-Drums-

Paul, Another thing you can try is to drive out to Leesburg and take White's Ferry across the river, then put your kayak in there at the public launch on the Maryland side. Heck, with a kayak, you might even be able to just drop it in on the VA side, but there's pretty much zilch for parking there. The MD side has a whole facility there: lots of parking, small store w/ some hot food, etc. The launch fee is pretty cheap too, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the smallmouth fishing on that part of the river can be spectacular. My best day ever on the river for smallies was two summers ago, fishing that area...caughts lots & lots of solid 2lb smallies, with a few 3's throw in. Grubs (yammie 4"), tubes (pick your favorite), jerkbaits (floating or susp. Rapalas), and 4" sticks (Senkos, Yum Dingers, ***, whatever). Good times! -Rich

Shun this man! BOOOOOOO ;D Ha! ;D

Awwww shucks.....thanks Trev, nice words (it's amazing how much your life changes with a newborn) Couldn't agree more. At the risk of alientating myself from at least some of the NoVA guys on here, this thread is gay. Super gay.

I believe you're talking about "R&R Custom Baits". Rob (flippin4it) and I bought a bunch of bags of their baits earlier this year at the Richmond expo (formerly the "Bassarama"). Anyway, their baits are all hand poured and seem to be pretty good stuff. Luckily, I got one of their business cards at the show. I don't know how kosher it would be to post the contact info here (for all I know it could be the guy's home number), so I'll send you a PM. ~Rich

Yeah, I saw that thread too on the general forum. In that one, a few posts pointed towards this being a common occurrence after the shad spawn. So maybe that's the case here?

A buddy and I launched this morning out of Fountainhead and went downlake, ultimately almost to the dam. Same experience for us--pretty much no bite to speak of. We were out from 7am-1pm, and only two bass to show for it (1 keeper, 1 super dink). The only thing we could get bit on was Zoom Baby Brush Hogs, pitched really tight to cover. We also saw a TON of dead shad floating.

Dan - I don't have the TD-S rod, but I have the Light & Tough (TL-76T-5FB) 7'6" flippin stick. When collapsed, the rod is right around 6'.

Nice work Jon! As fun as it is (and it really is) to pitch a jig or brush hog to a laydown or shoreline brush, there's just something so satisfying about finding and casting to deep(er) structure and catching bass. Off-topic: I'm getting my new (well--used, but new to me) bass boat next weekend. I'll be storing it at Aquia Boat Storage, so you can probably expect some PM's from me in the coming weeks with regards to general pointers/advice for fishing the creek and the main river around that area.

When I read this I thought to myself, "WHAAAAT? Are you SERIOUS??". Then I Google'd it. To anyone interested, here's the story: http://www.westernbass.com/dotcom/library/view.html?id=2683. Absolutely incredible! (My apologies in advance for the dupe if this has already been posted at some point on these boards...I obviously missed it if so.)

Agreed! the Zona-isms alone are (IMO) worth the 30 minutes spent watching the show... "Can-Am Invitational" - fishing with VanDam on Lake Michigan (I think) "Baby cub wanna go nightie nightie" - his crazy song about...uh...who the he** knows? "Man bear pig" - he seems to say that a lot when he or his partner nails a big one "Possum Kingdom Invitational" - fishing with Jeff Kriet on Choke Canyon hilarious!

Yeah, and just last year it was STREN, STREN, STREN. Anyway, I pretty much like all the shows. Hank Parker's show can be really informative, but it seemed like last season every other show was coverage of family picnics with a bunch of kids dunking bobbers from the bank. Don't get me wrong--kids are great, and family time is second to none. I myself am a new dad, and it's an incredible thing that has completely changed my life. But do I REALLY want to fire up my Tivo'd fishing shows to find hours of some other dude's family time with his kids. Um....nope.

+1 for El Salto. Decent (?) Mexican chow and margaritas at Anglers Inn. Nice size bass all day long, with the very real possibility of a 10+ on any given cast. While we're at it, bring Mark Zona along. That guy's a nutcase! I'd be catching big bass all day, and laughing my a** off the whole time! Either that or one of those fly-in Canada trips for untapped smallies. ...sigh...

