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You know...some days it's not about the fish. You can get a win in very different ways!
Curly asked me if I could go fishing after church and I obliged.
We knew that there would be a ton of traffic going to DC (Cherry Blosson time) and that there probably would be no place to park at Gravelly but we rolled the dice!
We got there, and there were no places to park but....one guy was just leaving and it was spot directly in front of the ramp.
So curly quickly put the boat in the water as I guarded the space. Sure enough, a van with a family wanted the spot but I told them in my most official voice that these space were for boats only. i got the look but I didn't move so they decided to keep looking. Curly came up with truck and trailer and we were in business.
My sister had called earlier and wanted to know if we wanted to go to DC to the the Cherry trees. Well, I said no because Debbie had to mow and we would see them by boat!
Everyone and their mother were out on the river!
As we neared Fletcher's, our biggest fear set in. The river was up t 4.7/4.8 which means some current. We like it at 4.5 or less.
Of course, the red boats were all hugging the shoreline to get out of the current.
We decided to go up near Chain Bridge and Curly anchored us in a decent spot. It did not take long for the skunk to come off with this close to 17" hickory!
Curly followed with another nice one!
We caught a few and a bunch came off. I would call it slow.
But we were there for stripers so we spent some time jigging. Very few marks on Curly's ancient fish finder machine (but he can read that as it was new technology) and as the wind kicked up (predicted to be little to no wind) we decided to troll around to see if we could get a hit.
Nothing doing so we called it a day.
We knew we were in for a slow wet ride as the wins was coming up the river but Curly boat the boat in gear and we rode the chop without incident.
Now, we had to retrieve the boat among the throng of novice boaters, plane watchers, etc.
He backed it out quickly and in no time we were out of there.
We could not believe how fast we got in and out of there with all the craziness of a midday at Gravelly.
Now the traffic. It was not moving much but we averted major jams and ever got to run all of the lights on Waxpool. We call that running the Gauntlet.
That is why we said we won! We got out on the water and the crowds did not affect us.
We should have 6 more weeks of Fletcher's fun!
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Gravelly Point was a 5-ring circus......but we prevailed in unbelievable speed..........an a little luck .
Last edited by Curly (Apr-12-15 2:36PM)
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Fletcher's does seem to be slow still. I was out there early yesterday and leaving by 1030 because there was no way I was dealing with that current and 20-30 NW winds. I really don't like anchoring there. Way to easy to get hung up even if rigged with a break away to pull from the other end.
I only hooked up with one shad but it got off. I may not get out there again, certainly not on a weekend because I've got other things happening. My only chance will be going straight from work.
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I was there on saturday and the winds were brutal. we kept getting unanchored and it was a pain rowing back up to get our old position. Yes, i was in one of those little red boats haha.
I was there for the shad. The guy that operated the boat house said earlier that week the striper were stacked and they were easy picking. He said the striper bite should be more consistent now but i guess he was wrong.
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Conditions (sun, current, tide) do make a huge difference up there. Hit it right and you will talk about it for years!
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Haha. yeah, i can see that. We definitely didn't do as well as I did last year but we still caught a few good ones. Still plenty of opportunities.
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