JCrzy4Bass

Yea, Dan is my go to guy for any info on the Rappahannock. Man has got me some great info as far as baits and I can't wait to try out some of the wade trips he's told me about. This year is gonna have some awesome smallie adventures mixed in the bag. Dan when you figure out when you will be around town, get to me and maybe we can schedule something. If you wanna head out in the boat on the Potomac with my pops and I that's cool too. Just let me know so I can squeeze you in for the particular weekend. Later boss.

If you go the Potomac route, Sam is right. Bigger and more plentiful fish here. The underrated creek is Neabsco Creek. Has sunken ship wrecks, tons of spatterdock fields (much like lilly pads to throw into), lots of timber, and tons of docks to fish. Lots of fish, and when they are on top water busting, walk a spook or throw a crank and pull em' in. Quantico Creek on the outskirts is great for schooling striper almost any time of the year. Live minnows work well if trolled, cranks, and bucktails should catch you some here. The best in my opinion though is Mattawoman Creek across from Leesylvania, you can pull in and fish one spot of grass all day with a buzzbait or jitterbug in the morning, or senkos all day. If your good with a jig or spinnerbait those can pull you in countless fish as well. Work the mats holes with jigs and t-rigged senkos (weedless), work the outside edges with the spinnerbait and toss the shallow cranks along the weed edges as well. Tough to get a boat for as many as you guys are talking about, but if you can find a place that rents em' out, my dad and I would be more than happy to take you out in our boat to show you some of our regular spots we catch fairly consistently from so that way you could get back there with your buds. On average I'd say the fish in Mattawoman probably range from 2-4lbs. My dad and I caught some pretty nice ones there this year.

We are planning on Saturday the 22nd. If weather is a factor we will move it to Sunday. That's the only reason I chose both dates for that weekend, so if one was bad we could use the other. So plan on Saturday.

Sounds good, depending on whether or not that cold front comes in Friday/Saturday my dad and I may pre-fish it Sunday. I'm gonna look for some of the run off areas around the lake where it meets up with the main lake, any structure I can find and whatever shallow flats next to deep water I can find. Probably won't catch much, but I'm gonna give it a try. These muddier/stained lakes should be warming up quicker than the clearer lakes based off what I've been reading so who knows. Anyway, we'll let you know how we do. You gotten lucky at all this year yet here?

Sounds almost unanimous there. I already have some original rapalas. All the models minus the larger f-7's don't cast that well unless you get a good side arm type cast and there is no wind, but I wil try some of those next time out in dirty water. I'll check out those rogues and let you guys know how they work here.

So we're looking at primarily humps, drop offs, flats, etc? I'm figuring an early get together right before sun up would be better then before sun gets over head to high, maybe we'll get lucky and have some overcast skies or semi-cloudy day. You think this early on there will be any top water bite here? Maybe throw that buzzbait or jitterbug? First time fishing a late winter/pre-spawn bite here and this lake in general so just trying to get an idea. Already have an idea of some baits to throw based off what you told me, but just trying to get the full picture. Searchin' for fish without cover in stained water can be intimidating... Spinnerbaits w/ colorado blades, jigs w/ rattles, buzzbaits, jitterbugs, rattle traps and wide action cranks sound like a good start?

Hey guys quick question. I've been getting into jerkbaits quite a bit lately and have quite a few plastics but not many hard jerkbaits aside from the Rapala X-Raps in a minnow color, Blue/transparent color and, white/transparent color. I'm looking for some in the darker colors for dirty water. Any color recommendations or brands for me to look at? Something affordable in the 4-6 dollar range, and some that have some good casting ability. If you know of any just start listing em' so I can look into them. I hope to make it one of my new tools after watching a lot of early spring bass fishing videos on water warming up and these things absolutely killing bass. Looks like they work well in rivers and creek or tributary systems.

Rob do you know of anywhere where I can download or print out a topographic of Lake Royal in prep? I found one site but it was not in depth at all and only had one depth marking for one drop off on the entire lake. What kind of sturcture or bottom content is there mostly in this lake? How deep on average is it? Is the water typically clear or dirty, etc? I know most places have stained water from the run off with the ice storms, snow and rain as of late, but Huntsman seems to be fairing well as well as Burke. Anyway looks like this is pushing to Lake Royal as of now. I'll keep the poll up until week before in case any of the guys south decide to come up and decide on others, but let's plan for Royal now. Hopefully we can all just concentrate on fishing and having a good time. I know forums can be hard to read someone's views etc and people can interpret things the wrong way as I think some of us have here. We all need to remember this is about meeting up and having fun. Don't matter where it is.

Amazing so many of us on the eastern seaboard Northern Virginia and on up have nothing to do during these winter months but invade the forums! Haha. But seriously, I don't know what I'd do without this place. It's at least given me a place to talk about my bass fishing addiction and cabin fever the last two months. I'm sure we are all sick of sitting around (those of us going through ice out, or very low water temps close to freezing), but hopefully spring will be here and we will all be back on the water. Later fellas.

