quanjig

Look for the water that is clearing like the backs of some of the creeks. Bigger baits that move a lot of water, big blades in and around grass beds. Water has peaked and is dropping. Creature bait into the grass slowly hopped out should work!!

Dwight, you are too funny!!! SMH............... maybe if I reply in the smallest font, nobody will notice!!!!!!!

Like mudkart said, it's become a bait I catch fish on year round out there!! Riva, thanks, It's all about time out there. Mike will tell you I have spent quite a good portion of time out there and once you figure a few things out, the easier it is to adjust to what the fish are doing!! Bream, no more tournaments till our two day classic the 17&18 of October!! Might do a couple big fish tournaments in November if you guys are interested!!

If its a knock off, why would you expect to find more of it or even think they would give it a actual color designation???? Not trolling but I'm sure they just chucked it in the bag and away they went!!!

No tournament, I didn't even get out there until around 10am!! On a side note, should be interesting to see what happens with the weather the next few days!!

Hopefully, you took the day off and went fishing!! Happy Birthday!

Gotcha, one of my buddies is always playing the blade, flats deal this time of year!! If it's breezy, all that much better!!!

These fish should really start to get up on the flats to actively feed. Look for any tiny piece of cover and go to work. I think if I had to do it over again, I would have spent more time looking shallow!! Was it a dark blue mod v express that gave you the hint??

I was out Sunday.

Yep, ax handle for sure!!

Got out yesterday and fished a variety of places. Caught a few deep, caught a few shallow. Only had 4 keepers and missed way too many quality fish!! I did catch a couple hogs!! Both were close to 6!! I'll try to add pics later! Pay no attention to the bait in the first picture, nothing to see here, move along!!!

Oh yea.......... I remember my groom cake............... Wait, no I don't............. You know why I don't remember??!! Because I didn't have one, 'cause I'm a MAN!!!!!!!! Why not just go the cucumber sammy route and don't forget some nice floral tea.......... d**n dude.......... Smh...........

This is the stuff of urban legends!!

I'll ask Sunday morning if anybody came across it if they were out!!

What part of northern va are you looking to fish?? Let me know where and I will pm you with a few!

Really depends on a couple of things. Technique and rod. Braid, no streach and f/c, little streach and a rod that has very little parabolic bend is not going to end well!! That's just me.......

Thanks Mike! We've had a pretty good year. A first, a second, a third and a big fish!! That and the fact we've had 4 bags over 23lbs this year and possibly going over 200lbs for the year. We did have a couple poor showings in the spring but figured a few things out to help in the future!! Yes , I did catch the 6! I'm sure you can figure out how!!

Most of the swimmers I've seen have been the "ooohhhh, I've fallen off my paddle board" variety!! If they allow those things, not sure how they can police the no swimming out there! They usually go around a couple times a year to cut down the rope swings!

Tournament yesterday was tough for the first part of the day but opened up as the day progressed. With the water having dropped a few feet and high pressure settling in. It was all about getting the fish you could locate, fired up!! We had an hour in the middle of the day that was spectacular! We caught 15 keepers in an hour from 11:00-12:00, including the big fish for the tournament at 6.15 lbs! We finished in 3rd with 23.09lbs. If you could get the suspended fish fired up and chewing, you could catch several in a short amount of time. We had several other fish hooked up that felt big but came unbuttoned. Could have been a record setting day but that's fishing!!

Nice fish Mike!! The res is such a great place to fish but will humble you at the flip of a coin. I've got 30 years out there and believe me, you have to take every day as a learning experience! Good and bad!! The last 10 years I've concentrated on making good decisions, when to move, when to change baits, what mood are the fish in, weather, wind, season all play a role in making those good decisions. If you are new to the res, I would highly suggest you keep a fish log on catches and location as well as season. A small pocket calendar is sufficient. Just small notes will make a big difference!!

Like I've said many times before, anything that's been "named" is worth a good going over!! Look at areas that have "stumps" and keep an eye on abrupt depth changes!!

Detailed enough to get you in good areas without a doubt!

Riva, do yourself a favor, launch out of lakeridge. Sooooo much more "stuff" to fish within an easy paddle!! The two points where the main lake and lakeridge meet has plenty of fish! These are two prime points that have deep water to get you used to that deep water pattern!! Lots of other areas within eyesight of there to do some damage!! Last Sunday my best 6 fish would have been close to 22lbs!! Two of my better fish were caught in 20+ FOW while the rest were probably in the 16-18 ft range. It's all about looking for the bait, cross reference it with bottom cover around that same depth, getting to an area that has those two things in common. Look for scattered bait in your graph, this signifies feeding fish!! Bait balls are nice and all but it's much tougher to trigger strikes! Chopp has watched me whup them pretty good there!!

It's much deeper down lake towards the actual dam but I understand it tough to cover ground in a kayak like I can in a jon boat. Ryan's dam is only off limits during our classic! It's getting tougher and tougher to keep spots under wraps because the res is getting so popular! That is a testament to how well we as fishermen and women work to keep this a quality fishery. When we hold the tournaments on the reservoir, we places high priority on fish care while in the livewells as we try to minimize mortality during the events. I like to think this fishery will continue to improve. We just have to hope the snakehead population doesn't adversely effect the bass population, only time will tell!

Ryan's dam doesn't really count!! Get a map and cross reference areas where deeper water is close to shallow points and guts!! I keep trying to tell you guys, get a map, anything that's been named is worth a solid look!! When you observe your finder, take notice of where you predominantly find the bait, look for areas where the depth crest of drop off sharply at those depths. It's really not that tough. Finding groups of bigger fish is the big challenge!!