10/8 and 9--Rock Bass, Sunnies, and one decent-sized smallmouth

After teaching Friday morning, I took Ben and his friend Josh out to Mike's place. They each got one good bite on worms, but didn't set the hooks. It seemed like there more than usual tangles, but who knows why we didn't get any hookups. I wanted to clear the skunk, so we hit one side of the ELex, which was churned up and muddy, and then the other, which finally got us a half dozen or so rock bass and red-breast sunfish a piece.

Rockbridge Gothic. Boy with fish.

Look at how much heavier the flow over the dam is.
And also note the picnic bench, which was on the bank 20 yards up, washed into the flow regulators [or whatever those things are]. Also, for the record, I caught two fish while standing and/or walking across that log, on my way back from retrieving baits that Ben had hooked into the rock just past that second regulator.

That nght, after such a frustrating morning (and with five poles and my full box still in the car) I hit the pool just above the S-bend on the 'Lower Maury' and managed a few sunnies, plus one 13" [?] smallie. No pictures. I may have to head a little closer to the S-bend, because there were some serious fish moving in the air just as I packed up.

Saturday, Ben and I got a tip from someone at the soccer game (6-2, go Owls) about a 'honey hole' just behind the Tennis Center at WLU. I don't think we ever got onto it, but we rummaged around and found some fishy looking spots, plus a lurvely nature walk. Have to get back there soon--apparently, there is a spot that is thick with largemouth down there.

10.05 at the East Lex Bridge--minimal size, good numbers

In about an hour after work I pulled out 6 sunnies, 5 bass, and 2 'unhookers,' which is what I'm calling those 'fallfish' after both of them managed to shake themselves off a hook when I pulled them out of the water last night. 9 of those were on a Mepps #2 spinner, 6 of them one cast after another. I stood on a rock and said, "One sunny, one bass...Two sunnies, one bass...two sunnies, one bass, and one unidentifiable unhooker...." Then I got greedy and got FFS (fancy fishing syndrome) and put yet another Mepps into the creek bed when I tried to go downstream and also let my lure drift some. Last two fish were on a Square-A Bomber.

Biggest bass went 8".

We went to the 'Trout and Bass in Rockbridge County' lecture by Doug Bugas last night at VMI. Good stuff. The VDIFWR or whoever they are have a nice new poster out, and this Doug fella also says that this is a freshwater fishing paradise. Muskies in the James, apparently...

A week's worth

Last Friday, Ben, Evan, and I hit the dam at the E. Lex Bridge. On the north side I got about 5 sunnies, but the boys couldn't catch a thing, so we went across the river. On that side we caught about 10-15 redbreast sunfish apiece. My MacBook and the camera conspired, so that I don't have those pictures.

Saturday--Robertson. Worked the weedline, drifted the middle of the lake, nothing. We did see a beaver.

Sunday--no fishing.

Monday--Mike's place. Fish#1 was Evan with a monster hybrid sunny. Fish two was mine, a sizable largemouth. Ben caught the next two largemouth, and they were nice too. One last sunny, and I had to go back to work.

Tuesday at Mike's--Evan opened again, and got a nice largemouth:

I caught three more of those, one pretty runty,

plus a sunny. Shut-out for Ben, but he pouted for maybe a minute and then laughed the whole way home.

W, Th, and F it rained on and off, first time in months, with varying degrees of intensity.

Saturday morning, we tried to fish the Maury off Stuartsburg, and the river had risen 2'. We fished the E. Lex above the dam, and got about 1/2 a bite. We went below the dam, where the water was pouring over the dam so hard the foam built up a foot high in places. We went back up above the dam, 100 yards up the road, and still nothin'. Best news to report is tomorrow we're going to the Gander Mountain in Roanoke--hope they sell parts.

In Which I Learn That I Have In Fact Caught the World's Largest Minnow

'em mystery fish turn out to be, thanks to the guy fishing for carp with oatmeal at the dam yesterday, fallfish.

They're the largest member of the minnow family. I think sometimes these get called chub, or suckers, and the mouth still doesn't look right for what I was catching. Whatever.

