Rough Start for 2011

I had my first fishing outing of the new year on Old Hickory Lake. The ginormous fish picture attached was the lone highlight for the morning. It was very cold and windy and I only fished for a few hours. I'll get em next time. At a minimum it's more than the competition in North Carolina has caught this year.....

Annual Trip Claytor Lake, VA Oct 23-27

Just got back from annual fall trip, 3rd time to Claytor Lake.  Weather was beautiful for this time of year.  Though fishing was no where near where it was our first time.  Primarily we got into some big bluegill, a couple nice crappies, a few bass, a couple big cats, landed some perch but could have been more productive.


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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.