hokiebass804

october is a particularly tough month on smith... not really positive why but if you look at tournament weights they are historically bad compared to the rest of the year... the state park area is usually productive year round.

paul im your guy like we previously said as long as the schedules dont conflict

Hey guys I have a 6 foot 9 medium light veritas and the tip had the ceramic break off of it. I want to order another tip for it but dont know the size, does anyone have any ideas on what it would be? thanks so much

We parked above the cones, talked to a police officer who said it was fine in his eyes..we just carried the canoe down to the water and left the car up at the top.. easy way to get around that problem lol

been fishing a decent amount recently... fished a club tournament two weeks ago on claytor lake... two days of prefishing included a 4.5 lb smallie, a 3.5 largemouth and a number of fish in the 2.5 lb class range. come tournament day it rained all day and the water muddied up.. was throwing hair jigs mainly and this obviously was not the conditions for them... only caught two small keepers during the tournament... a very bad day. Floated the new river yesterday from peppers ferry to whitethorne. Water was really clear for this time of year, it is usually alot more murky ( in my opinion making for alot better fishing) Only caught 5 smallmouth all day with the biggest only going around 14 inches. For a river known to produce 50 fish days and 6 lbers, it didnt live up to its billing that day. My buddy who i floated with went back to where we launched from today and cast a ripple shad into the rapids above it and caught two really nice smallies ( 17-18 inches) just from the bank... funny how one day can change the fishing so much in both the aforementioned cases.

sounds like an awesome idea!! as far as float lengths go, these can really vary depending on how fast the river is flowing. I have done a 12 mile float on the new ( most recently two days ago) that took as little as 5.5 hours ( didnt know if you wanted to make it longer or shorter) and as long as 9.5 hours. Obviously the amount of times we stopped played a factor, but i would say alot had to do with just how fast the water was flowing that day/ wind influence. im sure yall could make 14 miles work for both days though! hope its a blast!

d**n paul those are some awesome fish, you use your crankbait pattern or something different?

got a college tournament here on april 13th and 14th, any suggestions for what yall think the fish will be doing then would be a great help. thanks and please let me know.

I was throwing a "road kill" colored jig with a bama craw trailer. Im a brandermill resident so I launch at sunday park, Ive put in on woolridge before and that is a terrible time getting a boat on and off a trailer there

Hey guys I went out on Swift Creek Reservoir in Chesterfield County, Virginia last week and man has the bite turned on there! We started out the day throwing deep points on the main lake but were not having much luck. We trolled back into a nice pocket where the water rose abruptly to about 6 feet in the middle of the cut and gradually got shallower. We started throwing jigs and spinnerbaits and the jig bite was where it was at. The fish were piled up in there harder than ive ever seen it. The little cut was not more than 30 yards wide and 40 yards deep off the main lake but it seemed to have exactly what the fish wanted. In the first ten minutes within the cut I caught the 4.4 and two three pounders on three consecutive casts straight in the middle of the cut using a jig with a ragecraw trailer. I continued to fish different areas and picked up a few fish on the alabama rig, but nothing as exciting as that one spot. My best 5 that day weighed right at 17 lbs with the biggest being 4 lbs 4 oz. I lost two fish that I would have guessed over five in that cut as well( one on a reel seat breaking on a veritas rod, starting to really hate these rods). I came back the next day and the second cast i made into the middle of that same cut I caught a 5 lber ( pictured). We continued to fish the area with no such luck as the day before so we moved on and using various techinques ( crankbaits, jigs, alabama rig burned over submerged structure) and were able to pull out 15.5 lbs in 5 fish as well as a 25 inch chain pickerel( caught on the a rig). Attached is a picture of 3 of the 15.5 fish bag and the 4.4 from the day before.

This is something I actually question alot of when choosing my jig colors. In clear water conditions I am all for a green pumpkin or pumpkin jig and a trailer with less action. When dealing with more stained water I often ask myself If i should throw the black and blue jig that most suggest or try for something with brighter colors. This past week I fished quite a bunch and put these two jigs to the test. The water clarity was anywhere from 6 inches to a foot. On one rod i threw a black and blue arky style jig 1/2 oz with a black and blue rage craw trailer. On the other rod i threw a 1/2 oz arky stlye jig with a skirt color that had a mix of orange,a light gold, some pumpkin and some light brown in there, as well as alot of orange and gold flecks ( ive heard some refer to a similar color as road kill). None of the colors besides the orange were very bright in the skirt, as well as the gold. As a trailer i threw a bama craw colored rage craw trailer. I fished the bama craw jig about 60 % of the time and the black and blue 40% of the time. I ended up catching 12 bass that day with the best five weighing 17 lbs. The sky was partially cloudy with intermittent sunlight and water temp was 49 degrees. Every single fish i caught was on the bama craw colored jig versus the black and blue jig, but i continued to fish it just to make sure i wasnt ruling it out due to lack of use.. Based off of this it would seem that in those conditions the bama craw jig was the clear favorite. I like throwing black and blue jigs in dark water, not necessarily stained but just naturally dark ( Chickahominy lake) versus when the water actually has a fair amount of staining and is muddied up. This is just my .02 cents

Hair jig, alabama rig,,, slowly dragged football head jig... smaller swimbaits reeled really really slow.. a number of things are catching fish right now.

Really light line finesse fishing is a good idea... ive heard hair is a good thing to go to... I lost about a 6-7 lber on the alabama rig when i tried to lip him he threw the a rig back in my face. good luck!!

I fished norman on the saturday that spot was caught, pretty sure I saw them weighing it in actually at the tourney... some of the windiest weather i have ever fished in... i couldnt tell ya if i got a bite at all out there much less catch a fish. 3 foot rollers in a basstracker= terrible time. We were prefishing for a tourney. Thankfully The winds were only moderate on sunday and we caught three good ones and a bunch of shorts.

Has anyone fished Sandy River recently? I'm heading home from Virginia Tech on friday and plan on stopping by with my boat and giving the place a wack... ive got alotta ideas but have heard the alabama rig has been doing pretty well. Even though im more of a jig guy myself i dont mind throwing anything if its gonna catch me fish! thanks and take care.