everythingthatswims

SWEET REEL

I fish out of a Perception Prodigy 110. It's a 10' sit in, not very stable, and doesn't have much room, but it is easily my most important fishing tool. I mostly fish with it but the kayak has been a part of a few duck and goose hunts thanks to the burlap cover I made for it. I have a fishfinder that I use in it (I can post my ghetto PVC mount if someone wants to see), and I do lots of my fishing from a standing position during warm weather... after 2 years I have only fallen out once when I tried to set the hook in an awkward, backwards way while flipping/pitching. Doesn't take much to get the job done Here are some fish I have caught from the little dingy:

Do you think I will get any weird looks if I start saying Smith Mountain Impoundment?

You may want to schedule an appointment with a psychoanalyst...Just to be safe, of course.

They are supposed to spawn early, I hope I can get out there during the spawn, I'm not a huge fan of bed fishing but it will be interesting to see if the fish are in different stages depending on proximity to the plant.

If I want to catch bass in the summer...you won't find me at One Fish Anna.

Nope, we actually caught more fish in the water under 60 degrees, they just follow the bait. We found few fish over 2lbs on cover (8' of visibility so you can see them all). It's really weird, the fish don't behave correctly at all like how they should in winter, or during any time of year. You can sight cast for bass cruising riprap at the dikes, and then go catch one on a school of bait on the bottom in 40FOW.

The hot side has been anywhere from 54 to 75 degrees depending on how close we are to the plant.

No 15.2 is just unimaginably big haha that's awesome! Pics?

You weren't kidding! Do they fight? I have caught some smaller-scale footballs and they kinda squirm around like a catfish.

Here is the only photo I have of that fish that shows the anal fin better... Say cheese!

I have landed quite a few bass up to 5-6lbs while crappie fishing with little jigs. Imo if there isn't any heavy cover around it is pretty easy to land a big fish on light tackle, you just have to be patient and realize that you don't need to have the fish in the boat in 10 seconds. The big largemouth I have caught were all in very cold water, but big smallies will hit tiny baits any time of year.

I'm almost certain my first bass was caught on a twin tail Yamamoto hula grub t-rigged with a very small bullet weight. My dad used to fish the James with his brother all the time and once I was big enough to go (probably 6 yrs old) I would go with them. We slayed the smallies on those hula grubs!

They clip the fins in some areas in VA but all the stocked fish we caught had adopose fins in SW VA. But there is never a doubt about a fish being wild or stocked, normally I can tell before I even land them. All of our fish are raised in concrete ponds so their fins really show it, and they get fed so much that a 13" trout will have the head of a 10" fish and is shaped like a football

Yep, I got it to throw my <3oz swimbaits, definitely not using the cardiff 400 for that lol. I put some serious pressure on it and it held up so that's a good sign.

Decided to put my A-Rig rod that I got for Christmas to the test. Stuck my cardiff 400 on it, grabbed a couple trout carcasses (Bluebasser, you are right, trout is a good cut bait), and headed to a friends pond that has some blue cats in it. I ended up landing two blue cats, a 16lb and an 18lber (on a digi scale). I also had a fish pick up the bait and drop it before I could get to the rod, and another fish run me into a tree before I set the hook. I bass fished the entire time while waiting for the clicker to go off, but only landed a little 12"er. I set my rod down when the catfish rod got bit, and after landing and releasing the cat, I came back to find my rod snagged (lipless crank) and when I popped it out, there was a bass on it. I guess he either picked it up while I was fighting the cat, or bit when the bait popped out of the snag. Definitely got lucky on that one. 16lbs 18lbs

The only thing we do with stockers is fry them in breading which would probably even make a carp taste good, or smoke them, and then flake the meat apart and mix it into a cream cheese based dip that is TO-DIE-FOR .

Fins on wild fish are 100% perfect, and their colors are usually much more vibrant than the stocked fish. It takes a few years to produce a 12" wild trout (12" minimum area) but the stockers go in that size by the hundreds each year and will be replaced quickly. Wild fish do taste better though

Fished for two days (Jan. 1 & 2) with my brothers while we were visiting our grandparents in southwestern VA. We caught tons of fish as usual for that area, plenty of both wild and stocked trout. We kept a good number of stocked fish (decided to start releasing the wild ones we catch). I filleted them all, half are frozen and the other half are sitting in a brine right now before getting smoked . Bluebasser, you will have to look elsewhere if you are in need of cutbait.

The bbzs will flat out catch fish. People don't like them because apparently there is a problem with using a bait that costs less than $50 and isn't hard to find. But I like them, and I don't feel like I'm going to have a heart attack when I let them sink out of view to fish them a little deeper. My friend has a g2 and it gets bit. It wakes very well even at a slow crawl, and it can be used as a squarebill, but it won't dive deeper than 1-2'. The main reason I don't have one is because I held out for a hardgill and since I have that I don't feel a need for the g2.

Last year my buddy ordered a BBZ Jr... Three days later I took advantage of the 25 days sale, getting a Jr for the usual $20 with a free 8"

Well you better plan a late March or early April trip to throw some more big baits

Bowhunting = Flyfishing

I like stripers for a fish-grill