VolFan

I have a canoe (Mad River 14') and a kayak (Dagger Delta 14') You can get foam cartop carriers for about $20 at REI and/or Dicks, I've found that the racks are more trouble than they're worth. I don't use paddle/rod leashes anymore, they just seem to get tangled. I do like having clips/loops to put the paddle in lengthwise to get it out of the way though. Also, some rod clips along the deck are good to keep the rods secure while paddling or just to get them out of the way. GET GOOD SUNSCREEN!

We hit it in the canoe, just south of Alexandria on the VA side this afternoon, the fiancee got a DANDY on a gold spinner with lack and brown skirt, slow rolled through an inflow. Really nice fish. We got a few other 1 to 2 lb lmbs on the same pattern and then she switched to chartruese and got a confused 2 lb+ smallmouth. Again a very good looking, healthy fish for that far south. We've also been picking up fish on flats as the tide comes in, mostly on Spooks in baby bass color, and mostly over any sort of channel that runs through the flat. It doesn't have to be a big channel!

Can you get to the water from the park? We drove up with a canoe this morning and the gate was closed. Do you need to pull in at the park HQ part? Ended up fishing the Potomac further south instead, got a few decent bass, best around 2 lbs, smallest around .2 pounds and a few channel cats. I have no idea wh the channels love our spnnierbaits, but we keep getting channels to bass about 2 to 1.

Where'd you cut'n'paste that from? Mine was probably 45 or 46 lbs or so earlier this spring.

Holy carp?!?! You live in Oakland? I used to live between Oakland and Somerville on Warren Rd. My parents still live there. Nice bass by the way.

I know Quebec's is $35 for a five day Non-res, and your spouse can fish on it too. Seems like a deal to me.

Pre-fished for my wedding there on the 27th. Fished from Sturgeon Creek up past the State Park on the north shoreline of the lake. Three bass worth mentioning, biggest at three and the other two around two. Not the best that lake has too offer, but we weren't really trying all that hard. All were on stumps on sandy bottoms in about 8 ft of water just out from grass beds. We saw a pod of 4 very nice bass cruise through the shallows and under our boat in one cove, all looked to be over 5 lbs but none wanted to bite. We used 3/8 oz white and white/chartreuse spinnerbaits, with tandem blabes, one gold, one silver/nickel. We also caught a ton of bluegill on roostertails.

Kinda along the same lines, mortality is a fact of fishing. If you're afraid to kill a fish, you may as well stop fishing. Death can be a side affect of pulling a fish around by its mouth. If you're a strict C&R guy, do everything you can to try to put as little tress on the fish as you can, but understand that you're still gonna kill a few no matter what.

I've been doing pretty well on Spooks and Spook Jrs in baby bass pattern during low light, mostly at dusk lately.

Blue Mesa in CO or Pathfinder or one of several reservoirs in Wyoming, pop. 450,000.

World record shiner? That's what it looks like to me, it's definitely not a carp though.

Float and fly works great for pike, smallies and largies, with appropriate sized jigs. You can control the depth and location much easier and put it and keep it next to cover. it works great for those post cold front days when the fish are indifferent.

Also, where legal, creamed corn makes a great chum. You either just poke holes in the can or mix it with sand and spread that around where you plan to fish for a few days beforehand.

Corn or simple whitebread on a sturdy #6 hook or treble. You can add sttrawberry jello to either and it helps. Put it on a carolina type rig ona flat where you see them rooting and wait on it.

I use Fireline Crystal on my spinning reels up to about 50 lb test that has the diameter of 10 and it works well. I landed a 45 lb (ish) blue on it a week or so ago. The Crystal works great but needs a few casts to break in. I caught the blue on a spinnerbait, purely an accident.

Thanks for the info, I thought as much. Those are the only pics I have as I was by myslef, and those are on my cell phone. i'm not really into citations or records anyway.

Second pic

Fished the Potomac River just (and I mean 15 yards) north of Reagan Nat'l Airport, amazing how you can get almost to the edge of the runway. Anyway, slow rolled spinnerbaits looking for some bass or schoolie stripers chasing shad. Caught a small bass around a lb, then had a 5 lb channel cat almost take the rod out of my hands. Then some of what looked like small stripers started busting shad so I threw the spinnerbait past the school and rolled it through...WHAM...literally took the rod out of my hands for a second (I caught it by the very butt). After a 30 minute fight, I had a 46", i'm guessing 45+ lb BLUE CAT. Probably my biggest fish to date. It was on 8 lb fireline crystal, a Shimano Sedona, and a 6'6" ML BPS Tourney Special.

You can either mount a piece of six inch thick High Density foam under the seat and raise the seat (pretty involved work) or just sit on the piece of six inch HD foam. Or you ca sell it and get a canoe. If you raise yourself too much, you are going to be at a much greater danger of tipping. Also, make sure your stirrups at the front of the boat are correct for your leg lengths, you shouldn't be quite able to straighten your legs out, so you can push against them a little to stretch.

No seriously...Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? Buehler? Frye? Frye? ;D

Try a good sized Rapala Shad Rap or Original, colored to match the forage (I don't know what a Roach is?). Perch colored has always been good for me on browns, or a big roostertail with a gold blade and teh green, ellow and red body.

The study doesn't show anything of the sort, the only thing it shows is that there was an increase in smaller non-native species. It also begins with maintianing that more time is needed for the rebound of the native species.

Can you site the mandatory kill reference? I've seen where biologists are going to try to remove pike, channel cats and smallmouth from the Green in Utah (good luck with that), but it's really not that great of a fishery for them for the most part anyway, and there's numerous other lakes and rivers in that area that are much better fisheries. It seems like they're trying to save the endangered species, not trample on fisherpeople. I'm sure people don;t care since you can't really fish for them, but biodoversity is important to everything up the food chain.

You looking more for bass than trout?

The Pigeon and Little pigeon rivers around there have some great smallmouth fishing, even around and through town. I used to like to fish around construction areas where it'd been dug out as well as around the bridges. The Pigeon coming out of Douglas lake ( I think) has great striper, wiper and white bass fishing below it, take some small white spinners like a Roostertail and/or some white curlytail grubs and you'll get into some. For trout, the Raven Fork in G-burg and the Little Pigeon further up near Pigeon Forge have some good trout. Just about any stream in the Park has smll bows and further up, brookies. If you can tell me where your cbin is, I might be able to give you a little more specific spots.