Nathan's Birthday

 Thursday morning driving over 208 bridge...Ice as far as you can see both sides of the bridge.

 Nathan with a nice Striper

 Nice winter Bass

One of many Bass caught today

Sunny and Cold, Water temperatures Frozen to Sturgeon, 41* at at Dukes and 45* at the Dam

Yesterday [Jan 30th] is Nathan's birthday and he has been celebrating it for many years by spending the day fishing Lake Anna with us. He is an avid fisherman and enjoys the outdoors regardless of the weather. Speaking of weather, we had some interesting challenges to make this trip happen. Last year when we went out it took 4 hours to catch bait before we could even begin to fish so I called Carlos at High Point on Wednesday to see if the ramp was open and it was. We caught some beautiful baits on Wednesday evening and were ready for action Thursday morning. Woke up and it was 1 degree so we decided to meet and hour after daylight to get started. The picture of the lake was taken as I was going to High Point to put the boat in. The lake had frozen completely over night! Two inches of ice prevented us launching there so we got on the phone and went to plan B.

After contacting one of our guides [Anthony] we secured another ramp to launch at further down lake. Upon arriving there we were met with 2 inch's of snow and a 1/4 inch of ice on the ramp. Nathan ran to a local store, bought some rock salt and 30 minutes later [10:30] we were in the water. Although we had bluebird skies and the water temperatures had fallen 5 to 6 degrees in less than a week we managed to catch 4 or 5 Largemouth and 7 Stripers. We went downlake to the warmest water we could find but never saw a fish on the depth finder. It looked as though there were no fish in the lake. We set our spread out and simply pulled over all depths of water to catch a few fish. I can't wait for warmer weather to melt the ice so we can get back mid lake and start catching some winter Hogs.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN

Good Way to start the New Year

 Walt

Cloudy and Rain, Water temperature around 40*

I have been off the water for over a month now Hunting and enjoying the holidays and today is my first day back. After seeing the water temperature I knew I had to use some very small baits and fish SLOW so we went and caught bait then looked for some fish. We didn't have long to fish so I concentrated my efforts around the areas where bait was the thickest. As you can see by the shot of my Lowrance we were working ledges nearby deep water. The line at 15 feet was our downline as it came over a school of very nice Stripers. What happened next was mass chaos. Hard to handle a bunch of downlines hooked up to Stripers over 10 pounds! We caught our limit and came off the water before dark. Not bad for a short afternoon of fishing. I am back in the saddle again and ready to have a great year of fishing for Stripers on the Lake.

If anyone is interested in fishing with us this year my grandson's baseball team is raffling off a full day charter with me for up to 6 anglers. You have less than a month to get in the raffle. Details are on my previous post of Dec.16.

Just in time for Christmas

   Here is a great idea for my clients, journal followers and friends. I am giving away a full day charter for up to 6 anglers to be used anytime in 2014 to raise money for my grandsons travel league Baseball team. The Blue Ridge Titans Baseball 9U Division needs to raise money for the upcoming season and are raffling off a trip with me to help generate some funds. The price for a raffle tickets is just $20 each or 3 tickets for $50 and goes to a good cause. This is an opportunity to take or give a trip to someone who already plans on going out with us in 2014  or to someone who always wanted to for 1/32nd of the cost of the trip. The sale of the tickets ends on February 14th, drawing is at the annual Blue Ridge Titans dance on February 15th and winner notified by February 22nd. 

  

 If you would like to get a chance to win you have a couple of easy options.

You can copy and print the ticket, fill out your required information and mail the stub to:

Blaire Conner

Blue Ridge Titans 9U Division Fundraising Coordinator

6613 Clarkes Meadow Drive

Bealeton, VA 22712

 

You will be notified by email of that you have been entered.

You can use pay pal to pay for your tickets. Simply follow the instructions below and we will notify you via email that we received your payment and that you are interred into the drawing.
Directions: 

Go to www.paypal.com and enter your log in information (you will need to set up a free account if you do not already have one).

Click on buy, then make a payment.

Fill out all of the required information.  For "their email' enter brtitans9U@comcast.net, click continue.

If you know someone on the team you can contact their parents who are selling the tickets.

Thank you for your support and have a Wonderful Holiday.

Get Well Brother Tom

 

Mike, Bob, Jason, Tim

Thursday, December 5th, Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 47* and Stained.

