Purpleworm82

Awesome!

You da man Simon.

A couple of band-aids with a strip of duct tape over it will usually get me through a day on the water with a hole in my hand. Definitely be sure you have it covered if the wound is open, staph infections are no joke.

Bobcat's Bait & Tackle in Clarksville, VA is my favorite. We always stop by Bobcat's on our trips down to Buggs Island, even if we don't need anything. Greentop Sporting Goods in Richmond is good too.

Sal is right, being in the right place at the right time is far more important than what type of bait you're throwing. Especially during the winter, when more than 90% of the fish population lives in less than 10% of the habitat.

Apparently I'm not the only one in the house with cabin fever: Good kitty!

Check out Phil at Rod n Reel Repair in Arlington, he does good work for reasonable prices. Turn-around time would probably be a bit quicker than shipping it out as well. 3612 N. Lee Hywy. Arlington, Va. 703-528-3022

Ha, seeing as this thread already has 3 pages of responses, I would have to say the answer to this question is "Yes."

Wow that's crazy, glad nobody got hurt. I think alot of people don't realize how dangerous it can be out there during this time of year. When the water's below 50, it only takes the smallest thing to go wrong with you or your boat to turn it into a life or death situation. Going out in subfreezing temperatures, in a huge tidal river with strong current and floating ice, in a CANOE? Doesn't sound too smart to me...

Wow that is bad-***. Nice work dude.

I'm with you, when I pitch I like to keep my spool tension a little tighter than most folks do. I leave 2 of the 6 internal brakes on like I normally do for casting, and then just loosen up a bit on the knob. It sacrifices distance, but allows me to alternate between pitching and making short underhand casts without adjusting the spool tension.

Thanks for the congrats guys. My partner and I had a good morning last Wednesday, despite the tough weather conditions. We found a nice school of bass during outgoing tide and managed to put enough in the boat for a win. I finished first with 10.8 lbs and my partner took second with 10 even. 3rd and 4th place both came in with about 8 lbs. Most of our fish came on creature baits and craws around wood and rock cover. Alot of the shallow grass had died off in the places we fished, but other members reported plenty of the green stuff in other areas of the river. Many thanks to all the NHBA guys for another great tx, looking forward to Anna this weekend.

That's crazy how low it is there, despite the massive amounts of rain we've had this year. They must be generating an awful lot of power down at that dam...

Wow that is some amazing scenery. Great post, thanks for sharing.

Road Warrior, I'm pretty certain many small ponds do in fact turnover. John Odenkirk is the head fisheries biologist for VDGIF here in Virginia, and I have heard him talk in-depth about fall turnover in small bodies of water. I've also seen the effects that describe it in many ponds I've fished during the fall. To my knowledge, the only time you won't see turnover is in large bodies of water that have constant wind or current, which continuously mixes the water and prevents it from stratifying.

I bet that your pond is in fact turning over. I know it seems a bit early, but it only takes a couple of days of cold rain and wind to turnover a small body of water. Weather conditions have been pretty unique on the East Coast this year, and in alot of places the water hasn't warmed as much as it usually does. I'm all the way down in Virginia and the water temps on the Potomac are already creeping down into the 60's in the backs of the creeks. Normally they're still in the 80's this time of year, maybe high 70's. I know that 10 feet is plenty of depth for the water to stratify, I've seen it happen in ponds that only get down to 8ft. Uncle Leo is right on about being able to smell sulfur around the pond, especially if you have trees around it that drop wood and leaves into it. Fishing during turnover can be tough. When the oxygen-depleted water on the bottom mixes with the top, it lowers the overall dissolved oxygen level of the water and stresses the fish. IMO, the best thing to do is to just fish somewhere else for a week or two. Unless you have some really crazy weather, most bodies of water in a given region will turn over at different times, depending on size, depth, etc. Hopefully you can find another pond that hasn't turned and keep those lines stretched until your favorite one gets back to being good. Good luck!

Neat article, kinda cool to see our local water represent. Occoquan Reservoir really is a great little fishery, IMO often overlooked and underrated. Those club guys have been catching 12-15lb bags for years, probably more in the spring. I'm sure some of them aren't too happy that their spot got all that press. As far as actual fishing pressure, I don't think it will have that much impact. Most people who live around here and read Bassmaster already know about it anyway. Out-of-towners and dudes on business trips usually don't bring their jonboat and 9.9 along with them I'm sure having the Potomac only a few miles downstream helps keep the pressure off as well.

