Upper James River

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The area of the James River from Bosher's Dam up to Watkins Landing is known as the Upper James River.

I decided to take this morning off from work and ventured out around 8:15 from Watkins Landing and tooled down river to Bosher's Dam.

I fished the northern shore, starting with a chartreuse with blue back Bandit 200 crankbait on my Curado 100 baitcaster with 12 pound Trileen XL line.

What was so interesting is that I was visited by an Eagle (I saw two chicks sitting on the side of the nest); one Opsray; and a herron. The Eagle and Ospray were checking me out and then they flew back into the trees. That in itself was worth the trip.

Had a bass follow the chartreuse with blue back Bandit back to the boat so I changed out to a Tenessee Shad Bandit 200 and nailed a small smallie and a nice bluegill.

I had another smallie follow the Tennesse Shad Bandit to the boat so I changed out to a chrome with black back 1/4 ounce Rat-L-Trap.

Worked back upriver throwing the Rat and caught three more smallies and three more bluegills on the Rat.

The bass and bluegills were about 60 to 70 feet off shore and they hit the lure by swimming upward.  Nice hits, too.  I missed two others when they hit the Rat but did not take the bait in their mouths.

Beautiful day on the river.  Only five other guys were fishing the area and I saw two jet skis. The water was low but calm, with a wonderful five to six MPH breeze.

I spoke with two guys fishing east of the Route 288 bridge and they had not caught anything. They were using pearl Super Flukes and fishing the shore.

I told them what I was throwing and wished them well.

Boat now sits in driveway as there is no way I am going on the water over any 4th of July weekend.  Too many loonies out there.

Everyone have a great and safe 4th weekend and let us have your 4th of July fishing stories, too.