4 days at Claytor Lake, VA

We hit Claytor Lake this year again (was there back in 2006) for our annual fishing trip. The forecast called for clear skies and calm, it turned out to be cloudy and windy...they were close. Fishing wasn't nearly as good as 2 years ago. We caught quite a few nice size, Keith caught the biggest bluegill any of us has seen (should have gotten a picture of it), a few nice cats and small mouths. We also caught some rock bass, perch, striped bass, largemouth bass and 1 crappie the whole trip. Water temp was 73

Old Hickory Lake Spillway Action

Eric and I fished below Old Hickory Damn and had a very exciting outing. We fished for about 3.5 hours and caught some really nice Channel cats, a few stripers and a nice smallmouth. See the heavy stringer. We also caught some rather large skipjack which we are going to use for bait next time visiting the Dam area. The kayaks handled the current quite well to our suprise. This stringer was hard to hold.

J Percy Priest-Elm Hill Marina

On a sunny and mild August day early in the morning Eric Lawson and I caught a few nice Cherokee Bass and some large yellow bass fishing in the river channel in around 80 to 100 feet of water just outside the Elm Hill Marina Cove on J Percy Priest Lake. We caught the Cherokee Bass on shiners and medium sized minnows at depths of 10-25 feet. The mistake we made was not getting there a few hours before dawn. The early morning action was great and then it died off when the sun rose around 8am. The picture shows 15 and 20 inch Cherokee Bass.

Old Hickory Saugeye

I was fishing on the main river channel at the Steam Plant Road Access this morning and caught a variety of bass, catfish, bluegill, drum and even a saugeye. It was a real sunny day and I fished the shady side of the lake in about 10 feet of water. I caught the saugeye on a small piece of nightcrawler fishing the bottom.

Old HIckory-Chrysler Jeep Gallatin Access

Caught about 40+ fish today using jigs tipped with minnows in about 10 feet of water. Caught mostly crappie & yellow bass with some largemouth bass and a nice catfish. Very nice fishing day on Old Hickory. I took home 9 keeper crappie in the 10 to 12 inch range.

Percy Priest Crappie Spring Bite

Fishing at the Fall Creek Ramp on Percy in the Spring was quite an experience. I caught several large white & black crappie on chartreuse & yellow paddle bugs tipped with medium & small minnows at about 7 feet suspended in 10 feet of water doing a slow backwards troll in my kayak. The crappie were difficult to land because they were so aggressive and kept getting off. I had to have my net in the water as soon as I had the bite. Overall it was my best crappie day yet in Tennessee. Beat that Speicher!

Early Spring at Shearon Harris, NC

Brian flew in for a couple of days of early Spring (or is it late Winter?) fishing at my hometown lake. We hit the water early on Sunday, just before sunrise, and stayed on the water until about 5. We used mostly live minnows and had spotty success. First day I got a fairly nice crappie.
Brian landed a nice largemouth, though he was disappointed it wasn't a crappie?!?

Day 2 started out promising, I almost landed a grass pike and we had a few crappie early. Though things were slow. We crossed over in midmorning to the west side of the lake and Brian caught the crappie of the weekend and along side my "big" one of the day:

Old Hickory Bull Creek Ramp Area Jan 08

Eric's Blue Cat was pushing 10 pounds and was the big fish of the day. He caught it in 30-40 feet of water on an Erie Deerie with a night crawler. It was one of the few fish caught that day.

Striper fishing off of Virginia Beach

I was fortunate enough to take a weekend charter for Striper / Rockfish off the coast of Virginia Beach. I went aboard the Debra Christine which is typically out of Maryland but the skipper moves south for the stripers. We limited out on both Saturday and Sunday. I do have a bit of fish for a while.