Flint River: My Quest for a Shoal Bass Micropterus cataractae

1981.  What does it mean to me? Well, Its the year I graduated from High School, but when I think of 1981 I think more about how long I have wanted to catch a Shoal Bass ( Micropterus cataractae ). June 1981 to narrow it down as Outdoor Life had an article(which I still Have) tittled  "River Of The Redeyes". The Shoal Bass was not recognized as a Separate species until 2000 so up till then Shoal Bass and redeye bass(coosa bass) were lumped together as 1 species.  Anglers on a few Georgia rivers knew there was a difference as the "redeyes" in one drainage always topped out heavier than the others. These monster "redeyes" were sometimes called "Flint River Smallmouth" and are naturally found in the Flint / Chatahoochee drainage in Georgia and the Apalachicola / Chipola in Florida.  They have since been introduced to the Ocmulgee in Georgia.

1995.  April of 1995,  Southern Living Magazine did an article on the Lilies found in the Cahaba River Titled "Lily of The Stream". I also still have that article.  That is how long I have been wanting to see some Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies .

2005.  That's the year I joined GeorgiaRiverfishing.com.  Since then my eagerness for a Shoalie has increased because members of that forum are always posting pictures of Shoal Bass they have caught.

So, when would I go?...Work and family duties always kept getting in the way but this winter I said to myself this was going to be the year. I have had several offers in the past to go fish for Shoalies but couldn't work it out. Members of  GRF  had a get together planned for  the month of May so I decided this would be a great time for me to go meet up with a bunch of guys I have known for years through the Internet and get the Shoal Bass off my bucket list. Sam (Creekstalker) the Owner of Georgiariverfishing.com showed up which was nice as he has been up to North Carolina twice to fish with me. I have also met Several other members at tournaments in North Carolina but this was going to be a treat to go down there and fish with them.

2012.  May 18th 2012 to be exact. That is the day I caught my first Shoal Bass. Nothing huge but my goal fish wise was to catch just 1. I didn't care how little or big I just wanted 1. Here she is.

Another one- most I caught hit a spinnerbait

I caught a handful that size the evening of the 18th plus a few Redbreast and Bream.

The campsite was awesome and the river was amazing. Thanks to Mike for being a great host.

I went to bed that night very tired after a long hard drive from North Carolina and an evening of paddling and fishing but was a very happy camper as I had caught my Shoalie. The next day I awoke and hit the river this time going downstream and was rewarded with a nice Shoalie, a few small shoalies , a few decent Spotted bass and some more Redbreast and Bream. Here are a few pics of my am float.

 I came back to camp at lunch very hungry but happy I had caught a Shoalie above 2 lbs. I was so happy in fact (and Tired) that I told Phillip that I was going to stay in camp and enjoy the evening. He talked me in to paddling upstream farther than I had been and I am sure glad he did as that evening I ran into these on the river.

The Rocky Shoals Spider Lily

Wow! 

Seeing these Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies was almost better than catching a Shoalie. What an awesome site.

These are found from the Catawba River in South Carolina through Georgia and into Alabama. The North Carolina population's of this Lily are gone now due to the dams on the Catawba and now there are only 50 known colonies known in the 3 states. I had first heard of these from  Southern Living Magazine which did and article on the Spider Lilies found in the Cahaba River in Alabama. This was an unexpected surprise!

Here are a few random pictures of some of the fishermen, the campsite, and the River.

                                                         Trent and "Pamlico"

Phillip "Pip"

The "Boathouse"

Mike and Trent

Pip

Blackwaterbill, Doublehaul, Pip, Pamlico, Me, Shoalieman and ?

Goshawk on the River 

So what was the best part?
1st was seeing and meeting the Brother River fishermen, 2nd, was seeing those Spider Lilies, and 3rd was catching a Shoalie. Hopefully I will make it back next year. Now , I have a big desire to see the Spider Lilies on the Catawba River!  A big Thanks to Mike and everyone else. Mack

#flintriver

#shoalbass

#Micropteruscataractae

Micropterus cataractae

Canoes that I use For River Fishing......and videos on their Mods for fishing

 This Blog post is on the 5 Canoes I use for fishing.