Guide DP took this motley crew out on Thursday before the storm to catch some Lake Anna Stripers. They got on fish early but also got busted early by other fisherman forcing them to leave the productive area they were working. After catching 6 Stripers right off the bat they had to struggle the rest of the day for 4 more fish. They still enjoyed the day but their thoughts were with Tim's brother Tom. The weather forecasts some cold and nasty weather moving in which will turn off some fish in the upper portions of the lake.

A pretty stringer of Lake Anna Striprs

Chris came all the way from Rhode Island to fish for Stripers with Anthony today.

[Not really, he came down to do Thanksgiving with his family

but Anthony thinks otherwise]

Vinnie

Anthony took Vinnie from Ferguson Ent. out on a very cold Monday to see what the cold front did to the Stripers. By the looks of these two fish it looks like the front turned bigger Stripers on. Vinnie wanted to take his jacket off so he could get his picture taken in his purple and pink polka dotted shirt but it was a little to cold for that.

Georgeous Day on the Water

DP and Billy

Cloudy and Cold, Water Temperature 51* and Clear

DP took off work a little early today so we went out for an afternoon of Striper catching.  The weather was perfect for fishing for Stripers, cloudy and cold. After spending a couple hours catching the right bait we set out a spread of boards and pulled them for about an hour taking a dozen hits but boating only 3. DP and I decided to discard all the baits on the lines, go catch some more and relocate which we did. The move paid off immediately. We had almost got all of our baits out when the action started and it was tough to keep up with the fish. We had four or five hookups over a rock pile but instead of turning around and hitting it again we simply kept going. We had steady action for 2 hours straight, constantly baiting and reeling in fish. We kept the first dozen and threw back all the other fish we were catching. It is hard to tell by this picture but these were some very nice Stripers. This stringer weighed over 80 pounds! This was a special day for Billy, he played hooky this afternoon from work [ Tires Unlimited ] and enjoyed his 52nd birthday on the water reeling in fish. His shoulder and arms were burning the last 6 or 8 fish that he reeled in. Billy will definitely remember this birthday. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILLY

Eric

Today Guide Brian Mohr took Eric out for a half day charter and put him on a bunch of Stripers.

Here are a few of their catch.

Another Awesome Day on the Lake

Sunny and Warm, Water Temperature 56* and Clear

Fishing continues to be very good even after the rain from last night blew out and the bluebird skies blew in. This morning fish were feeding everywhere. As I was going to catch bait we would see fish and throw lures at them, catch a couple 22 inch fish, run a half mile, see fish, cast to them, catch a couple more 22 inch fish till I realized all we were going to catch on lures were punks so we left them and caught some nice baits. Now the fish were in trouble. We had run about 3 miles to get to the bait with fish everywhere so I put out my spread and pulled the three miles back. We didn't make it quite all the way back before we had gone through the 50 baits we had caught earlier. It was now 10:30, the wind was howling and Earls arms were sore from reeling in fish. He is holding a stringer of the first 8 fish we caught this morning. We lost count of how many we caught because at times we would have 4 or 5 fish on at a time. We would simply boat the fish, throw it overboard then reel in another till we had no lines in the water. Just a killer morning of fishing on Lake Anna.

Another Great day on Lake Anna

Anthony spanked the Stripers again today, 'tis the season for good catches.

Fishing is just going to get better and the fish 

are going to get Bigger.

Anthony and Doug

Guide Anthony put Doug on some great fish today. These are only a few of the ones they caught, all others were released to fight again. These are the first eight fish of the day weighing 60 pounds. I bet if they could have culled their catch today they would have been closer to 80 pounds. Nice Fish!

Bill and Barry

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 53* and Clear

Another tough day for bait this morning for us, we had to throw for 5 hours to catch the bait we wanted. Once we caught the bait we set them out and started hooking up immediately. On our first pull we had 6 or 7  on but only landed a couple of them. We fished for about 2 hours then decided to go catch some more bait and try someplace different. This time bait was easy, a couple throws and we were ready. We put out a spread of boards and the fish wanted them. Although we did not start fishing till 10:30 we had plenty of Striper action.

Jim Woodbridge and Ed Foreman

Sunny and Cool, Water Temperature 56* and Clear.