My main goal anytime I go out is to avoid the skunk. That said, I'd generally consider 5 solid keepers (2+ lbs.) a pretty OK day. No doubt! Along those lines, my best day ever was a few years ago on the Upper Potomac River in MD/VA. My cousin and I had been out for several hours and the fishing was pretty slow (it was hot -- summer dog day). Then at dusk we got into a smallmouth buzzbait bite that was incredible. In one hour we caught around 40 bass (about 20 each), all in the 1.5 to 2.5 lb. range, all on top. We were getting bit on almost every cast, sometimes multiple bites in one cast.... as in "swat -> miss, swat -> miss, SPLOOSH -> fish on!"). I'll never forget it.

Yeah, looking at it on Google maps, I think you're right. Not a very big lake, but we caught a lot of bass. I even caught a pretty nice one (just under 5 lb'er). Pumpkin firetail Zoom 7" worm if I remember it right. They loved that color for some reason. :-)

I guess we've taken this thread way off topic, huh? :-) True dat. Glad to see some things haven't changed... ;D Oh man, that was the other statistic I was thinking of for Radford. Ouch! Wow, crazy. It's been a good 9 years since I've been on campus. When I was there, the whole ISAT complex was pretty much brand new, along with the major. I started as a music major, then changed to psych, which itself is pretty much a useless degree unless you go the whole nine and get the PhD or PsyD. I remember thinking shortly after I graduated that maybe I should have gone the ISAT route. Now I build web pages at AOL (and have for 8 1/2 years). Go figure, huh? Oh man, it's been such a long time..but I remember there being a lake really close by that you could easily walk around, as well as rent john boats (and trolling motors too, I think). We fished there a couple times and caught some pretty nice bass. I couldn't begin to tell you where it was or what it was called. But I'm pretty sure it was in Harrisonburg.

Really? For years and years, that was Radford's claim to fame. When did JMU edge out RU? (I also went to JMU - graduated in '96. I loved that place!)

Nice, I'm heading down to Greentop and the Expo tomorrow (Fri.) morning with Flippin4it. I actually took a personal day off from work for this. I have nice chunk of cash saved up for this, which will soon be in the monkey's hands. It feels like Christmas Eve again! ;D

WOW, really? I had no idea that was coming. So in the not too distant future...we're gonna have Greentop, Gander Mtn, and BPS all within a few miles of each other. Incredible!

I'd love to know the answer to this myself. The only ones I know of are the GMCO maps.

Excellent, thank you sir! :-)

Cool, thanks for the heads up Sam. I'll be there next Friday (1/25) with Rob (flippin4it) as part of our Fishing Expo road-trip. Where are these coupons that you speak of?

Couldn't agree more. My thumb never (ever) comes off the spool. The only thing that changes is how much pressure I apply with said thumb to the spool, and that variance is based on which bait I'm throwing on which reel. Like someone else said, some reels are "moodier" than others--so the thumb simply adapts.

Right on Muddy, Purdie is the man! That "Rock Steady" groove really is killer. Deep, deep pocket. Dig it!

I LOVE this thread!!! I remember when Tony Royster Jr. first appeared on the scene (in that Modern Drummer festival performance that LBH started the thread with). Like Muddy said, it's amazing to see how he's continuing down the path. While we're on the subject, here's some more great stuff: Vinnie Colaiuta w/ Sting, live: CLASSIC Steve Gadd groove: Bernard Purdie, the groove is so funky it reeks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gujufbGoS20 More Purdie - a variation of the "Purdie Shuffle", as heard in the classic Steely Dan recordings, Babylon Sisters & Home at Last: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pclpe8dT7cY Dave Weckl....'nuff said :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRF7HHzqrG4

+1 The new Citica is an unbelievably "quality feeling" reel for the money. Really hard bargain to beat in my opinion. I own 4 Shimano BC's: 1 Curado 200B 1 Curado 100B (bought from RedlineRobert) 1 Curado 200BSF (bought from RedlineRobert) 1 Citica 100DSV I also hate backplay, and I honestly haven't noticed it at all with any of those 4 reels. If it's there, it's so trivial that I can't even feel it.