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Spring 2007
June
14, 2007
- Things have been busy lately with charters every day.
Overall we've had some outstanding weather to be on the water
with light winds, low humidity and comfortable temperatures.
I've had the pleasure of guiding several talented young
fishermen over the last few days. Seeing the excited
sparkle in their eyes makes my job great. The specks are
showing on the Middle Peninsula and fishing out of Hampton
during dawn and dusk continues to produce some fantastic action
with stripers busting topwater lures and flies. We spent
one day fishing Wolf Trap lighthouse for spadefish. The
place was packed with boats for a weekday since word had gotten
out of the new world record fish caught there a few days
earlier. We landed a few dinks and lost the three big fish
we had hooked up as they cut us off on a neighboring boat's
anchor line. I miss the days when you could have the light
all to yourself.
    
June
3, 2007
- The wind and rain have me trapped in the house today, so
I figure it's a good time to update the reports. The
Middle Peninsula produced quite a few schoolie stripers and
croaker in late May, but speckled trout were few and far
between. June is one of my best months for specks so
hopefully they are arriving in numbers as I write this report.
We've had a mixed bag of species out of Hampton including
stripers, flounder, bluefish and puppy drum. A few
evenings we experienced a fantastic bite on topwater flies and plugs
around the rocks of Fort Wool. As I've said many times
before, the visual blast from a topwater take is hard to beat!
Low light hours of the day are a real key to success this time
of year, so those willing to get out early or stay out late will
be rewarded with bent rods. I spent one day up in the
Dragon Run where the bass and sunfish were on the feed.
The coolest bite of the day came when I saw a big bass laid up
next to a log in about a foot of water. I had to cast the
bass bug into her face three times, but finally she exploded on
the fly! On the new tackle end of things, I picked up an
awesome fly box called the Bugger Beast by Cliff Outdoors.
It is the perfect box for holding lots of flies for a day of
guiding. I was able to fit over 150 flies in to the box!
Another great aspect to the Bugger Beast is that it has slots
cut in dense foam for holding the flies in place. This is
the first box that I've had where you can actually throw the box
on the ground and all the flies stay in place. For light
tackle fishing, I've been using Bass Assassin's new BLURP 4" Sea
Shad. The BLURP technology incorporates highly
concentrated fish attracting scents into the regular saltwater
plastic used by BA. In my opinion, these baits are
superior to Berkley's Gulp products b/c the BLURP does not
shrink/ dry up and does not have to be kept in separate oily
bags like the Gulp baits. The BLURP Sea Shad have been
working especially well on croaker and flounder.
      
May
23, 2007
- I got home from South Florida, yesterday. We spent
our first day fishing with Kevin Mihailoff out of Everglades
City. Just five minutes after we started to look for laid
up tarpon, Jonathan cast to, caught and landed a sleeper close
to 60 pounds!!! The fish fell for a fly made of black and
purple hackle and a black spun deer hair head. It's pretty
awesome to see these large fish (some over 100#) just lying
motionless on the water's surface. We got two more shots
at laid up tarpon that day. The fish followed the fly but
did not eat. To wrap up the day, Kevin took us way up into
the backcountry. The area was totally loaded with snook
and a few baby tarpon. We landed many snook on black
muddlers and jumped a baby tarpon. The Everglades has got
to be one of my favorite areas that I have ever fished. It
is so wild and remote! The next two days we spent in Key
West fishing with Sandy Horn. We had windy conditions and
saw few fish on the first day. I tied into a huge 100 plus
pound tarpon that somehow broke the 50# butt section of my
leader in half when the fish exploded on the fly. The next
day I hooked an 80 pounder that made one jump and then dogged
down during the rest of the fight making several long runs.
I got the leader inside the rod tip several times for the
"official" catch, but she wore through the 60# bite tippet
before we could get her beside the boat for some pictures.
Jonathan had one take that day but the hook did not set.
All our takes in Key West came on 2/0 black and purple toads.
We spent the next few days wadefishing on our own around
Marathon and Islamorada with little success. Our last day
was spent with Pete Rowney in Islamorada. We had 25kt
winds and tried to hide in the backcountry, but ended up coming
in early due to the weather. Both Jonathan and I were
lucky enough to sight cast to and hook 10-15 pound Goliath
Grouper in about 1ft of water. The initial burst of these
fish is unbelievable! We weren't even close to slowing
these guys down with 20# tippet as they broke us off in the
mangroves within seconds!
     
