Smallmouth Bass



Made a nice float on the French Broad Saturday, we were looking for a 50 fish day.    But, ended up doing fair at 30 fish on brown/dark green gigs with twin curly trailers, and size 4 in-line bass spinners, dark red with gold blade. I messed around with hard crankbaits crawdad patterns with only a few strikes. Highlight of the day for me was catchin a real little tiger musky on a spinner.  Jon's official 3.99 pound smallmouth was nice too.

Caught a few this size.



I had to get in the picture!!!

Western Carolina Rivers...

French Broad Fun Oct. 8th 2011

t

Upper Tuck Brown _then we floated into darkness that night, crazy takeout..

Best ever...

 Yellow Tailed Jack from Kayak, Dry Tortugas Nat. Park

 Shoals of Reds: Wallace Chanel, Oracoke Island

Sharks...

Black tip

Nurse

Dog

Black tip

Big Nurse

Camping Suprise!

We rounded the bite heading towards our wonderful little campsite on core banks. When in the distance, we can see what looks to be a very large pink blob extremely near our setup. As the skiff scooted closer we could make out windows and realized that this tent was setup about 30 ft. from our tents. I bet some wouldn't consider a generator powering an air conditioning unit, lights, and TV would be CAMPING!!! But these ladies did... We encouraged them to move that white truck as water lapped over the back tires, close call. Other than the generator running all night, they really weren't the worst camping neighbors. The Marines still have that title...

Tuck Trout!!

Had a wonderful float on the Tuckasegee River,  near Western Carolina University. We caught a mess of trout, small bass, and suckers. The trip green horn managed to pull the 16in. Brook Trout!! Beginner's luck!!

We decided to fish the upper section of the Tuck, b/c down below was high and murky. Our original plan was to fish the lower section for small mouth bass which is suppose to be hot right now.     We fished a variety of lures including in-line spinners, mepps spins, and crawfish crank baits..

July 2-4 Southern Outter Banks

5 nice Spanish to finish off the day, all caught on free-lining cigar minnows. 

About 3:45pm the wind changed and started blowing from the SW at 10kt. pushed the bigger fish right in, so we set up at the Cape lookout rock jetty and pulled in some nice fish.  I missed/lost 8 fish one being a monster( right at the boat), such a tough balance between wire and floro leader. Seems like they would not bite any size wire and would bite off even 40lb. Floro.  The one's we landed has perfect hook jobs right in the side of the mouth using 40-60lb floro leader.

The definition of fresh fish dinner.

Going to add to the Crazyness!! 4th July!

Our fav little campsite on core banks, not to far from the lighthouse.

So, I'm heading back East for the 4th weekend do do some more camping and fishing on the southern outterbanks with my buddies John and Mike. I'll be sure to post a detailed fishing report maybe Monday night or Tuesday morning.  I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday weekend. Tight lines

Should be a great time, the weather for Saturday is lining up nicely with inshore report of :    

Fri.

 NE WINDS 5 KT...BECOMING SE IN THE AFTERNOON. SEAS
 2 TO 3 FT.

 FRI NIGHT
 S WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. SEAS 2 TO 3 FT.

 SAT
 SW WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. SEAS 2 FT.

 SAT NIGHT
 SW WINDS 10 KT. SEAS 2 TO 3 FT.

Old Menhaden Factory, Beaufort NC

History...  Beaufort waterfront.. 

Bear Island, NC: Sometimes it's Worth the Hike...

Black Drum in the hole!!

My Personal Best To Date!!!:
Black Drum 6/11/11 22in. long / never weighed :S

Decided to go try a little hole on Hammocks Beach Saturday morning. After the quick ride over we got set up fishing a dead low tide around 10am, as soon as that tide started coming in , so did the action.. Caught one small blue, 6 black drum, 2 reds, 2 whiting, and one short flounder. One black drum was my personal best at 22in. but never weighed. Used a basic bottom set-up with size 4-6 j-hooks. All on fresh shrimp with tails off, 25 yards out if that.  

