2011 NC Piedmont White Bass Report #8,432

Went looking for stripers the other day, but ran into a bunch of white bass.  Let’s just say that they’re really easy to catch right now.

Joey’s Camera Smells Like Fish

ANOTHER GUEST POST by turtlestew:

Toba and I slapped some bass around pretty good this weekend in the yaks at the local lakes. Saturday we went to Shearon Harris and Bob caught 4 bass. He got the biggest one at 19.50″ and 3 under 16″. I got 5 bass, one 18.5″, one 19″, 3 under 16″ and one pickerel at 20.5″. All fish came on texas rigged worms in dormant grass.

Today we went to Jordan and launched out of the Robeson Creek canoe access. Started off good when I landed one just shy of 5 lbs on about my third cast with an x-rap. After that though it was quiet for a few hours. Only a few dinks between about 10am and 3pm. Stuck it out and then they turned on pretty good for the last hour. I managed to land 3 more pretty good ones at 16.25″, 17.25″ and 18.25″ on laydowns with a 4″ power hawg. Bob knocked off the skunk with 2 11″ers on the way back to the truck. He also had a monster bowfin (~30″ guess) right at the boat that got away. I was about 200 yards away and could hear it thrashing around and then a scream of displeasure from Bob so I knew it had sprung free. That woulda been a good point scorer for Kayak Wars so Bob is carrying his net from now on. Total for the day was 9 bass between us and 18 bass and a pickeral for the weekend. All in all a great February weekend and my camera smells like fish.

River Bass Starting to Chomp

Warmer temperatures the past couple of weeks have had me itching to get on the water.  On Saturday, I ventured out to one of my favorite sections of river to see if any bass were in the mood to bite.

Luckily, six largemouth cooperated and took the baits offered to them, making for a rather productive winter river paddle.  Unfortunately, none of them were monsters – the biggest bass was 16.5″ and the smallest was 13″.  Four of the bass were caught on a Texas-rigged worm near laydowns, while the other two were caught on a chartreuse spinnerbait around rocks.

This is just the tip of the iceberg…spring is right around the corner!

Begun, the Kayak Wars Have!

I just got really excited about kayak fishing in 2011.

Joey, Scott, Erick, Nathan, and I recently formed team Nacho Fish, and this year we’ll be competing in the North-East division of Kayak Wars, an online team kayak fishing tournament.

Kayak Wars started on February 1st and it will run until December 14th.  Freshwater and saltwater species are in play this year.  I went fishing for about an hour after school yesterday and I was able to get things kicked off for Nacho Fish with this little guy.

January River Spots

GUEST POST by turtlestew:

“Toba and I made it out in the cold today for a little river fishing. First hour or so was slow with no fish and no bites. Floated down to a spot where I had caught a few bass a few weekends ago and found some more. Actually a ton more! I was throwing a yellow and black beetlespin on an ultralight and Bob was throwing a worm.

They were hitting that beetlespin on probably one out of five casts average. Sometimes caught two or three on consecutive casts. Ended up with 53 spotted bass and 3 bream. No monsters, the biggest was 13”, but a ton of fun on an ultralight when we expected to catch maybe a few if we were lucky.

Bob got into them good with the worm also. I think he caught around 20 spots and got the pig of the day, a nice ~18″ largemouth. I think he said he missed at least a dozen more bites also. Check out the brave soul standing out on the tree over the water in the second pic.

We left the fish biting with frozen fingers and ice building in the line guides. Not bad for a cold January day!”

All Photos by Joey

BONUS VIDEO – Joey’s Beetlespin Magic

Happy New Year!

Here’s to good kayak fishing in 2011…

My Top 5 Lures of 2010

#5 – tie – Texas-Rigged Worm – Caught my biggest largemouth of the year a Zoom Ol’ Monster.  Took first in the Riverbassin’ tourney throwing a Zoom Magnum Trick Worm.  Had a lot of fun days on the river with a variety of 6-10″ worms.  The most productive colors for me were green pumpkin and pumpkinseed.