We threw for bait this morning for about 2 hours before we had enough baits to start fishing. We put out a spread of boards working ledges and took 3 or 4 quick hits. We kept on going taking strikes but the fish were not very aggressive so we would only hook up with about half of them. We decided to go catch some more bait which was a mistake. After throwing for about an hour we hung up two nets and ended up having to leave them in the lake. We took what we had and set up in a different area pulling shallow flats but after an hour with only one fish we had to go. Again we caught more bait and I set up nearby where we caught the bait. The bait was the right size and the fish could not resist them. Within 30 minutes we had more action than we did the whole day. Jim and Ed had been out with me many times and had been patient throughout the day knowing what could happen and it did. It ended out being a great day on the water with some good old clients.

Nice to see this when fishing for Stripers

 This is a school of Stripers [the wide arches] that had surrounded a school of Gizzard Shad [the smaller dashes in the middle of the blue down scan screen] and were feeding aggressively.

Here we have school of bait up on a point with Stripers feeding just off of the drop off. The Stripers eventually moved up onto the point and chased the bait up onto the surface busting bait in about a half acre area. We banged them on planner boards here.

This is a picture of us throwing for bait. The left screen shows Large Gizzard shad. Side scan [upper right] shows the bait better on the right side because the net is falling down and into Giz on the left side spooking some of the bait. The net can be seen with bait inside of it on the center left side of the side scan and 16 to 22 feet deep on the down scan. This also demonstrates how a net collapses as it falls. When the net hit the water it was fully open [10' radius opened to 20 foot circle] then as it falls the weights sink faster than the material causing the net to collapse. If you had a longer rope the net would eventually close completely, making catching bait in deep water very difficult.

Jerry and Michael Logan

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 58* and Clear.

Today felt like a special day. Being cloudy and the weatherman calling for rain I expected boat traffic to be minimal but the sweet thing that happened today was that we had a tank full of bait before daylight which would allow us to be fishing at the crack of dawn. We put out a spread of baits and started taking hits immediately. The action continued for about 3 hours then the wind turned from the SW to the NW. Well you might as well been fishing with no bait on your hook because the fish turned off and would only roll the baits, they were still there but not eating. It didn't matter much because we had our limit and wanted to get in before the rain hit. Jerry has been watching my posts on this journal and was dieing to get out and try it so today was a special treat for him to catch Stripers on Lake Anna with his son Michael.

Pfizer Group

Dan, Marc, Phil and Drew

Sunny and a Beautiful morning, Water temperature 56* and Clear.

Marc had some management over to his lake house to do some work for a couple days and wanted to cram a few hours of fishing in between  some of the conference calls so he booked us for a morning trip. They worked a little after breakfast then got in the boat and fished for a couple hours before having to get back to eat lunch before more conferences. They kept these fish for a nice dinner tonight and hopefully the break they had out on the lake this morning was some good R and R for them. Today the weather and scenery on the lake was breathtaking.

A fun afternoon

 Nick and Tom

Tom

DP took Nick and Tom out this afternoon and put them on these nice Stripers. The Stripers are jamming Big Gizz now.

Birthday Bash

 Drew

 

Guide DP took a crew yesterday and these are a coupe pics of the day. 

 Mike Migliorini took his son Cole and some of his buddies out to celebrate Cole's 18th birthday.  Despite being 2 hours late getting to the boat ramp (too much cake and ice cream late last night), the guys managed to catch some nice stripers. Today's conditions were tough but we all had a great time. Here is Drew with one of his fish and the other pic is a shot of the live well that one of the guys took.

A great day in woods and on the water

 This, Plus

 This, Equals

 A nice Stringer of fish,  Anthony and DP

Anthony

Yesterday [Saturday] morning DP and his son were up in a tree stand watching deer casually walk by. Anthony told his dad that he would like to go catch some Stripers so a few hours later they were out on the lake. After catching bait DP found what is pictured on the Lowrance pictures and hooked up with the fish that are on the stringer. It didn't take but a couple minutes to limit out. I am sure Anthony slept good last night. What a memorable day for father and son.

Wow some nice Stripers!

Earl

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 60 to 65* and Clear

It was such a beautiful day today we decided to go out for a couple hours and fish for Stripers before the weather got bad tonight and tomorrow. Bait was finally easy to catch which only took about 5 casts before we had a full tank. We checked out 3 different patterns and areas to see which had the better fish. Well we found the right one. We took over 30 hits and boated more than half the fish. These were the first eight we caught and kept, certainly not the largest fish of the day. We played the lake turnover today and it payed off with the best catch of the fall so far. We were also able to enjoy catching the fish today because we did not get busted, no one saw where we were fishing or encroached on us. I expect catches with live bait to only get better. Looks like it is going to be a great November.