We really went over to do some Pompano fishing but found those drum as a great surprise and they put up a great fight in the surf!

Full cooler of cleaned fish!! I had to run fish back to mainland to be iced down..

25 in. Red Drum on fresh shrimp on a small j-hook, bottom rig.

18in. Red Drum in the surf!!
Sweet catch and release Andrew!

SOBX Adventure

The best way to spend a weekend at the end of May is cruising around NC's jewel, the Crystal Coast. Sun, Sand, Bugs and we managed to Camp out on Cape Lookout National Seashore and had a blast fishing in the surrounding waters. We caught a variety of fish including Flounder, Blues, Spanish Mackerel (personal favorite!!), Red Drum, and Sharks/Rays. I got to explore a bunch of new areas including the Lookout Shoals, East side of Shoals and Shark Island, all really impressive places. Found some amazing shells on shark island along with Reds, Chopper Blues, and tons of undersized Flounder in the surf!!!

The trips highlight for me was when we decided to tromp over Core Banks to the east side for body surfing and surf fishing...at the same time. You see, I was riding crystal blue waves and all of a sudden I saw a Spanish break about ten yards away, called to my buddy Mike onshore who slung our secret weapon out just in time, About the time his lure hit the water and I hit the beach, he was bent over fighting a 3 pound Spanish from shore!!! Can't beat that...

Surf Fishing for Spanish!!! Nice Catch Mike...

Blues and Spanish buffet, man what a fish-fry.

Spanish Mac's Are In...

Decided to bump back down the shack  from our camping adventure and picked up this one on a hand tied pinky squid rig.

The wait is over, Spanish fillets on the grill!!! Man i missed drinkin a cold beer and eatin some good fish...

 Live -Bait Mac !!! Fell for a pogy on a circle hook.

Disney, where all your fishing Dreams come True..

Spent Six day in Orlando at the Old Key West Resort in Disney. Had a blast bass fishin at the many canals and golf course ponds!!! Here's a few pic's from the Journey...

Average class of fish 3-4 pounds, and yes i have a size 15 foot.

fat gill hits a phat bait!!!

Flying yellow worm!!

Big fish of the trip!! 5.7 pounder on a bright yellow floating worm.

 On our trip we were able to land a couple bass around 5 pounds, tons of bass in the 2-4 pound range, at dusk and dawn we smoked them on top water (Rapala Skitterwalk blue gill color) John caught a massive Chain Pickerel on a spinnerbait near a clear water spring. We hooked some long nosed gar but never landed any on our lake trip.   Thanks Florida!

Suspending stop and go hard-baits 2nd top producer during the day

Got the Blues..

11.5 pound Bluefish in the Bite of Cape Lookout!!

Got to Bleed those big boys to get the fishy taste out.

Found a secret weapon that NC fisherman have not caught on too. Rapala's Glidin Rap!!!  

Weldon!!! 4/25/2011 Report!!

Fishing Clip: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr6HeWT6Jt0&feature=channel_video_title

First trip to Cape Lookout

Good Eating

Blues on light tackle, Gold Gotchas

New Bern, NC

Caught 6 Striper off the Bridges near New Bern and the Trent River.

Neuse River and Trent river

 Trolled medium diving crankbaits and bucktails/large rooster tails.

Roanoke Rock Fish 2011

First Striper of the year: 19 1/2in.  3-4pounds

Had a Crazy trip down east, fished Weldon on Friday and only caught one fish, which made a very nice dinner. Then we headed to Merchants Mill Pond for some camping and bass fishing: camping was great bass fishing was poor. Saturday we Paddled out of Merchants and headed to the Chowan River and fished in 45mph wind gusts, no luck. To top it all off, we then preceded to "Tread the Needle" west through some of the nastiest storms NC has seen in many years. Crazy first Trip down east!!!    

Roanoke River April 2010....

Just had to dip the chubby minnows in the water next to the boat.

Great Day on the Water!!! beautiful paddle back.....

Haw River 2011 White Bassin