Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Today was the 6th Annual Kent Narrows CCA Fly/Light tackle fishing tournament. I have fished in two others. The first year I fished, it was cold and the wind was howling. I caught a very nice blue fish but this is a striper tournament.    I also lost a brand new St. Croix Tidemaster rod paired up with a Stradic reel. Right over the side it went....maybe $275 worth of brand new gear.  The second year I took my boat and was "guided" around by a friend so that I could learn some of the areas to fish. May goal was to put that knowledge to good use. That was two year sago and I never did fish that area until today.

This morning, I picked up Jamie Gold at 0420 in Sterling and then we met up with Tony Hughey at 0500 in Alexandria. Then it was off to Kent Narrows. We were on the water just after six. The weather was cool and a bit misty. Not bad we thought. The first thing we did is head up the Narrows to a nice rip that I learned to fish from Capt. Ricjie Gaines several years back. We made several nice drift using top water. I was using my baitcaster; Tony and Jamie were fly fishing. On the 4th or 5th cast, Tony gets a huge hit on a fly popper and he landed this very nice 24" striper!



Man, I was happy. This was a nice fish so in the cooler he went! Unfortunately, we never did land another one there so we decided to make a move south. We found an area that Tony had prefished that had some nice water depth changes so we went to work. We caught a few little ones but then Tony got hit and brought up this nice 22 incher!



Well back in the brink he went since Tony already had the 24 incher! But this was promising. Jamie then got hit and started to fight a nice fish. The fish took line and was angry, he did not want to be landed. So he didn't....he got off. I have never seen Jamie get mad.....I still haven't but he was not happy. A few minutes later, he landed a 19" fish but he decide to throw him back to see if he could ge a bigger one.



We moved a few times a made some drifts. We would usually catch a few fish but none were even leeper size. jamie then declared that he had a fish on and he showed off a nice flounder which was a little short of legal.



When I told a couple of the local guys about Jamie's catch, they got very excited. It seems that they like to fly fish for flounder up there!

Then it happened....I got  a huge hit and I had an even better fight on my hands. the fish came up about 125 feet behind the boat and we could not believe it. It looked like a Volkswagen Beetle. It was a heavy fish....we thought I had a big Black Drum on. My bicep was screaming and then I touched the line and off it went. After further review (asked a bunch of old salts), we think I had on a big skate. Apparently, a Black Drum will not flop around on the surface. Once again, I lose a huge whatever it was!

Later, we hit the back side of Poplar Island to get out of teh current and wind and we saw this baby goose just swimming around and squawking. So to the rescue came Dave Sikorski and Tony Friedrich in the most unique boat I have ever seen!



Baaaaad looking boat!

Yes, I caught a few too.....



Nice boat out for a Saturday cruise!!



Capt. Mike Starrett and his crew!



So now the tournament is over and we go to the "Jetty" for the weigh in and the eats!!



Yes...it was as good as you would imagine!!

The NoVA CCA Chapter had entered two boats.....mine with my crew and Dave Post who went solo. Our goal was to try for an upset. There were 4 VA fishermen and about 100 from MD. Dave Post won the Fly division with this beauty!! Upset #1! 



Tony Hughey took 3rd with the 24" fish you saw earlier! Upset #2!     The upsets were done....NoVA CCA took 1st and 3rd!   



Not bad for Virginia!

The day turned out great and the event was top notch! These guys know how to do it right!