I thought that when I left my camera at home yesterday I'd be sure to catch a monster, and have no way to take a picture. Instead, I also forgot my pliers, so that meant I had half a dozen 3" redbreast sunfish take all three treble hooks. You can't even just yank the hooks out and kill the fish because they're too little, and you can't get ahold of them. All released, more or less ok, after my deft surgical skills were called into play. And it rained some, which was good. Total: 3 bass under 8", maybe 20 redbreast sunfish.

I'm taking two days off, fo'reals, 'til I have time to go somewhere a little more productive.

Fishing with kids, pt 1

I'm chomping at the bit to get out to Douthat, but I think I'll have to wait until B&C get back--got some work that needs my attention, and I can't justify taking two and a half hours out to drive out there and probably end up fishing for about an hour. So, to pacify my urge, I'm going to write up the first of many thoughts on this topic.

I've had kind of a learning curve on this myself, so I wanted to pull together and distill my experience over the past few years with getting my kids started on fishing.

First principle of fishing, and of teaching kids to fish: you must be fishing where there are fish. No amount of the right bait, tackle, technique, or lucky turban will make up for an absence of live scaled swimmers in the water.

Kid specific subpoint a. For first trips, there should be a lot of easy to catch fish. I had four blanked trips w/ B before we got it together. He lasted around 7-12 minutes each time, had no fun, was very frustrated, and didn't want to try again for a while between. I think I might have had 1-2 more shots at it when we went out to the pier on Emerald Isle and laid waste to the pinfish. He was really excited to catch dozens of those little guys, and to do it again the next day, and then he was, um, hooked, especially when we laid into something a little bigger.
Looking back now I realize that C & I also went exclusively on high-productivity trips when she was starting.

subpoint a. little 1. got to be ready to spend some money on this to make it happen.
subpoint a. little 2. sunscreen.
subpoint a. little 3. water and snacks. Early on the kid will ask for this him/herself. If you're doing well, you'll have to start remembering for 'em. Also, I'll fish 5 hours without eating, drinking, or peeing, and your kid will too--but s/he will be all tore up at the end, and need you to fix it. Prepare and prevent.
subpoint a. little 4. be ready for a trip of any duration--don't insist on staying longer than your kid wants, and don't lock into a 12 hour trip on day one, but also be ready to put in 3-4 hours if it's going well. From my own experience as a 7yo, nothing sucks worse than having to go home when they're finally biting--and that taints fishing as a crummy time.

Lots more to say here, but another time--gotta keep y'all coming back somehow.

RLFC meeting at the East Lexington Bridge

That'd be the Runty Little Fish Club. I had to switch up my strategy tonight because the fishing was too easy, and I was catching too many dinky bluegills. It was every cast for a while there, on the Torpedo, a Rapala Minnow, and the 'hopper. The night's catch also included two that I think Mike will identify for me, including this one that I think could be a perch, and has a bad sense of perspective, as in can't tell what's bigger or smaller than itself.
Here's his older brother. Looks kinda like a smallie, but the body is so narrow that I don't know. Maybe there's some piscegenation going on in the river.
Pretty fish, though.
The first one of the night was definitely the biggest, and bigger than all the sunnies I caught last night.


Maybe that's not him. The one I'm thinking of was dessert plate sized, maybe 3/4 lb. A real lunker.

To produce the phenomenology of this experience, here's something I read online:

The Four Phases of Fishing:
1. I just wanna catch a fish.
2. I wanna catch a lot of fish.
3. I wanna catch a big fish.
4. I wanna catch 'em on my terms.

Tonight we got to #2, but I'm definitely a #3/#4 kind of guy at this point. Better than getting skunked, and better than scrubbing out the garbage can.

Total: 3 bass*, 10 bluegill, 2 mysteryminnows.

*At this size, I think its hard to say whether they're small, large, rock, green, or what. I'll know by mid-day tomorrow.

Edit: The 'fusiform' two were smallies. I'm guessing, based on coloration and dorsal fin, that the other three were spotted bass. Who knows?

Why am I not fishing here?

This article in one of the Tidewater area papers shows an incredible number of blue catfish coming up to the surface after fisheries scientists put a DC current pulse in the water. If these guys are concerned about the population of blue cats damaging other species in that fishery, I could see my way clear to getting rid of some of them for 'em.