Haha Sam that's pretty much the most accurate weather report I've ever heard. I live on Gallows rd next to the beltway and it takes me 10 minutes to drive to the gas station 200 yards down the road. They have been digging up the street every afternoon for the last 2 years with no noticable progress. VDOT = full of failure :

Had a great day on Sunday, one of my best this year on the river. A friend of mine was out the day before and found some big schools of fish in one of our favorite creeks. We headed back there the next morning and fished around for a bit without much success. Instead of spending the day running around, we decided to park it in a grassbed and break out the radio and some ham sandwiches. After waiting it out for a couple hours, our patience paid off. Once the tide started going out, it was on. Literally thousands of bass and perch darting everywhere around us in inches of gin-clear water. We fished all the way to the back of the creek and all the way out catching one after another. We had doubles on 3 or 4 times and at one point I had 7 or 8 in a row. Senkos and texas-rigged worms all day, they wouldn't touch anything else. By the end of the day we had run out of everything and were throwing pieces of worms out, whatever we could find on the bottom of the boat. I lost count but must've caught at least 30, probably more. My partner had nearly as many and towards the end we were just shaking the little ones off. Headed home around dinner time with a couple of worn-out thumbs and a pair of ear-to-ear grins. The only bad part of the day came at the end when my friend's trailer broke as we were pulling the boat out. He ended up having to leave it at the launch area overnight, but we're glad we found out about it at the ramp and not out on the road. Broken trailers, sunburns and slack tides all stink, but when you get to experience one of those rare days like we had this weekend, it makes all seem worth it.

Burke can be pretty good at night this time of year, especially around a full moon. I've had success in years past with black buzzbaits and big texas-rigged worms. If all else fails, take a big grub or curl-tailed worm, dye the tail in chartruse and throw it around the light lines by the dock. You can usually always get something to bite around there. Don't be afraid to throw big stuff like a 3/4 lipless or a loud DD crank. That place is filled with big gizzard shad and giant muskie and bass that feed heavily at night. Sometimes you can hear them eating, it sounds like someone throwing bricks in the water.

When fishing grassbeds on the Stank, I'll typically have 3 rods that I fish with on a regular basis. First and most-used is 7'6"H flipping stick. In the summer I'll keep it spooled with 50lb Spiderwire and use it for plastic frogs and punching mats. I'll bring a spare reel spooled w/17 or 20lb Trilene Maxx monofilament for flipping/pitching around wood, docks, etc. Flourocarbon is nice, but in my opinion not worth the $20+ price for a filler spool. Maxx is a relatively higher diameter mono, but it handles well and has decent sensitivity, plus I can get a 330 yd spool for nine bucks. I'll also have a 7'M cranking stick with 14lb mono for shallow-running crankbaits and topwaters, as well as a 7'M spinning rod with 8 or 10lb mono for senkos and finnese stuff. I'll usually bring a spare spool filled with 14lb Fireline for the spinning rod for fishing in super-thick grass and for sensitivity on longer casts. Occasionally I'll use a shorter baitcaster for pitching spinnerbaits or skipping under docks, but most of the time its the first 3 setups that get the most use.

That's what I was thinking too Andrew. I saw a lot of bigger fish jumping out in the middle, a yak or canoe would be the ticket.

Fished for a few hours after work down by the dam. Caught 2 keepers and a couple shorties on a t-rigged worm. Had some blow-ups on a popper but couldn't capitalize. Most fish came out of wood and weeds right along the shore. Lots of mosquitos out there, especially at dusk. I'll be sure to double-up on the bugspray next time.

I order most of my stuff online at Tackle Warehouse or Basspro, but Dick's in Fair Lakes probably has the best tackle selection in the immediate area. There's another one at Dulles Town Center, but their selection is usually pretty weak. If you don't mind a drive, Greentop in Richmond is awesome too.

We decided to try something different on Saturday and put out at Hope Springs in Aquia Creek. The idea was to fish the way back of some feeder creeks and hopefully find some willing residential bass that hadn't made their way to the main-creek grassbeds. Started off by running down to Potomac Creek and all the way to the back of Accokeek. Beautiful little creek lined with lily-pads and little boat traffic, but not too hot fishing-wise. Spent most of the morning fishing our way out and only managed one decent keeper. Ran back into Aquia and caught a couple good ones on stickworms underneath some docks on the main creek arm. The water here was shallow and super-clear compared to the stuff in the back. Docks that were frequently used produced the best. They seemed to have deepest holes underneath them, and the props from the boats cut nice little alleys in the grass from the main channel. After that the tide started going out, so we headed to the back into the no-wake area. Found a productive little stretch of lily-pads near one of the bends and got into em pretty good. Caught 3-4 more good keepers each on t-rigged worms and craws before we called it a day. Overall not a bad day on the water. If we got a do-over we probably would have spent the morning chopping grass. The back of the creek deal works on an outgoing tide, but I'm convinced that the majority of the quality fish are in those big grassbeds, especially during high tide. Punching mats and cleaning hydrilla off the prop under the hot sun is tedious work, but I guess thats just what you gotta do to catch the big girls this time of year. Left my camera on the boat, pics to come soon.