Smallies, Northern Largemouth and Florida Largemouth in one Day

Fished The Dan river Friday October the 7th, 2011 with my good friend Jim.

Conditions

Water low and clear, 63 Deg
Air Temp 70's
Time- mid-morning to mid-day
Baits used 3/8 oz spinnerbait, 3inch tube, buzzer
Boat used- Old Town 119

Jim and I met up at mid morninfg and floated a short stretch of a good river. I immediately got a hit on the spinnerbait and then threw the tube back in and a nice 12 inch smallie nailed it. After a few more fish I moved downstream and a monster smallie nailed my spinnerbait but like a rookie i still had by drag set too light and didn't get a good hookset!....I was very  disappointed that I made such a rookie mistake. I quickly shook the bad memory of that fish and proceeded to work likely looking spots midstream. Most hits all day came from the middle of the river.  Almost all the hits came on the spinnerbait with just a few of the tube. I only had one hit on the buzzer and it may have been a redbreast grabbing the skirt. My top  3 smallies today  were 14 - 14 1/2 inches. The rest were 12-13 inches with none under 12. .....14 I think was the smallie total with the one lone largemouth that may have been 16 inches. It was a very nice day on the water with Jim and we were always surrounded by a few ospreys and even got to witness their fishing skills. We saw at least 2 ospreys that had fish  in their talons and other wildlife seen were a lot of geese and a few ducks.

See why I hardly ever fish a spinnerbait or a buzzer without a trailer hook!

Here is Jim and his Coosa. Not sure of Jim's final tally but I know he landed some smallies and also 1 largemouth as well.

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Towards the end of the float I pulled this gal out from a laydown on the spinnerbait. A nice river largemouth.

Oh,  I almost forgot about the Florida Strain Largemouths. When I left the river I was set on getting to a very little known  lake ( Lake Burton ) that that has been stocked with Florida's. I was determined to get there even if only to get a view of it before dark.  I actually made it there with an hour to spare and immediately paddled down one bank throwing anywhere that looked good. After about 10 minutes I was rewarded with this Florida.

A great day on the water.  Smallies, Northern and Florida Strain largemouths in one day.

See ya on the water,  Mack

#fishing

#lakeburton

#danriver

A Grand Day Carp Fishing

Location- Piedmont Lake, 3' low
Conditions- Sunny , Air Temp 70's
Date October 4th, 2011
Time 3PM-6PM


I had a few hours to kill before my lodge meeting so I decided to do what I do about  every other year or so.

Carp Fishing.  I grew up carp fishing on the Haw and the famous Snoffers Lake on the Burlington Graham City Limit Line.  Today  a few hours would be spent relaxing  under the shade of a tree hoping to catch a carp or 2.

My bait today would be an old standby-

My outfits today would be a Shimano 3500 Baitrunner loaded with 15 lb line on an 8' rod and a Daiwa 2600 Tournament loaded with 20lb braid with a mono leader also on an 8' rod

I left the horizontal holders at home because the vertical ones are lighter and I had a long walk from the truck. Both reels will catch any carp that swims and here is what the Shimano caught today.

I was rewarded with this monster common carp which put up 1 heck of a fight!.

Don't laugh Aki and Santosh, at least I wasn't skunked!.

I'll  bet a few of you are thinking how can this be a Grand Day with only one little carp caught ?  Easy, Remember that shade tree I was sitting under???   I planted that tree approx 20 years ago. That little seedling started off as a 3 ft Bald Cypress and now that little seedling is 30' tall and doing well.  Mack