we were trying to get the boat straight and by the time we rebaited a boat drove by and spooked the school. We worked the area for a couple more hours only to catch 1 more fish. As usual for this time of year it is an early bite and the schools won't tolerate boats running over top of them. As you can see on my Lowrance the school of Stripers were literally stacked on this ledge coming out of 37 feet of water up on to a 15 foot flat.

Looking for Stripers

Cloudy and Cool, Water Temperature 84* and Clear.

I took off last week to spend my grandsons last week of summer vacation with him so I wanted to get back on the water to locate some Stripers for my clients this week. I decided to try something completely different. This morning I caught Gizzards instead of Herring and pulled boards away from all boat traffic. The move paid off, I took 14 hits the first hour of the morning before the resident idiot of the lake found me, nearly running over my boards then circling in front of me for about 15 minutes until he completely had the lake in a froth. I reeled all my baits in and caught some more bait. This time I went where no troller or spooner could mess me up. I put out a spread of boards and downlines and it didn't take long before I was hooked up with rods on both sides of the boat. I had four fish on at once and luckily boated all four fish but two of the lines got tangled. I did not have time to untangle them, I simply cut them off because my other rods were hooked up as well. I boated 14 Stripers in a time frame of about 15 minutes and tried to release them all unharmed. Of the 14 four of the fish were labored after being in the water for a minute so I retrieve the four that are in the picture and kept them for dinner and to give to a friend. The rest swam away immediately and are ready to be caught again.

James with sons Hunter, Jackson and Conner

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 85* and Clear

Guide Tony took James and his sons out this morning fishing for Stripers but as usual it was only a morning bite. Things got a little boring later in the day so Dad started a dare with Jackson that if he ate a Herring he would give him a hundred dollars and Tony said he would contribute $20 more. Jackson tried but could not do it. Then Tony tried but failed also. Dad had to show everyone how it was done and here is the video of what happened.

Bob Unruh and Boys

Cloudy, Rain and Warm, Water temperature 88* and clear.

This morning was a light show with lightning in the sky while I was catching bait. After putting 160 baits in the tank I picked the crew up at their dock and went looking for Stripers. We set up near some fish but they did not seem to be schooled very well, probably due to the weather. After a few minuted I decided to look for something else and it didn't take long to locate some feeding fish. We worked them for about 30 minutes, lost the school then relocated it and caught more. After using up all our baits I went and caught 200 more and went fishing again.We did not run into many schools today, only 4 or 5. We caught plenty of fish today and kept enough to eat tonight before packing up and heading back to Pennsylvania and New York.

Jerry Wenzel with grandsons Andrew and Richard Tanner

Sunny and HOT, Water Temperature 87* and Clear

I got on the water early and put 175 baits in my tank then picked the guys up at High Point. We then located some fish and put our lines in the water but within 2 minutes another boater ran right up next to us 30 yards away and set up to fish, 9600 acres and 2 minutes into the day an inconsiderate fisherman spooks our fish! I informed them of what they did then we got our baits in and moved. I located another school where we set out our baits soon the water was erupting all around us. This was the first time the boys had fished for Stripers and they were in for a thrill. Our downlines started going off and while they were reeling in fish I threw a topwater bait out and it got clobbered so I handed it off, netted their fish and called Tony over to join in the action. The boys eyes were popping out of their heads with excitement not only catching fish but big fish as well. Stripers were laying on the deck as we were trying to keep up with baiting the hooks. Welcome to my world!!! It wasn't long before I noticed my bait was having issues in the tank, they were all lazy and many were dying. Within a few minutes I decided I had to get rid of the baits in the tank. We emptied the tank so we left the feeding fish to go catch some more bait. Easier said than done, it took awhile to locate and catch bait but we caught 150 more Herring. We went out and found some more schools, called Tony and friend Charlie over and worked on them for about 45 minutes without another boat spooking the school. By 10:30 the action had subsided. All three boats looked for schools for the next hour and a half without hardly seeing a fish. Amazing how one moment we can be on thousands of fish and for the rest of the day not see a fish.

Ken and Ryan

Guide Tony took Ken and Ryan out this morning for a day of fishing for Stripers on Lake Anna. Looks like a couple of happy anglers.

Jake , Ray, Madison, Brian, Rachel

Guide Tony took these guys and gals out today and had some fun catching Stripers and Catfish. Today they caught about 40 fish today despite the thunderstorms. Another great day of fishing on Lake Anna. Tony has been spanking the fish lately.

Derek, Tom and Jakson

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 88* and clear.

Tom was interested in learning a little more about what I do so I met them at the marina at 4am, caught bait and went out to locate schools. I found a school at 6:15 and showed them how to determine if the fish were catchable and what direction they were traveling. Once they understood that I got out in front of the school, set out our baits and watched the rods bend over. It was quite interesting for awhile, they were busy reeling in fish as I was baiting empty hooks, netting the fish and at the same time teaching them how to use the side scan to keep on the school. I popped this picture of my Lowrance at the tail end of the school prior to moving again to get back into them. We followed the school for about an hour, then the buzzards found us and unfortunately motored through the schools spooking the fish and ruining it for everyone. It didn't matter to us this morning, we caught the stringer before 7am and were releasing fish. It would have been nice if these boaters would keep their distance so Tony and his group of clients could have caught their limits. A storm blew in and we got off the water around 8 and called it a day.

Katie and Tina

Guide Tony took the girls out this morning for a half day charter and we worked school after school catching fish this morning.

NICE CATCH!

Terry, Lil and Ray

Guide Tony took his crew out this afternoon for a fun day of fishing, This was Tony's second Charter for the day.