Though Lake Orange is open year round, 24-7, the bait shop and marina, Angler’s Landing is now open for the season, renting boats and dispensing bait and tips. Darryl Kennedy, who runs Anglers Landing, says his fish are biting.
“The water is clear and the temperature is staying around the mid 50s,” Darryl noted. “The largemouth bass and crappie are in a pre-spawn pattern. Anglers using live bait have caught some very nice walleyes. Catfishing has picked up a little with chicken liver as the bait of choice. Local angler Donald Burgamy brought 5lb. bass to the scales on Monday, April 11th.”
Trout Streams
Alan Bittman fished with his son Alan and grandson Bradley last weekend in Highland and Bath Counties. “At the Bull Pasture, the water was low, very clear but the trout were hungry. Psycho princes, sucker spawn and pheasant tail nymphs caught respectable fish,” Alan said. “We also fished the Jackson. I stayed near the parking area and caught trout and rough fish on pheasant tails, hares ears and red copper johns. The boys also fished in Muddy Run, three miles up river in the Hidden Valley section. They used a new dry fly pattern, the ‘frumpy humpy’ and caught a mix of rainbows and brookies. Bradley and Alan also reported good success using the same pattern on the Conway River the week before.”
Recent Trout Stocking
Albemarle Co.: Mint Springs Lake (Middle) (04/09); Mint Springs Lake (Upper) (04/09)
Augusta Co.: South River (Ridgeview Park) (04/11)
Floyd Co.: Goose Creek (04/11)
Grayson Co.: Elk Creek (04/09)
Prince William Co.: Locust Shade Park (04/11)
Pulaski Co.: Peak Creek (04/11)
Rockingham Co.: Silver Lake (04/8) (After 4 pm for Kid’s Day); South River (Grottoes) (04/11)
Scott Co.: Big Stony Creek (04/11); Little Stony Creek (04/11): Smyth Co.: South Fork Holston River (Lower) (04/09)
Wythe Co.: Rural Retreat Lake Pond (04/11)
Potomac River
Great Fishing!
Bass are in grass and on flats near spawning areas. Bass have committed to spawning flats and should be more active this week as weather and water stabilize.
Water temperatures dropped to around 50 last week. Look for a modest rise this week getting into the 55-60 range once again.
The lure of choice has to be red – Lucky Craft LVR D-7 or the new RTO 150 lipless cranks. Fluorocarbon line is essential, even braid. Use 12-pound test GAMMA Edge or 20 pound test GAMMA Torque braid. Setting the hook at the end of a long cast is tough without these lines. Also consider changing hooks to Mustad KVD short shank triple grip trebles. These it much harder for fish to throw the hooks.
In shallow water or around shallow wood, use a Mann’s Baby 1-Minus on the same lines and color patterns. With all moving baits, snap free from grass and a slight pause will trigger strikes. Bumping wood and pausing is a way to get fish to strike too.
With chop, overcast skies and some color to the water, use a Mann’s Classic spinnerbait on 12-pound Edge. Slow roll through grass or bump wood. Use a 3/8 at higher tides and ¼ through thicker low tide grass.
Punisher hair jigs and Texas rigged Mizmo tubes can also be pitched to grass. Look for denser clumps of milfoil to target.
I tried a new reel last week. 13 Fishing Concept C, casts a mile! Stop me on the water to check it out.
Capt. Steve Chaconas is a guide on the Potomac River. info@nationalbass.com
Anna Update
By Chris Craft
BASS- It is time to start looking shallow for the bass, a lot of fish are up and cruising around. They are aggressive and preparing for the spawn. It is soft jerkbait time. On sunny days with no wind, look for them around and up under boat docks. On windy and/or cloudy days, a spinnerbait will not only cover water for you, but will catch fish as well.
If fishing uplake, the emerging willow grass holds lots of fish. There are several ways to get these fish to bite, but my favorite is, again, with a spinnerbait. My choice is a 1/4oz Dave’s Tournament Tackle Tiger Shad with a paired with GOLD WILLOW LEAF BLADES in Purple Tiger color. Fish around and through the willow grass, when you get to the edge of the grass, kill your bait just for a second or two and let it flutter down the edge.
A soft jerkbait is another great way to catch fish out of the grass. A Zoom Super Fluke, Damiki Armor Shad and a Yamamoto D Shad are all great choices. Rig these weightless on a Gamakatsu 4/0 EWG Worm Hook. Dead stick in the pocket within the grass and along the edge. Skip them under boat docks and fish them in front of bulkheads.
