Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I planned a trip for this Spring with Jeff Zurawski, who I fished the New River with last October.  We fished his home river in East-Central WV.  It was a long drive, but beautiful and smack-dab in the mountains.  After getting my room key at the little lodge I stayed in (5 rooms over a restaurant), we set up the shuttle and put in for a 6 mile float.

The weather and water were beautiful.



Before starting the float, there was a little backwater area near the put-in that Jeff said to try.  I caught a little smallie first cast with a ned TicklerZ.  About 3 casts later, I hooked a good one.  After a nice fight, I landed this beautiful 20"er.



The area was a little peninsula with flooded grass and rocks.  We saw a lot of little minnows and some salamanders sunning in the rocks.  I slipped and fell twice before we left for our float.  The reel got a little wet and muddy, but I rinsed it and it was fine.

The river and are was just incredible.  Fishing was good, catching mostly 12-13" smallies and fat rock bass.  We threw neds, tube, swimbaits, spinnerbaits and 1/8 oz buzzbaits and poppers for topwater.

Jeff with a standard smallie.



Scenery





A couple in the 14-16" range




Super cool rock.



We caught around 50-60 fish between us the first day.  Mostly smallies with at least 10 chunky rock bass.  We saw one couple bank fishing and a few kayakers in one section.  We fished from 11am to about 7pm and took out at where the lodge was.  We picked up Jeff's truck and left all of the gear in my Highlander.

Wednesday Jeff met me at 5am and we set up for a 10 mile float further upriver.  Jeff knows the mountain roads like the back of his hand and drives them like a bat out of hell.  At one point, an oar handle slid down and hit the top of my foot on the gas pedal.  I was able to catch it before it caused any issue.  We went from mountain 2-lane roads to one lane roads to mountain dirt roads.

The put in was down a narrow dirt ramp just wide enough for one vehicle.  Here is the river from the put-in and some scenery.  The weather was a little cooler with cloud cover most of the day.  We started fishing about 6:45am and I got a hit fist cast with the buzzbait...










This was big fish water and we were the only ones on the water.  We caught some fish on topwater, but the big bite was elusive.  Many smaller fish were caught.  Jeff had me on numbers for sure using a ned rig.  I had mistakenly only brought one lighter rod and was forced to choose between a ned or the mini buzz bat.  I kept the buzzer on.  I also had a tube, swimbat and spinnerbait rigged up.  Lots of fish would chase your lure as you reeled in to re-cast.  These fish were small ones, but it was cool to see and sometimes would hit if you stopped reeling.  Majestic scenery.




I have never seen so many buttlerflies in my life.  The yellow and black swallow tails must have been mating.  There was a rest station we stopped at halfway though the float.  It had a restroom and a nice camp set up.







After catching almost all smaller fish through the float, I hooked and lost a decent one on a slim tube rigged on one of George's SWM jigs.  A little while later we were working a rocky shore with lots of eddies and I caught a chunky 18"er on a spinnerbait.



Oh yeah, Jeff caught some too!



The big joke was that I was catching the "big fish".  Jeff would hook one and I would say "that's a good one" and it would be a 12-13" fish.  He would say, "but it's no John Durbin fish".  It ended up being "that's a good fish...for you".

We ended up catching about the same number of fish as the previous day and Jeff caught a few sunfish also.  It was definitely full spawn and we just never figured out where the big ones were.  We tried backwater oxbows and slow deeper protected areas too.  We got to the take out at around 5pm or so.  Jeff was an excellent host and guide.  He has studied his waters and I am blessed to have shared such a beautiful river with him.

I was on the road by about 6:15pn and made it home through the light rain by about 10:30pm.  I am tired, but my soul is re-charged.  Thanks, Jeff!

Last edited by drxfish (May-28-20 8:36AM)