  BE SURE TO WATCH THE VIDEOS I HAVE LINKED IN THIS ARTICLE on my YouTube Channel

1.  The Canoe that Started my River fishing lifestyle.
     Mowhawk Pack Canoe  that my dad purchased for me in 1977.

She isn't that purty but she has seen a lot of water.  10 feet and made of fiberglass I use her now only sparingly as the Old town 119's are bigger and do a better job but, this is an excellent boat for an experienced paddler that is light and portable. I can throw this canoe on my shoulder and walk a mile through the woods with it. She was originally red , then blue , then several shades of green/brown.

2. Coleman Scanoe. 

This is a fishing boat. This is my "mule" for a boat. I mainly  use this canoe for Catfish, Stripers or anytime I am in "bigwater".  I can either paddle the Scanoe, use a trolling motor or use one of the 2 Gas engines that I Have. 

Click on this link and you can see what a  Coleman Scanoe can do with a 2.5 hp motor on her.

tp://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/rockfish-capital.html 

She is extremly fast with the 7.0 hp motor, and it has been several years since I have been brave enough to put the 7.0 on her!

Here is a video of how well this Canoe works when Trolling for Crappie

3. Old Town 158.  This canoe doesn't do anything great. Then why do I have it? well, because it is just a great all around canoe. Granted is doesn't do anything great but it does a lot of things good. If I just could only have 1 canoe it would probaly be the 158.

She paddles good , holds alot of weight and can be motored. I caught my biggest catfish out of this canoe.

How many canoes do you know  that you can standup  and hold a 46 lb blue cat at the same time???

Here is a video I made on the Old Town 158 and the modofications I have made to use it for fishing.

 Canoes 4 and 5.  Old Town 119's.

These are the best all around solo boats on the market.  PERIOD.  The best fishing solo canoe for the money.

The Canoe Cart above makes rolling this boat around easy.

My son a few years ago showing off by standing in his OT 119

Above is Jeff (Fishwhisperer) in his  Old Town 119

To see the mods I have made to the 119 here is my video on it  .....A must see

Here is what Blackwaterbill said about me and the 119.

" Troy

before the 119 Was cool, there was Mack from NC. When I got into the kayak ownership I started with a Dagger Blackwater 12 sit inside, couldn't get out of it the first time I tried it out. It wasa gift from my wife. At the same time Cullfisher got an Old Town sit inside, and he disn't like it either. I never took the sit inside to the river, I sold it to Getthenet and bought a T 120 from Drew and it was maybe 3rd hand then. Cullfisher sold teh sit inside and bought a P13. I didn't like the T 120 because I was too heavy for it and it threw me out or I bailed out nearly every trip. I sold it to Braveswin and bought a Drifter. Cullfisher sold the P13 an dbought a Caper so he could stand up and fish. I could stand in teh Drifter in those days. I went through 3 or 4 Drifters usually owning two at any given time. Because MacBass, Rockworm1 and Bassman1 all swore by their electric powered canoes Cullfisher and i got one of them each. We still have them and use them for long trips an dcamping and so forth where their frieght hauling and comfort is an advantage. Then came the Ulimates as the flavor of the month. I sold my Drifters and got a U 12 which I hated immediately. After two weeks I put it for sale and a man gave me a sot kayak and enough money to buy a 119 for the U12. I won't call his name because he may regret that deal. I later traded that sot he gave me for a new Drifter which I still have and I won't call the man's name that made that trade either.


