A few weeks back, a few buddies and I were supposed to spend a couple days floating the James River for smallmouth and camping. We do this trip most years and usually have decent numbers but not much size. Even worse than the size class, the last few years the spotted bass have really started to invade this stretch. The trip was set to run Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning. I'm fortunate that one of the offices I manage is in Richmond, VA (a 2 hour head start compared to home) so I planned to work there for the day and then head on to meet the outfitter and get keys to the campsite. Well, about lunchtime he called my buddy who had set things up and informed us that he wouldn't be sending out any canoes due to a forecasted increased in water level come Saturday- we could camp but there would be no floating. We had a couple hours to scramble and find a plan B. We ended up connecting with an outfitter on the Shenandoah who could fit us in and felt good about the water levels. It turned out to be the biggest blessing. 

 

I got to the campground around 6 and got the tent and some other basics set up before I went down to the river for a few casts. I threw a micro buzz and a tube for a bit with no bites before I eased out to a false rapid closer to the far side and switched to a small spinnerbait. It didn't take long to hook up. The only issue was that the fish got in the current and got down river of me. I couldn't move him back up against the current and I couldn't get down the river to give myself an angle. I finally decided the only chance was to get him to the surface and ski it back to me. The 12 lb invisx held up and I landed a nice 17" class smallmouth- bigger than anything I'd caught on the James in quite a few years. I fished that hole a bit longer with nothing before working back to shore where I picked up 4 more 12 inchers that had moved up shallow chasing bait. Figured that was good enough and headed back to camp to get a fire going and have some dinner.

 

 

We couldn't get the shuttle until 9:30 the next morning, so we didn't get on the water until around 10. With a 15 mile float to get back to camp, we had to keep it moving to make it before dark. I wish we would've had more time because the fishing was incredible. I landed over 30 myself and my canoe partner had another 20. Not only did we catch numbers, but the average size was much better than the James. I'd guess that 60% of our fish were over 14"- we'd be lucky to have 10% exceed that threshold on our usual stretch. Jerk baits and ned rigs caught the most, but we also managed a few on hair jigs, cranks, vibrating jigs, and wacky worms. It wasn't uncommon to pull over below a nice rapid and pull 5 or 6 good fish from one hole. I caught these 17" inchers within a few feet of each other and lost another the same size while the other guys in our group also landed a couple fish a piece out of this hole.

 

 

 

As the skies in the background show, we had some bad weather rolling in on us. Mid-afternoon one of the guys pulled out his phone to check the weather and reported a tornado "warning". We quickly pulled to the side and found an area to take shelter from the storms while we stressed about a tornado being sited in the area. I texted the wife and kid to tell them I loved them just in case things really went sideways, but it wouldn't go through due to lack of cell service. In the end, it was for the best I didn't worry her as it turned out to just be a tornado watch as opposed to a warning, and that buddy was banned from reporting the weather again. We ended up spending an hour on the bank waiting for the storms to pass.

 

When we got back on the water, we had to hurry to make time. The last few miles were supposed to be the best fishing according to the shuttle driver, but we didn't get to spend much time picking it apart. We pulled into camp as the last bit of light disappeared from the sky. 

 

The next morning the river had come up a half a foot or so, but more importantly, it really dirtied up the water. Some of the rapids became borderline sketchy and we had to bail water on a few occasions. As a group we caught far fewer fish on day two, but we the size class was even better than the day before. My canoe partner ended up with a 19", 18", and 17" on this day. He found an obnoxiously bright jerk bait that drove them nuts and out fished the rest of us by 5:1. I was dying when he came up with the analogy that he must be Bill Belichick and the lucky jerkbait must be Tom Brady, because there was no way he was that good of an angler (coach) without the lucky bait. I must've cycled through 15 jerkbaits trying to replicate his and never found one that worked near as well. I lost count of the number of times we paddled up stream to save that lucky jerk from a snag, though. In the end, I wound up with another 15-20 fish and he had close to 30. The other canoe had 20-30 between them.

 

This 18" my buddy caught had gnarly gash on it's back where it had survived some sort of attack.

 

 

I ended up finding a decent groove with a Baby vibrating jig and the trusty ned rig that day and picked up some nice smallmouth plus an eating sized channel cat to fry up for dinner. 

 

 

We got to the ramp around 4 feeling decent about the day we'd had. About the same time a group of city slickers from DC pulled up and started gushing to the outfitter how great the fishing was for them- 10 fish between 3 kayaks. That made us feel a little better about how we did compared to our Day 1. 

 

My one buddy may have summed it up best around the camp fire the last night when he said, "I guess we're Shenandoah river people now." The fishing was incredible and the sights were just as good, if not better than the James. We're already planning a trip back in the fall. 

Sounds like an awesome trip man, I’m jealous!

Any musky in that stretch? If so, target those too in the fall!

17 minutes ago, Junger said:

Any musky in that stretch? If so, target those too in the fall!

I would think so. We didn't see any on this trip, but it there were spots that certainly looked prime for musky. We've picked up a couple while smallmouth fishing the James before, but never on an actual musky rod when one gets brought. 

that looked FUN!!

Awesome! My kind of excursion 

Excellent write up! Ya gotta love a good float trip!

FM

Great writeup and pics for a great trip! Sounds like such a blast. 

Super pretty place right there with some killer bass.

Thank you for sharing your trip

Congrats.

A-Jay

 

I can see considerable current in every photo but the first. Then I think about those brown bass fighting that current every dang day. Now I imagine you hooking those current-fighting bass in that current and I go...

 

1 minute ago, Swamp Girl said:

I can see considerable current in every photo but the first. Then I think about those brown bass fighting that current every dang day. Now I imagine you hooking those current-fighting bass in that current and I go...

 

I was thinking about how hard that channel cat fought 

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

I was thinking about how hard that channel cat fought 

 

I'm guessing it was feisty like this:

 

12 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I was thinking about how hard that channel cat fought 

Definitely the most pullage of the trip. I was fortunate to be in the canoe with someone else who could keep us above the rapids while I fought it.

Those things fight like the devil