Simon, This way is SOOO much shorter dude. Better access and you see other access areas on the way over there where you can park along side the road. There are signs all over not to park in the town home unit areas though. My dad showed me last time we went (last weekend). Just go past Dorothy Lane (after turning off the Fairfax County Parkway) and take your next right (after the little bridge with the railing) and follow the road down. You will see access to the opposite side of the lake we were fishing when we first got there, as well as access to the gate where the d**n is located (imho the best spot on the lake to this point). Later dude.

Don't fish up north there, surprised those ponds aren't iced over. Anyway, I know you northern guys have a lot of clear ponds and lakes... generally: You want to fish deeper in clear water. A good example is throw a lure out there, wait til' it sinks to where you can't see it. More times than not, this is the area where fish will start holding. In the winter cold water months you want to fish deeper. Silver buddies, jigging spoons, jigs, drop shots (though not sure how well this will work in a pond) are all good examples. Remember to downsize your baits too. Small grubs or curly tailed worms (4") with good action may get you a bite. You want to use colors that are more natural such as purple for worms, minnow colors, shiner colors, shad colors for cranks, chrome works well with different lighter colors mixed in. This is just a start, don't know what type of cover you have in the pond, but generally fish are more scattered in clear water so not sure as to how close they will hold to cover. If you can find any deep water rocks, or timber you may be able to get a bite by slowly working a jig or something. Good luck, hope this helps.

Ok here's my two cents, and I've been waiting to give it. Almost started my own thread. Day one was horrible. I think there may have been about 15 minutes of fishing, tops. Get Mike and mike back to football, baseball, and basketball, things they know. Neither one of them knows how to bass fish and doesn't belong covering any of the event. Period. I was very dissapointed seeing as I woke up at 6:30 to hustle over my dad's to have breakfast and watch this. I was also unaware that they were going to cover the same hour and a half twice (back to back) without adding any other new information. Now, I think I know why day one did suck so bad. You look at the big names Swindle, Reese, Omori, Duckett, etc.. none of them were pulling in fish and sat in the back of the pack. Martens didn't even make noise until the end of the day. So I think the guys they were covering weren't on the fish, therefore didn't get much coverage. If you look at day two and all the coverage they got on the leaders such as Hartley, Ike, Van Dam, Pace, Evers, etc they got a lot more coverage of on the water stuff. They also had less talking the second day, which was awesome. I was ticked that day 3 didn't get any coverage at all other than the weigh in. However this seemed like a dead day anyway and the hardest of the tourney so we would not have seen much other than Jones tearing em' up. All in all, dissapointed, but it did have it's moments. I was mas mad that bassmaster cut out once Jones won and we did not get to see the celebration. Anyway... that's just my opinion.

Classic coverage improved on day two. Watching Hartley and his smooth technique, dare to be brave, get right in the thick of the stuff attitude I was impressed. He threw that jig into places where other guys just would have laughed and said, "yea you lose your bait". Talk about accuracy and looking for that big bite. I don't think I've seen anyone fish docks as well as this guy. He stayed on his game plan from the get go throwing that jig. And when it got sunny on the last day he started fishing right under the docks and getting it into tight spots where he knew fish would be relating too. It sucked to see him miss his limit on the last day like Ike. The top six definately surprised me in the way they finished. What a classic. Charlie will rid that nick name at some point this year. The guy is a great bass fisherman and exciting to watch. And he loves his family and fans, the people who make it happen.

Between this commercial and the stupid gulp commercials with Ike as the bass swimming around telling his story of how he's been fooled by their baits, I got pretty fed up. I was pretty much just swearing and cursing at the tv and Swindle telling him to go catch a freaking fish in the classic and stop worrying about his website lol.

If you guys are cool with spending a few bucks you can rent a jon boat and trolling motor at Fountainhead and Lake Ridge on the Rez. Good fishing at both places. Like Ron said, if you wait til' early mid-April fish should be in Pre-Spawn mode getting ready to turn on and move to creek mouths. Follow bait fish and you can get on the fish at either of these places. Mid to late April they should be moving into arms of the Rez or into the creeks. Anything imitating baitfish like shad patterned cranks and Rat L-Traps, spinnerbaits, and curly tailed worms tossed into swirls and blowups should pull out fish. Alot of guys also pull in fish at the rez using a shakey head setup w/ finesse worm or a carolina rigged lizard or worm (be careful of all the timber/ wood cover here if you decide to do so).

Everyone gets one vote fellas. Make it count. If others are not fond of the choice we can split this up. But I think it would be cool for us all to have a get together to remember where we can share info, learn some new things, and maybe even catch a nice bag. It's a perfect type of get together for the guys on this forum because this is what we do here. Later fellas.

