4 Citation Roanoke Bass and a Great Day on The River #roanokebass

4 Citation Roanoke Bass !!

Friday 8/10/13 Jeff and I made plans to go to a stretch of river we had never fished from canoe. I had bank fished the put in of this section. We have fished this river a lot but a good ways downstream and a good ways upstream but we had never floated this section. This river also has Roanoke bass ( Ambloplites cavifrons ) in it which were stocked years ago but they are confined to an aprox 15 mile stretch and I had heard reports they were doing well. Jeff had never caught one so even if he only caught 1 that would be a great day. If I also caught one it would be great as well as this would make the fifth  flow I have caught them out of. (Eno, Fishing Creek, Uwharrie, and the Nottaway in Virginia being the 4 where I have caught them)

We arrived at the launch right after daylight and immediately started catching Bass on spinnerbaits and buzzers. About 1 mile down river I hooked a very nice Roanoke  bass which snapped my line and confiscated my Mepps Minnow #3 !..Not good. We then came upon a nice pool at the bottom of a long shoal and after catching a few bass Jeff hooked and landed his first Roanoke which was also Citation size. For a citation in NC  a Roanoke Bass must be 11 inches long.

We continued our float downstream for 2.5 miles then made the journey back up dragging our canoes through shoals. We found another nice hole that we had evidently paddled right over and caught many Roanoke's out of it. I caught 2 citations( 11 3/4 in , 11 5/8 in) and I think Jeff caught his 2nd citation in there as well.  It was a great day on a new stretch of river. I think we caught about 20 bass a piece , Jeff caught about 10 Roanoke's to my 6 or so and we each caught right many redbreast.
The lures I mainly used for the Roanoke's were the Mepps Minnow,  and a small Rapala. Jeff caught his on a variety of lures including a small beetle spin type lure , a crankbait, and a curlytail jig.

One of my Favorite pictures of a Roanoke bass.  Jeff took this picture we me in the Background.

Get your Lures here - 

Mepps Minnow -  

https://amzn.to/3JOJBuS

https://amzn.to/43a7Rie

Rapala F5 - 

 https://amzn.to/44bI4Ht

Here are a few Pictures.

This bass attacked my lure and she still had a fish tail sticking out of her mouth!

 

 

 

Pretty sure this is Jeff's 1st Roanoke which is over 11 inches.

 

This is my 1st Roanoke Bass out of this flow. Not Citation size but nice to get one out of this river.

 

 

 

A Citation Roanoke Bass that went 11 3/4 inches . 15 oz

 

 

 

My second Citation Roanoke Bass going 11 5/8 inches

 

 

 

On the way back to the car.

Both of my citations were caught on the small silver/black Rapala.  A very nice day on some new water with a great fisherman. 

 

You can read more about the Roanoke bass at http://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/coming-soonroanoke-bass-article.html

 

Thanks, Mack

#roanokebass

#fishing

#northcarolina

"roanoke bass"

#ambloplitescavifrons