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Bill O'Connor, Patrick Cosgriff, Curly and I left Ashburn at 4:45 to try to beat the rowers out on the river. The plan worked as we were able to be anchored and fishing up at Fletcher''s by 6:05 AM.
At first, we used cut herring to rig 5 rods. We asked Bill and Patrick to catch us some live herring knowing full well that they don't start biting until it gets light out! Then, one of the rods bent down and Curly jumped on it to take the skunk off the boat. This nice blue cat came aboard!
All of the sudden, the screen on the fishfinder lit up!
Those are herring with a few rock mixed in! It didn't take Patrick and Bill long to start catching herring and we re rigged all of the rods and added one. Now we had six rods out with live herring. As well, these guys started catching herring and shad. First a herring....(Patrick in the new champ)
And then the Americans! Coz with a 20 incher!
And Bill with a nice one!
This is a familiar sight....the "animal", Mike Bailey, instructing a young guy on catching shad!
The next series of pictures are some of the 13 stripers that we caught. The smallest was 15" one was 18.5", the biggest was 30" and the rest in the mid 20s!
There is more but I will post those in the PHOTO section.
Here is one of my two "quints"....5 herring at a time!
Coz on a striper battle! What is different??
Bill with one of the two white perch he caught....strangely enough, they were the only two we caught!
For the day, we caught:
1 blue cat
2 white perch
2 hickory shad
3 American shad
13 stripers
@350 herring!
It was forecast to rain on us and all we got was 2-3 periods of very light sprinkles.
Sadly, there was a lot of police and fire rescue presence as they are still looking fort th body of the 11 year old that drowned a few days back.
We had a great time out there catchin' and funnin' with each other. We did see a couple of the nice stripers caught by a neighboring boat.
This is one of the best Fletcher's days that we have had in a looooooong time!!
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Looks like a great way to spend an overcast day.
Congratulations!
Doug
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Great report and pictures.
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Pictures up at: http://www.pacemakerfishing.com/photos/ … ?album=244
I will post a few more when Patrick sends me some!
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hey fellas great day out there
beautiful fish- great photos!
what was the heaviest rock??
they look pretty hefty.
how are the herring prepared for dinner ?
or are they?
maybe you will freeze them for cut bait later??
Last edited by bigjeffie (May-03-09 5:00AM)
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We only weighd one of the rockfish and we decided that I needed to get a new scale. This brings me to believe that I have been mis weighing my catches in Cedar. Maybe I have the bass record and didn't even know it!!
Patrick was talking about pickeld herring but I have tasted that in the past and you can have it......
These herring we kept will be frozen in 6 packs to be used for monster catfish bait later in the year.
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i actually like herring in sour cream w/ onions
i missed the caption on the herring photo, obviously
Last edited by bigjeffie (May-03-09 8:08AM)
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you know i never knew there was a photo album on this forum...
why is curly always holding the really big ones??
i guess he did let ernie hold one yesterday...
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wow that looks like it was an amazing trip and a whole lot of fun.
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Wow nice report!
Seems like there were a lot of anglers out there
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Most of those other folks were are shad....hickories and Americans. The fly guys especially love to fish for them. Only a few other boats were doing what we were doing.
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At this point I am not sure I need to post pics...but I will anyhow.
Nice Striper Bill!
Curly with back-to-back Stripers.
Ernie had 5 Herring on here, but two unhooked themselves....and were subsequently put in the "freezer"
Ernie's big Striper...biggest of the day!
This must be the child of the big one Ernie caught!
A pair of Stripers that I landed...albeit using the reels upside down since I am a left hand retrieve!
Good times and tight lines!
Last edited by CozUF2001 (May-03-09 10:09AM)
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The "freezer" is what we coined for the compartment below the casting deck where we had the herring on ice. We were pretending to be members of the "Deadliest Catch"!
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Congrats on the great day!
Anywhere on the VA side to put in a kayak up there or do I go over the Fletchers?
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Curly wrote:
rit.05 wrote:
Congrats on the great day!
Anywhere on the VA side to put in a kayak up there or do I go over the Fletchers?Dan - nowhere on the VA side. Fletchers will not let you launch unless you are one of the good 'ole boys from way back when.
I would check with Fletchers they might have relaxed that policy. There were people putting kayaks in there earlier in the spring. I don't know if they checked in, but I saw 3-4 different guys that were not near as old as me.
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Curly wrote:
Dan - nowhere on the VA side. Fletchers will not let you launch unless you are one of the good 'ole boys from way back when.
You can launch your own boat from Fletchers. I have friends (not good ole boys) that launch their kayaks there all the time. As well, you can carry a jon boat and launch.
The key is to be very careful with the currents. Watch the guages....NEVER launch if over 5 feet at Little Falls. They don't rent boats until it's under 4.7 feet at LF.
As soon as you come out of the cove and head up river, you have fast water!
Great place fora kayak when cnditions are right (maybe next week).
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