Well fellas I didn't want this to turn into a "this guy knows more than or is more knowledgeable than the other", I was just trying to put something fun together where we could all get to meet maybe some new guys here on the forum in Nova and just bring in the season. I know some of us have caught bigger fish than others, heck I only have a 2lb 14 oz pb, but look forward to breaking that very soon. Some of us have 4lbers, others 5.5, and then some 7+, doesn't by any means mean that we are better at diagnosing where the fish are than other guys. The most important part of this get together was the "fun" idea. If people wanna learn and they ask another guy there, "hey how do you throw this or what's a good bait for this area"? We can help and answer that person's question. If not it's mostly about being there, hunting, and sharing some time together. Every fish caught is a bonus. I've caught 2+ pounders out of Huntsman and Mercer on a fairly regular basis now, I know it's not much to some of ya'll but the location really doesn't matter to me. It just seemed like most people were saying Huntsman and Mercer worked for them so I just kinda implied the idea that maybe that was best. However, in the name of fairness and ust to see what everyone would like based off the previous posts (even if they have not fished these lakes before) I will put up a poll on this thread to decide. Seems like the lakes in contention are the following- -Lake Mercer _Lake Huntsman -Lake Royal -Burke Lake On the Saturday before, a decision will be made about the location so we can all prepare and get an idea of what areas on the lake may be the best to fish. At this time we can all contribute here and try and get ideas as to where the fish may be moving to, or where they could be caught from. That way we can keep an eye on weather ad the changes taking place as we move torwards spring in those weeks. Alright guys, make your pick. Doesn't matter where we go, this will be about fun! Let's all bring in the year and start it off great!

Where did you guys see this? Do they have pics on the site yet? Are we gonna have a Martens/KVD battle?

The turn arounds just keep getting better. Here comes my boy Ike gainin' on the leaders! Direct from the Bassmaster site: All you Aaron Martens fans (count me as one of those) welcome to the world of techno glitchs. Martens three 4-pounders that came out of nowhere, weigh about as much as the electronic signal that was sent to record them. He's still at 15 pounds, 2 ounces. Forgive me for getting a little excited. Cliff Paces still reigns at the top of the leaderboard with 16 pounds, followed by Alton Jones with 15-6, Terry Scroggins with 15-3 and then Aaron. KVD and Rook are next in line, both still with four fish and in the 15-pound range. But the big change has come from Michael Iaconelli. He has four fish weighing about 13 pounds, 12 ounces and sits in 7th place. Hey Team, 7th baby! That's my boy.

The international bass is where it gets complicated. Because I see all these guys posting from those countries in the Europe area, Australia, and then Mexico too. Overall as far as world records go, it definately would be very tough. But the start of this discussion was basically on Northern and Floridian being seperate. I'm just curious exactly how many other strains there are in the states aside from these two if any. Are the bass in Texas and Cali a seperate strain as well? Or do they just grow that huge because the growing seasons?

I agree if Aaron can fish these conditions today and sit atop the leader boards, once the post front conditions start up it's gonna be the Martens show, but KVD will be on his tail. Looks like Glenn called this one. But you guys are right, no one's talked about him all morning. DEEEEEP left field. What a race so far.

KVD fishing strong! Pig! And Scroggins must of found his traditional deep water bite like last year's brawl at SML. These two have obviously found their fish and moved up quickly. I'm hoping the camera men and guys on Duckett's, Horton's and Reese's boats are just dumb and haven't reported anything yet, how can the three of them not be on the board yet? I hate the suspense of not being able to watch this unfold. I CANNOT WAIT for video tommorrow. Horton, Omori, Ike, Evers... let's go baby, hop aboard!

Definately some surprises Tin. Looks like according to the info on the bassmasters update page that the lower lake is where most of the action is at and upper is kinda slow: http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/classic/news/story?page=b-tourn-bass-blog-day-one I watched the launch live online from this site this morning, kinda cool. Just wish Mike and Mike knew something about bass fishing and we could be getting live updates on tv. I can't wait to watch day one and two tommorrow morning here at my dad's place. Interesting strategy with Chris Lake following up Bobby Lane's pattern and fishing the same spot after he left (caught his limit) and moved on to a new spot. I'm sure these two were talking before the tourney and traded some info. Be cool to see two brothers go one two. I think someone on the prediction thread picked that to happen haha. I wouldn't mind seeing Bobby do well.

Sam, we can only hope. I'm goin' through smallie withdrawal reeeeaaallll bad!

Dang on! WRB knows his bass. Sam, what you say about southern fishing definately being better is true (aside from smallies up north at Lake Erie). But that is different than talking about why or why certain fish should be seperated into strains. But I do give you the fact that the two are very hard to compare against each other (bass strains), and should be left as seperate entities... but that just helps the fact that they should be split up into different records. And ps: I'm a BC fan... I beg to differ about those southern teams, but that's for another time lol.