Musky on the French Broad River

Made the second attempt at landing a Musky on the French Broad River. This time I was ready, with a better setup of gear and tackle. Not sure if I have taken 10,000 casts yet, but on the 100th cast today I got to watch my *personal best* Musky come out from under a lay down and devour my River2sea   S-wave rainbow trout. (length 6 3/4,  weight 1 5/8 oz. ) Then the chaos ensued with the canoe spinning in circles, throwing of a GoPro, messing with the net(won't fit in our net), and attempting to land the beast without losing fingers. And yes we were finally to use Boga type fish grips and get the joker in the boat for a few pictures. Released unfazed and bolted away like a strike of lightning. Unbelievable!

GoPro Shot

Just about to get some teeth marks!!

"Trout Life"

I've spent a few weekends this fall in the West Jefferson area getting ready for deer hunting and doing some trout fishing. I've fished the north and south forks of the New and Big Helton creek (which is delayed harvest catch and release single hook artificial only waters). 

Missed the biggest Brown Trout of my life on the North fork throwing a in-line spinner for a few cast randomly (it was a massive log of a fish!).  But I have caught a lot of nice fish on both the fly and spinning rods techniques recently. 

Trout on ice and fly

 Hatchery Supported Dinner (not delayed harvest waters). Lucky to find a few fish still left in those waters this time of year... 

FLORIDA Fishing! Thanksgiving week

We decided that it had been "long enough" since we'd seen Lynae's grandparents in FL (and too long since we'd caught some Butterfly Peacock Bass in South Florida waters, West Little Havana) So... we left NC and drove 14 hours  to their house in Pembroke Pines, near Rainbow lakes.  As we were driving down, a cold front (the years second arctic blast to hit the southeast for 2014) hits south Florida. Wonderful. So we stocked up on super slow presentations: drop shot, jigs, suspending cranks, and a worm box was ready. We did have a pretty good topwater session for 45 mins one night catching 7-8 smaller bass. For the most part drop-shot slow presentation worms/shaky and bright spinnerbaits caught most fish.

We had access to a great canoe to fish from the whole time and took it on our new SUV's roof rack for the first time (worked out great). The lake we stayed on produced better peacocks this year and the place we were hoping was on fire with big fish was almost empty of all types of fish compared to last year. We did pull out the biggest peacock from a public fishing lake in West Little Havana, but we really had to work for the very few fish we managed in over a half day of paddling in strong winds.

And then… there was the one that got away. A close to 10lb Large Mouth Bass. I hooked it on the drop-shot in deep water in the middle of the lake. Watched it jump twice, pulled it in on it's side toward the canoe. It came within a foot of the net my wife was holding, then thrashed once more and we lost it.

Cool looking peacock that hit a Rapala suspending husky jerk!

Lynae gets the prize for largest Peacock Two years running with this mean fish that she pulled out off a grass ledge near a bridge. It came out of nowhere and slammed her spinnerbait right in front of us in clear water…. (Amazing cast and fight girl!!)

This day we caught over 30 bass around 2 lbs using the drop-shot.

The life...

Our fishing spot was right near a landing path for the airport, kinda wild..

Good Fall Day for Trout on the Tuckaseegee

One of my wife's friend came into town for a wedding this weekend. So we braved the cold weather and headed out to the Tuckaseegee for some wade trout fishing. Right from the get go, we managed to catch a few trout to keep below the delayed harvest section of the river where it is still legal to possess fish. Tonights dinner. 

We then decided to play in the Delayed Harvest Catch and Release section of the Tuck. Made the switch to fly gear and single hook spinner/grub jigs. The jigs started working right away with Adam catching three really nice Brook trout back to back. I went to the next hole downstream and hooked up with two nice rainbow trout on fly-rod using a olive woolly bugger with one weight. We fished from 9:45am till about 2:00pm with most fish caught from noon till 2. (We only left so Adam could make it to the wedding on time.) It was well worth braving the cold to land some beautiful trout. As a group of three today we managed a grand slam and caught 5 trout over 16in.   

Monster Brookie #1

Monster Brookie #2

First Nice Rainbow on the Fly Rod

Doubles! As soon as I released the rainbow, I came over to help Adam land Brookie #3

Monster Brookie #3

Teamwork got this guy in (Rainbow #2)

Rainbow of the Day! (#2)

This Rainbow was not a bad ending to the day...

Two Rivers One Day

Fished two rivers today, the Tuck and French. Was on the Tuck by 7:50am in Webster floating the delayed harvest section. Caught about ten trout between the two of us in a couple hours on flies. Not great numbers but, three of the fish were over 15in. so I can't complain to much. Woolly Buggers, and worm patterns caught all the fish. I was home by noon. 


Was on the French in the late afternoon floated from 5-7pm. MY wife fished the Mepps in-line spinner and totally out fished me. (I was using jigs, crank baits) She landed two fat bass and a few red-eye's. I missed one fish on the jig and didn't have much luck that trip. In the best hole of that float, Lynae lands a sweet cast nearshore and gets hammered by one the second turn on the reel. The Big fish of the trip for sure, she fought it for a good four min's before it decided to take off down stream like a freight train. We were anchored up and it got the angle on her and pulled off. We never seen what it was, i guessing a hefty smallie, didn't fight like a Musky. Well, i guess it keeps ya coming back for more.

Smallmouth 9/20-9/21/14

Decided it was time to hit some river smallmouth this weekend. Went close to home Saturday evening around dusk fishing from the bank. Had 5 massive blow-ups on a top-water popper in twenty min’s time. Caught two of the five fish that hit, with the biggest fish pushing 3lb. That fish jumped six times!!  (the other was in the 2lb. range)  

Got up Sunday and hit the French Broad early, I think we were paddling downstream by 7:45am. Fish turned on around 8-9:45ish and we ended up catching 9 smallies total and one good sized rock bass.  We were off the water by noon. The fish took jigs (both all plastic and skirted) and a bright yellow (black on tops) med. size Rebel crawfish crank bait. (Fished w/ stop and go) Most fish were tight to shore near rocks, or in rock ledges near runs. Water had 3-4 foot visibility but still was stained looking in most spots.