Annual Trips Summay

With time and age, I can't remember well when we went where.  So here is my summary:

2011 - Claytor Lake, VA
2010 - Claytor Lake, VA
2009 - Lake Norman, NC
2008 - Claytor Lake, VA
2007 -  Douglas Lake, TN
2006 -  Claytor Lake, VA
2005 -  South Holston Lake, TN
2004 - Stonewall Jackson Lake, WV
(here's where it gets really fuzzy)
2003 - Bluestone Lake, WV
2002 - Bluestone Lake, WV
2001 - Bluestone Lake, WV
2000 -  Beech Fork Lake, WV

Steve's trip to Nashville and Old Hickory

I decided to take advantage of direct flight from RDU->Nashville and get a few days of fishing in with Brian since he didn't make the fall trip.   The good news was we got in a good bunch of fishing time on Saturday morning.  The bad news was, we sure didn't catch much.  Not sure if it was weather related or not, though Brian informs me that it was one of the worst outings.  Due to some other recent outings I've had, I'm wondering if I'm bad luck and if I should take up golfing.

At Lake Norman, NC

Took the annual trip this year to Lake Norman near Charlotte, NC.  Only myself, Paul and Dad made it this fall due to Brian's knee blow up a couple months before making it difficult to travel that far.

We had some rough weather, got up to around 60 but windy, cold, overcast and wet most of the time.  We caught some fish but not many.  A big nice lake, many possibilities.  Though we didn't have the patience or warm enough blood to hold out.  We got to enjoy staying warm in the rental and watching football, not a bad activity while away.

Our biggest success was catching a bunch of white bass up the lake on Saturday, nothing much to get excited about other than we were catching something.  Friday evening I had a monster cat on that got away, I don't recall the test I had on but it was strong and broke.  We pulled in a few other nice fish.

Overall, I'd give it another shot but there may be a few other places that are more centrally located to all the travel and are better.

Finally back fishing -- Shearon Harris Lake

I have fished a few times since yesterday but mostly messing around with the kids or at a local lake (Bass Lake) which is more like a pond.

It was very overcast with off and on drizzle most of the morning. I got on the lake before 7 AM and fished until a little after 10. Good news is I didn't get skunked, bad news is that I was only able to land a couple: a cat and a crappie (pretty nice one). I tried my hand at many artificial lures seeing if I could grab a largemouth but no takers. I think I threw just about everything in my tackle box.

Center Hill Lake May 2009

Went fishing on Center Hill Lake on a Monday in May with some friends from work after some major flooding. The lake was up about 7 or 8 feet above normal and the big bluegills were biting. Also caught some nice shellcrackers. These fish were mostly caught in 10 t0 12 feet of water in the back of a cove. Probably caught 40 big keepers in a 4 hour period.

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.