A.Do?

I think most of the lakes around here are clean, it's the rivers i'm hearing horror stories about.

I'd be really interested! ;D Here are the pics of the "keepers" on our end. Hopefully the next outting will be much better.

It was pretty rough out there but I had fun regardless. The weather was real nice and I actually don't think team "feel the burn" did too bad. Simon had a lot of luck today. I think he was at 3 keepers with the biggest being over 2lbs. My other buddy also got a keeper but it was under 2lbs. I had only a dink myself and Simon and my friend both had 2 or more dinks each. They were mostly hitting the tubes but weren't enhaling them as we would have liked. A lot of missed fish for Simon, 1 being well over 2lbs. The dinks came mostly off spinner baits. From the way things sounded from the rest of the guys it seems we didn't do too bad.

i think the rate for a jon boat rental was $8/hr w/o motor. can't remember how much it was with the motor.

you should also consider getting some wire cutters and cuttin the barbs from the hook or as much as you can to help the fish survive.

Did you run into the rediculous traffic like i did/saw? Man do I hate 95 and South and it's random traffic.

Dan, that's fine. PM sent

Not too great . My friend lost A LOT, maybe cuz he's never fished soft plastics before but yeah. We found one spot where we got a hit every cast for about 10 cast. There were a few other boats out there but didn't see anyone really haul in anything great. We were pretty surprised to see so few boats on the water and even less stay (maybe only 4 others on the water when we left). The water is about 68-71 degrees. Stained with less than 4ft visibility. I saw a few smaller fish suspended on underwater structure on the depth finder but couldn't get them to bite. I noticed more fish on the fish finder at the upper part of the rez but didn't get to fish all the way down to the Dam. Only about 10 fish boated, 5 missed today. Seems pretty low for hunting run but we were probably doing something wrong. My other friend fished it yesterday with some pretty good results despite the windy conditions. He told me he was catching them off bright colored flukes despite the clear water conditions and out off underwater structure outside coves. Good luck out there. I think the forecast calls for bluebird skies tomorrow so might be tough! Let me know if you find my rod and reels! ;D

probably too late but my friend and I had some luck with wacky rigged green/white senkos. We tried some other things but didn't seem to work and the random spurts of wind wasn't helping much. If anyone pulls up my 2 rods/reels from midlake could you return them to me please? :'( They aren't expensive combos but money is money! Thank goodness i didn't have my baitcaster with me. Thanks again Wayne for all the tips you gave me, I'll probably have to ask you a few more things because i think i was doing something wrong.

Dan, let me know if you're able to get the jon cuz i got the trolling motor ready for you. It's only a 30lb but better than nothing right?

I'd agree that that probably wouldn't be the best idea either. Rob, you never know until you try!

Can't wait! I hope all of you wear a PFD cuz i'm not responsible for the destruction that a wake from "Feeel the Burn" may cause.

We really need to get out there and get that first for the season. Maybe some night fishing?

I'm near franconia as well. I'll be fishing some ponds today in the afternoon after work. This is going to be my attempt at learning to use a baitcaster. Hopefully i'll be out of work by 1 and then i'm going to Dick's to pick up some stuff for the weekend and fish till dark. Let me know if you're available. Doesn't Kingstowne Lake look like it holds some BIG fish ? I've always wanted to fish there, too bad there's no fishing signs everywhere.

I work off Eisenhower at the PTO and have fished this place once. Caught bluegill off a rooster tail. I was trying to get some trout but no luck. One did jump out of the water in my face but they didn't want my lures. They stop stocking it with trout after the colder months and now stock with catfish. You'll see people lined up on the shoreline catching them. When i was fishing for trout there was a father daughter couple that caught their limit of catfish in about 30 minutes. I haven't heard of any large mouth bass in there but have seen one guy pull up a big carp. Onthereel, what part of alexandria are you from? I'm also in that area.

Dan, I can have Simon bring mine, of course it might not work but better than nothing right? It's a new battery and cheap motor but it rain find before. It's having some issues now but hopefully i can fix them. I'll let you know.

I've found that drifting isn't bad. I go against the current pass the cove i want to hit and then drift my way down, controlling my drift with my rudder! Almost as good as trolling. Yours truly, "Feel the Burn"

Funny you mention it, there's a guy in Richmond with an overstocked pond that wants people to come and help him get rid of his Bream. Interested?

Whoa, that's deep. Confucious say, "no wrong way to rig a senko, just get in water and WHAM, fishy"

both, if one doesn't work i try the other, or if the senko is too worn out from texas riggin it i use it for wacky and vice versa.

I removed all the line that was in the birds nest when it happened, so it shouldn't have affected the line.

tyrius, i plan on doing something along those lines soon. I just realized that right before the break i got rid of alot of line because my GF made a huge birds nest that couldn't be saved, so the line should have been pretty fresh. I keep leaning more and more towards the line being at fault but i'll do some more test before more next outting.

aw shucks, billy bob was out there?! I told him to give me a calll! Sorry no info on frederick. i just couldn't resist responding. but i am interested in it though!

So, as a ghetto way of testing my drag I fastened my digi scale to a heavy object and then hooked it up to my line. i pulled the rod back slowly and waited for the drag to start ticking and found that this was at 2.5-3lbs for 2 different rods. Should i use this technique to see at what weight the line breaks? I checked the eyelets for the guides and they're all smooth. I think I'm going to have to just put some new line on the reel. :-/ I really hope this 1lb spool isn't a bad batch.

I'm going to try and check my drag today with a few techniques. As for the fish being 3-4lbs, these are really conservative estimates. The last fish that broke off had a huge head as it jumped out of the water. Fish might have been close to 6lbs but this should still be small enough for my 6# test to handle. Thanks for all the tips!