#5 – tie – Buzzbait – I had a ball this fall standing up in the Mariner on the Jordan Lake slinging a buzzbait through flooded grass.  Caught a few chunky largemouth doing that.  Also caught a good largemouth and a bunch of spotted bass with a white buzzer earlier in the summer while on the river.

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#4 – tie – Skitter Walk – These next few baits were big producers for me at the coast.  The Skitter Walk didn’t catch too many fish for me this year, but the ones it did catch were quality.  By far the most memorable was the 30″ redfish that hammered the topwater bait and gave me the most memorable fight in a kayak to date.  A few weeks after that I caught a nice slot fish on the Skitter Walk in the wind when I was just about to give up on the topwater bite.  I have big plans for this bait next year.

#4 – tie – Redfish Magic Spinnerbait – Another bait that caught several nice redfish for me this year.  The best came when I caught two over-slot reds back-to-back on the RF Magic.  When the tide was in, the spinnerbait produced by getting down into the flooded grass to lure out the hungry reds.  I caught a few blues and flounder on the RF Magic as well.

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#3 – Gulp! Jerk Shad – I burned through several bags of Gulp! 5″ jerk shad fishing saltwater this year.  I had fairly good luck using a white jerk shad on a red jig head.  I caught numerous reds, trout, and flounder, including a 2nd place red in the TJM tourney.  This bait was responsible for putting the most fish in my freezer this year.  I threw the jerk shad almost exclusively in my last couple trips to the coast.

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#2 -Spro Poppin’ Frog – Fished at Harris 23 times this year and EVERY time I went I made sure I had a frog tied on.  There were many early mornings when I was out there casting the topwater bait into the darkness and listening for a blow up.  I caught 9 largemouth over 19″ at Harris on the black frog, but I missed many others.  I didn’t have the best hook-up ratio with the frog this year, maybe %60.  But fish or not, froggin’ is incredibly addicting because it’s soooo visual.  Largemouth bass on a topwater frog bait is definitely one of my favorite ways to fish.

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#1 – Storm Chug Bug – This bait was tied on one of my rods for about 5 months straight and saw a lot of action in rivers and lakes.  The hooks were changed twice, but the bait just kept on producing.  I caught many stripers, largemouth, spotted bass, white bass, white perch, and even bluegill on this trusty topwater plug.  I caught two white perch at the same time (that was a first for me) on the Chug Bug.  But a pair of trophy stripers on different bodies of water clinched the Chug Bug as my 2010 Lure of the Year.

Super Happy Fun Day Trip – Post-Thanksgiving Edition

Another weekend, another day trip down to Fort Fisher.

I picked up Joey again at 4am and we launched shortly before 7am at one of our favorite spots.  We had a difficult time launching; the tide was all the way out and the wind was whipping as we trudged through calf-deep mud.  We were cautiously optimistic that the wind would die down and the incoming tide would trigger a bite or two.  Luckily the reds didn’t keep us waiting very long.  🙂

The first couple deeper holes we hit were productive.  I landed a couple small reds on a jerk shad in the first half hour, and Joey had some early success with his ultra-light rig.  By 11am we’d landed 9 reds, and Joey’d added 2 trout.  The reds weren’t the bruisers we were looking for, but they sure were fun to catch.  I managed a 21″ and a 21.5″ red, while Joey scored a nice 17.5″ trout.  Here are a few pictures:

The tide came in strong, and it was a high one.  There was a pronounced lull in the action for a couple hours.  The bite picked up again around 1:30 as the tide started to fall out.  Joey and I had already started to make our way back to the truck when we scored a few more reds, including the best of the day, this 22″ puppy that came home with me for dinner.

Photo by Joey

At the end of the day, we were exhausted from battling the wind, but quite content with having caught 12 reds and 2 trout between us.  It was another quality fishing trip down to the coast.