May
11, 2007
- The HRBT has been absolutely stacked up with blues at night
under the lights. A couple times we landed well over 100
"Chesapeake Piranhas" on 4 hour trips. When we could get
through the bluefish, there were stripers, gray trout and
flounder to be had. The shallows of the Middle Peninsula
continue to improve although we've had a slow day, too.
The stripers are moving onto their late spring structure and a
few croaker and flounder are keeping things interesting.
We ran across a big school of hickory shad gorging themselves on
glass minnows at a creek mouth. It was fun
tangling into good numbers of these little leapers! One
day, we
took the new Gheenoe on her maiden voyage up the Dragon Run.
This little boat is a skinny water, backcountry machine and is
prefect for getting way back in the fingers of the Dragon.
We landed lots of small bass, chain pickerel and bluegill on
bass bugs. There's nothing like being back in the wilds of
the Dragon and having a bass break the silence by crashing your popper in a foot of
water! I'm heading down to Florida on Tuesday for a week
of fishing. Jonathan and I will be making a tour of South
Florida and will be fishing out of Everglades City, Key West,
Marathon and Islamorada. Hopefully, my next report will
have some nice tarpon pictures!
      
 
April 25, 2007
- I have not posted a report in a while so here she goes.
Night time at the HRBT seemed like fishing in a barrel at times
with the best night being 40 fish to 30" by a single angler in less
than 4hrs. Alas, fishing is fishing and we have struggled
some trips, as well. After the terrible Nor'easter last
week, my wife and I enjoyed a beautiful weekend tending the Bay
Fly Fishing,LLC booth up at the VA Fly Fishing Festival in
Waynesboro. There was a great turnout for the show
enjoying the perfect weather. The Pathfinder is ready and
I've been scouting some of my favorite Middle Peninsula spots.
My charter season on the Middle Peninsula kicks off next week and I'm hoping for more of
the great shallow water fishing that we experienced last year.
The Fisherman magazine cover shot, seen below, is a picture I took of Carlos
hoisting a hog he landed during a trip in January.
      
April 2, 2007
- We're still having fun fishing for stripers up to 32" under
the lights. More species are starting to make a showing in
the bay as spring progresses. We've caught gray trout,
herring, shad, bluefish and even some early season puppy drum over the
last few days. I've been working on updating the Articles
& Lessons section of the website with a couple new flies, an
essay on fly casting, and some information on light tackle
lures. I'll continue to add to the site as time allows.
      
March 26, 2007
- Here's a great video by Sebastian O'Kelly.
Linesider
Lunacy
March 23, 2007
- With the official arrival of spring, the fish are not only fat
but happy in the warming water. We spent the last two
nights under the HRBT lights and were rewarded with numerous
potbellied stripers. The fish were noticeably more active
last night since the water temperature had warmed several
degrees from the night before. It's nice to be out on the
water again without having to bundle up in a half dozen layers
of clothes!
    
March 14, 2007
- After being hit hard with a cold February, things are finally
on the rebound now that the days are getting longer and the
water temperature is rising. We sight fished the lights of
the HRBT Saturday night with good success considering that the
current flow was unusually weak. No big fish, but nice fat
football sized stripers to 25" were in the light line. For
the next 2-3 weeks, we should get shots at some larger fish in
the lights as they make their way up river to spawn.
Monday afternoon, we fished the CBBT. Once again we were
faced with little current flow b/c of the quarter moon and only
managed a few stripers between 8-13#. I'll
be at the Fredericksburg Fly Fishing Show on March 17th and the
Virginia Fly Fishing Festival in Waynesboro on April 21st &
22nd. Stop by my booth and say hello!
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