Other bait choices that will catch fish all month long are. Squarebill Crankbaits, Jig & Pig Combos, Shakey Head rigged plastics, Carolina rigged lizards and top water towards the end of the month.
CRAPPIE- The Specks are really starting to think about making a move to the shallows. Some already had, but the cold fronts have pushed them back out a bit.
As soon as the weather stabilizes, they will be back up in the shallows and feeding heavily. Small minnows rigged under a slip bobber will work around beaver huts, boat docks and bridge pilings.
If fishing the emerging willow grass, a two-inch curly tail grub will catch numbers of fish for you. Rig them on a 1/16oz jighead and cast to the edge of the grass. A slow, but steady retrieve is the best. My 3 color choices are John Deere Green, Green Weenie and Wally World.
Bluefish Are In The Bay
By Dr. Ken Neill, III
Bluefish are in the bay and inside of Rudee Inlet in particular. Anglers fishing inside of Rudee are managing nice catches of blues, some speckled trout, some flounder and croaker.
The wind has really slowed down fishing activity. When anglers can get out, tautog action is excellent on structures inside the bay and on the ocean wrecks on out to the Triangle Reef area. The tog season closes at the end of the month so you only have a few more weeks to fish for them.
Croaker catches in the bay have not yet taken off. Some have been caught in the Hampton Roads area. We need a few days of calm and warm weather and that fishery should take off. What has taken off with a bang are crabs. So far, crabbing has been excellent this spring.
There have been some flounder caught inside the seaside inlets of the Eastern Shore. They have begun to show inside of Back River and other shallow haunts on the western side of the bay. Both black and red drum are likely here but the weather has kept anyone from giving them a try yet. Like croaker, we need a spell, maybe a week, of calm and mild weather to get this fishery going. It should really take off by April’s full moon. Offshore, warm water has been sitting over the 100-fathom curve from the Washington Canyon on down to the Cigar for more than a week now. There should be tuna in it but again; nobody has been able to get out there to try it. The wind has to calm down sometime.
The recreational trophy bluefin fishery is closed as of 11:30 pm, April 10. This is in Atlantic waters south of Great Egg Inlet, NJ. This is for bluefin 73 inches or greater, which recreational anglers can keep – one per boat per year or until the fishery is closed. This southern quota is smaller than it used to be, since a portion of it was given to the Gulf of Mexico. It is illegal to target bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico as it is the prime spawning ground but, with logic that escapes me, it was decided to transfer quota there so that bluefin tuna that are “accidentally” captured may be kept. As long as you catch them without trying to catch them, you are OK. If federal regulators think that this makes sense for bluefin tuna, maybe they could apply the same reasoning to striped bass in federal waters. Keep it illegal to target them but if we catch them by “accident”, we can keep them. Heck, how about cobia?
Nags Head
The piers are catching Blowtoads, Sand Perch and Sea Mullet, reports TW’s Tackle in Nags Head. An inshore boat fishing caught some shad. The winds are SW at 12 and the water temp is 55 degrees. It’s warm and cloudy. Nags Head is expecting a front to come through later. Currently, the water is pretty flat with a weak swell.
Hatteras Surf
Red Drum reports on Monday: We went from winter to a beautiful spring day. South Beach had blow toads. The Point had plenty of skates, one 33-inch puppy drum, and nice bluefish caught on metal. The Jetties had bluefish and blow toads. A lot of guys on the Point tonight are fishing for Big Drum. High tide is a little late, but the wind is perfect. The ones that fish late tonight will catch a big drum. Tomorrow should be a good day also for fishing with the wind coming out of the SW.
Tuesday report: Sounds like there were around 20 or more big drum caught at the Point from 10 pm last night until 3 am this morning. Even “The Speedo Bandito”, Dan Willard, caught 3 fish. Our good buddy Zack had 8 drum and there were others caught as well. Hopefully they’ll show again tonight before the wind changes back north. Sea mullet, bluefish, and blowtoads were reported.
Hatteras Offshore
Boats were finally able to sail again on Monday with good catches of blackfin tuna, some dolphin and wahoo.
Inshore boats fishing around the inlet had good catches of bluefish. There was a school of red drum spotted. One that was released went 48″.
Lots of blackfin tuna citations were reported from several different charter boats. The largest tuna went 30 pounds, caught by Alfred Gabel of Middleburg, PA aboard the Good Times.