For about a year I had stuck in the back of my mind was the fact that Mack from NC said the best river boat he ever had was an Old Town 119. If you look at his signature he lists his watercraft and he has 2 Old Town 119s. I have always been impressed with Mack's "walking around sense". Therefore I checked out the 119 and found that Old Town was making the Disco 119 for Dicks and calling it a Kaynoe so I bought one with the boot that I got for the U12. MacBass thought I was crazy when I showed up at Juliette with that boat. I tested it that day for draft, stability and so forth and declared it to exceed my expectations. macbass watched me and then wanted to test it. Just below half way shoals going toward Poep's Juliette, MacBass got in it and stood and paddled around then tried to push it over and couldn't, then paddled in water where his DRifter would get stuck an dthe 119 floated right on. I then wrote an essay on how good I thought that bought was. Other than Mack's 2 thats the only one I knew of that anybody had. Now the rest is history. Since I wrote that essay, I could name maybe 2 or 3 dozen people who have gotten out of teh Kayak usage and converted to 119s and can't think of anybody that has been disappointed. The 119 is the solo canoe par excellance"

Unfortunatly the Geogia River fishiing site is no longer available. 

Here are all 5 of my canoes -4 are plastic canoes (polyethelene) and the Mowhawk is fiberglass. I would really like a good ole aluminum square stern .

From top to bottom- Coleman Scanoe, Old Town 158, Oldtown 119, Old Town Kay-noe (119) actually my son's, Mowhawk Pack.

Mack 

#canoemodifications

#riverfishing

#oldtowncanoe

#colemanscanoe

#scanoe

Neuse River Camping for Catfish

I decided to take my son camping on the Neuse last weekend(April 28,29). Tom (turtlestewbro) called me at the last minute and I asked him if he also wanted to go. He was in.  We arrived at the ramp at aprox 2pm Saturday.

This spot is like an old friend.  I have fished this area since the early 90's and sometimes wonder how I could of done without this place. It is always interesting and exciting when I get on the water here.  What has changed from last year and what has stayed the same??? A couple of big trees had fallen since my last time here and one area had been logged  but it was still the same ole great fishing spot.    My boat would be my  trusty Coleman Scanoe with my Mercury 2.5 for power. Tom would be solo in his yak. First order of the day would be to get bait for catfishing this evening. That meant fishing for bream with crickets. Usually that is a pretty easy thing to do here. You cast the cricket near a cypress tree, it sits there a minute, your bobber goes under, you reel in a bream. Easy.  No, not today! The Bream fishing today was one of the worst days I have had here fishing for them.  My son did score a nice one right off the bat but it took us several hours to get 5 Bream in the boat. That meant most of them would be used as cut bait as each one cut up would be 3-4 pieces of bait with of course the head being the best. 

A lot of top water action was going on as we were fishing for bream. I couldn't tell if it was small bass eating minnows, crappie or whatever  but you would see the small fry jump and scatter followed  by a big splash. I threw my spinnerbait to no avail and finally i downsized to a  1/16 oz white jig with a pink head . Almost immediately I was rewarded with this fish.

Stripers!.....Nice, and fun on 6lb line but they were no where near the minimum size limit of 18 inches so I had to return to bream fishing. 

We took 3 catfish outfits for this trip.  1. Ambassadeur 7000 loaded with 40 lb cajun line on a 7.5 ft American Spirit Nite Stik,  2. Ambassaduer 6500 w/power handle loaded with 30lb big game line on a 7' white Ugly Stik, and  3. Shimano Bantam 50 loaded with 25 lb Ande on a 7' Black Ugly Stik. This River is not the place to bring "wimpy outfits" . Just before sunset we sat up on one of our favorite spots and my son caught this one right at dark. It hit a small live bream, the only one we used live and this flathead was also the smallest we have ever caught here. Maybe 3 lbs at the most.

20 minutes later this Flathead hit a  bream head sprayed with garlic.

Not a monster but she put up a nice battle.

A little while later Tom hooked up to  a monster of a fish and fought it for about 10 minutes but finally the hook pulled out. Dang!   I am sure Tom will be back trying to catch that fish and redeem himself. We quit fishing at about 12 midnight , headed back to camp, set up the tent and I grilled porkchops. We then ate and crashed for the night. Not a lot of fish caught but fun as usual.  I can't wait to get back and fish here again.  Mack