Syppy

Dunno why, but lately I've been prone to cackling and proclaiming "GOTCHA!"

Sippi, are you out there? Please check your PM's. Thanks.

I'll set plans to make it, but I have NO idea what the "cool side" of Lake Anna is. The 21st would be best for my schedule.

Would definitely be down for getting together with anyone willing. I could also stand Lake Anna, it's not that far away. But my little tiny boat might get rolled on something that big. I could do any of the smaller reservoirs too. If the wife doesn't come along, I got room for one on my boat =).

I posted a pic with the dolly that I use in the pics above, real easy to use. Found it through a youtube video that had a link to their website. But can be easily constructed.

Yup, she fishes. Course i rag on my wife I'm going to tie her off and use her as bait sometimes. She's still a little unsure what to think of fish, but she's always trying to lick em and drag em off if I give her a chance with them.

lol, kind of reminds me a of a quote I saw the other day about catfishing... :"Give a man a Catfish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to Catfish and you get rid of him on weekends. ." This is just bass instead, eh? Honestly, if you've got a truck, and not looking for something monstrous, I did a LOT of shopping and settled on a little Pelican Bass Raider. It was very inexpensive and works great for me because I can load it in the back of my ranger with little to no troubles at all. The down-side is that it's really more for small waters (I don't know if you're looking at big lake fishing or puddle jumping like me), but it's so much more stable than any of the jon-boats I've been in and it sits up in the water enough to get good casts even while sitting down. Don't have to contend with the sides or have fantabulous balance to move back and forth on it.

lol, yeah I'd say. Hooked up a monster on HIS reel and rig setup that he coulda been throwing. But it's good that he wasn't a butthead about it =)

lol, thanks. I've added a Rod holder to the other side of that chair in much the same fashion, and it works really well for keeping the spare out of the way, or when I get irritated and troll to destroy some crappies. I like the milk crate or rubbermaid mod, seems like it would keep everything in one place and "organized". I typically have two people on the boat, so I don't know how feasible that setup would be for me personally, but I dare say it would work wonders for a single person day. My biggest problem at the moment is everything sliding around in the bottom either all the way to the back or front whenever I try to dolly wheel it down hills to the water. That rubbermaid idea would at least keep everything in one chunk sliding back and forth for me. I'm thinking I may need to line the bottom with a rubber mat or something.

Awesome! Was your friend ticked?

You're correct that most 18 inchers are around 3. However, note that it's a LMB whose head/mouth looks surprisingly small. We've all been taught that underfed bass tend to look like their heads are bigger than their bodies. With this fish, its body looks much larger than its head, so it could just be an extremely healthy and well-fed 18 incher, in which case 5 lbs would be pretty believable. Should I throw the scale out, or verify it somehow? Caught another one today (I think this lake is cursing me with a 1 bass a day limit). I weighed it carefully this time around and 4.5lbs with and just under 17inches. Or maybe there are just good healthy fish where I'm at?

Honestly can't remember a time in my life when there wasn't SOME kind of fishing going on. Deep Sea fishing in California when I was little. Reservoir, and creek fishing in Utah growing up. Pond fishing in Texas and Georgia as a Teen at Boy Scout camps and such. Boat fishing finally as an adult on the Colorado rivers and lake systems, and bass boating it up in the reservoir near where I live. It's just always been with me.

Welcome Welcome!

Welcome welcome, another VA person in da house. Woot!

I've found the decent baits on my resevoir to catch them on, now my only problem is just plain finding them. Do channel cats go deep most of the time? Or do they really sit in open shallow areas where it's sandy? Have you heard of a "molly grub"? What is it and where do you usually find them?

Yeah sorry, I shoulda made it a bit more clear. The little reservoir where I fish I can only take trolling motors (no gas engines), so it's not a huge "safety issue" like it would be with a fast moving outboard or something. But I see the nicked edges and the rough gouges and I'm wondering how much noise it's making in the water and scaring fish.

Well, it's definitely been rough, but there's been mild success on Carolina worms here around Culpeper. One that I pulled in myself, and a guy near me who's been pulling in some nice ones.

I'm with them. There's some tiny ponds around with decent sized fish. If there's no signs saying you can't fish, I'd throw a lure or two in there and see what you come out with. It's the only way to know.

So in the process of learning how deep/shallow I should get with my trolling motor and depth finder, I've kinda chewed up the blades on the prop that came with my motor. Now they're not broken or anything, but are definitely a bit rough around the edges. I've been wondering to myself "When should I actually replace this prop? When a blade breaks? When a huge chunk actually comes out? Is it scaring fish? Whattya think?

SO the last few times out I've been horribly frustrated. Haven't caught anything decent pretty much since July, and I was starting to REALLY lose hope. Read the articles, posted questions, hunted, and threw everything I could think of at them. Today was shaping up to be much like the rest, and I was about to pack it in when I decided to try out a point I'd had my eye on after all the help with my electronics here on the forums, and all the articles I've read about finding fish in summertime. Really truly and carefully fished a Carolina Rig for the first time, and was about to call it quits with that in frustration when suddenly things went lightening fast. On what was to be my last retrieve I thought for a second that I'd caught up on the bottom or something cause it became real hard to pull. Then it started swimming away and pulling line off the drag. "WOAH!" was all I could think as I started reeling and the beauty popped to the surface leaping and thrashing around. First ever deep, slow soft-bait worm fish, and a PB =) 18 Inches and 5 pounds by the scale. My summer drought has reprieve . Thanks all here on the forums for great articles, answers to questions, and patience with my newbie-ness

WOOT! Finally got one out of here. I've discovered a few little nice spots, but it's like pulling teeth here in the middle of summer to get them, but finally landed a nice one!

Welcome Aboard!

It's "owned" and operated by the National Area Capitol Council of the Boy Scouts of America, located on the Goshen reservation that they use for Summer Camps and what not. It's not publicly "fishable" which is a real shame, cause when I was a Boy Scout I pulled out some nice sized fish from there =/

I'm tellin' ya... There's some kind of marketing thing going on right now that's causing all these Virginians to suddenly show up on the site =). Welcome aboard Tanner! LOTS of goof information here, and you're just down the road from me (figuratively speaking). Good to have another NOVA'er here.

K, So I'm on the lake right now and I'm getting a little better feel for it all but still struggling to find good structure that i can identify as such. my available settings are: Depth range, zoom, sensitivity, Grayline, Chart Speed, Fish Id, then random alarms for depth and battery and such, and noise rejection. Got most figured out thanks to those articles (thanks guys). But I can't figure out this Grayline. What's Best for this setting?