Saturday, July 27, 2013

Goose Creek | Upper Potomac

This outing was one that I had been wanting to make since I began kayak fishing. The problem is, I really didn't know too much of the area. More specifically, I didn't know if it was one that required two vehicles. A drop off and pickup point. Well, I found out it doesn't. Thanks to Steve Clark who put this outing together. Matt Matocha and Scott Wilson also made this really nice float down Goose Creek into the Potomac River.

On the float down Goose Creek, I had several short strikes on a small buzz bait and tube on a carolina rig, but no takers. 

My observation of Goose Creek is it has no vegetation, but lots of hidden boulders. I can see smallmouth being drawn upstream in late Spring, early summer, when the water is flowing. 

We finally hit the upper potomac. Should we go left or right. Steve had made this trip before, he made the recommendation to go left. He began picking them off left and right. Matt and I were missing. Matt eventually hooked up as we headed up river. I, unfortunately, had a skunk going. I eventually got onboard on the way drift down stream. 



Steve and I began picking them off on the drift down stream using a dead stick technique. Color didn't matter, since I was a coffee color BPS worm and Scott was using a smoke color Yamamoto worm. Scott on the other hand, pulled out a nice size largemouth hitting the bank line. 



Although, numbers weren't there for me, I would definitely make this trip again. Next time, I'll have some type of in-line spinner tied on, since it was working for Scott. 



Saturday, July 20, 2013

Playing Guide

There are a couple of fishing groups and forums that I am active in. One being kayakbassfishing.com and the other is the Northern Virginia Fishing group in Facebook. Once I heard KBF Northern VA anglers were planning a frogging outing, I grew excited. Then I heard they would becoming to my playground. I was even more excited.

On Saturday morning, most anglers launched earlier than I had wanted to. I believe I launched 0630. Low tide was at 0515, but I wasn't sure if they opened the gates early when there are tournaments. Anyhow, just as I was about to launch, Steve Clark arrives. He had sent me a message on Facebook asking about the creek. So, I told him, unload and I'll be waiting for you on the other side of the tracks. 

As I arrived at the entrance to the creek, I noticed all the other anglers were spread out. With storms on the forecast, I wanted to get some fishing time and get Steve hooked into some decent size bass and maybe even a snakehead. 

Steve paddles up about 20 minutes later. I told him, lets go. We are heading to the back, but first lets make a quick stop on along side the main channel.

Here is my biggest of the day. Top water action is awesome! The footage is in the video below. Check it out. 



We couldn't get others to bite, so we headed off into the creek. With Scott Wilson now joining Steve and I. I let them take lead, giving some pointers along the way. We got into some decent size bass and Steve landed his first snakehead. 





All in all it was a great outing. I got to meet some new friends. It will be there turn showing me the ropes as we target some smallies on the upper Potomac on 7-21-2013. Hopefully, I can land a nice bronze back. It will be first smallie outing of the year.

Well, here is the video. Enjoy! 



Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Summer Froggin'




It was fun to get out again on my orange Ride.


The day started fairly slow as my buddy Miguel and I hit my favorite fishing hole. I really wish I had got him into some fish in terms of quantity. Unfortunately, he had to head out before the fun began.




 
 
Tossing the Rage Tail Frog was fun, but I should have learned my lesson from the last time. Stick to braid with snakeheads lurking around. As you will see I landed some nice tidal largemouth, but I had another large snakehead take me for a ride and with it's lock jaw, it broke off as I tried to get a hold of it with my fish grips. It just wasn't going to have it. You bet the next time around I'll have the Ego S2 Slider landing net with me. Yup, just picked it up today.



It took some time to land some fish. And as you will see, I lost juice on my GoPro. So I had to turn to my Kodak Sport to capture some footage of the fish I landed and being pulled by the snakehead. I hope you enjoy and I'll be at it again on Saturday with some friends from Kayakbassfishing.com and my fishing partner, Matt.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Playing Catch Up...

Anyone paying attention to this blog has noticed a drop in my blogging. Well, I can say it isn't from a lack of fishing, but rather a lack of time to edit footage and write about my outing.  I have found that a photo blog such as Tumblr or Instagram much more easier and less time consuming. But, I'd have to say It's difficult to get into details. Here is my link to Instagram site. Anyhow, since my last post, most of my time I've been focused on my new position at work. A challenge I accepted and needed. On top of that,  I was coaching soccer, taking my daughter to soccer travel tryouts. I'm happy to say she made the team.

Carp and Kayak Bass Fishing
It was my first time targeting carp, so I had to take to the tubes to learn about carp fishing. I found it very interesting and amazed at some of the carp being pulled out from different waters here in the United States and in Europe. It's pretty crazy!

The tackle of choice and bait were fairly simple. I like to keep things simple as possible in anything I do. I used a No. 6 single short-shanked and straight-eyed hook on a carolina rig. My good buddy Jason Defraitas brought the corn and away we went.



Creek Fishing June 9,  2013

I made a trip back to my favorite creek, launched at the tail end of high tide, and had a decent outing with 10 bass and 1 snakehead (lost) on this day. There is some great topwater action using Rage Tail frogs in the video below, but I wish I had not lost juice on the GoPro when I hooked into the snakehead that was about 25+ inches long, however I have the story below.

I  was using 15lb fluorocarbon line with a Rage Tail SpaceMonkey at the end. I tossed that bad boy onto the muddy edge, gave it a couple of twitches as I slowly brought into the water. Then Bam! The fight was one.

The landing piece was a bit difficult. She sat still as I had pressure on her while I made my decision on how to land this long beast. I decided I would reach out with my fish grips, slice her, and set her in the back of the yak. The excitement and adrenaline was awesome!  So I went in with my fish grips, it was like she knew, she started to slam against my yak about 4 times, went into a death roll, and then SNAP!  My line snapped and it she went under. After that, I had lost interest in fishing for the day. So, I called it a day and went home--a defeated man!