MONSTER BREAM and a Huge Pond Surprise !

May Bream on the Long Rod

I was coming home from work the other day and Jeff called me and asked where I was at. I replied I am at the intersection of road a and b.  He then replied he was only one block behind me so he asked that I pull over up a head so he can give me a lure.  Sure, anytime someone wants to give  me a lure I am all for it.   So, I pull over at this business that I pass every day and golly there is one really nice looking pond here that you cant see from the road.  Jeff couldn't resist throwing some lures and he caught a couple of bass. What I noticed was the Bream bedding.  

I made it a point to take my flyrod with me to work 2 days later so I could hit this spot after work.   I arrived at aprox 6 PM and fished till 830 pm.   The Bream action was awesome and I caught some really nice ones along with some average sized ones which were still fun.   Here are a few pictures

Now this Bream below is not a big one but it is one of the coolest I have ever seen, This bream has a face that is  Greenish white and is identical on both sides. It was actually better in person.

This one was one of the last ones and she put up one heck of  a fight.

Outfit Used-  Daiwa 706 fly reel on a 7 ft rod loaded with 5 weight floating line.

Flies used were a tandem rig of a Yellow popper and a Black ant trailer tied directly to the poppers hook.

Location- Piedmont North Carolina Pond

Memorial Day Bream

I havn't fished as much this year since running a new store takes more time and effort to clear up past problems etc but we closed earlier than normal monday so I decided to hit a lake near work for a couple of hours. I got a report of some nice bream being caught and was directed to 2 spots. Hit the first 1.....nothing. ..paddled to the second.....nothing.


Headed accross the lake and around a bend and saw a good looking spot. Bobber hit the water and kept going under. Caught about 30 in 2- 2 1/2 hrs there and just down. Kept 12 for frying and released the rest. I know bream lb for lb fight very hard as they are one of my favorite fish to pursue but these were unreal. Almost like they had a trainer down there. All caught on Crickets 2 ft under. Mack


Lake- Holt Reservoir
Outfit Used- 6' medium lite Spinning w/ 6lb line Bait - Crickets 2' under cork boat- Old Town 119 Time of Day - 5pm- 730 Pm

Here are a few pics

Mack

Blues, Flatheads, Monster Brown Water Snakes and my new Squirrel (fishing) dog Pete

Thursday the 18th of April  I went to one of my favorites spots down east. This would be a special day even if I did not catch anything as I was taking my new Squirrel dog 'Pete" on a boat for the first time. Pete did extremely well which my wife said he wouldnt. Told ya so!...We started off trolling for Stripers and mananged a 12 incher right away but it was not going to be a good day for trolling as the oaks were putting off these tassle things that kept fouling the line. 
We then proceeeded to bream and bass fish and just like the other day the small bass were wearing out the Mepps Black Fury.The  Problem was not many bream were hitting it  and they were also not hitting crickets in the usual spots. We finally managed to catch a few for cut bait and since I had to leave at dark we motored to a spot to set out 2 lines. Right before this spot I look on this tree laying in the water and golly there is this one huge Brown water snake   Anyway we anchor up and I put a bream head on one and the next slice on the other rod. 5 minutes later one rod is bending like crazy!. I reel hard and get in a 15 lb flat head. No monster but I will take him. 1 hr later the other rod is bending and I reel in an 11 lb blue. No monster again but I am not complaining with catching fish.

Pete was loving every minute of this. A good day on the water. Mack

Caught quite a few small bass and a few bream on the Mepps Black Fury size 1.

Nice big ole Brown Water Snake!

15lb Flathead caught on Bream head

11lb Blue Cat caught on bream cutbait

A view of how I set my rods in the holder.

Pete on the way back to the ramp.

Small river float w/Jeff

Several weeks ago(9/1/12) Jeff and I made a trip to one of our favorite rivers in the Piedmont of North Carolina.  Today our main quarry would be crappie . Here is Jeff with an average Crappie from this river.

This was my first fish of the day. All of my Crappie came on a Jig head with a Kalin grub . The color was "Acid Rain" . Most were caught by casting to one particular hole but we also caught a few trolling. 

A nice eater.

                                                                 Jeff with a decent bass.

                                    Me with a decent bass. If my memory is correct I caught 4 bass and Jeff maybe caught 6 bass.  Most of my bass fell victim to a Black Buzzer.

This guy below was the only other fisherman we saw that day. This has to be the smallest Jon Boat I have ever seen. 8' perhaps?

We brought back some of the biggest crappie and a couple of nice Green Sunfish. All Bass and the smaller pan fish were released. The fish below were released into Crisco!

A big Thanks to Jeff....oh, and  I need my nice cooler back!

Fishing with Gerald

Gerald and I have been trying to work out a fishing trip for aprox 2 years now. Last week we finally made it happen. Gerald suggested an old North Carolina Millpond that I actually fished a few times in the 90's. An old man whom lived on the millpond used to let me fish there. This millpond gave me my second biggest redbreast weighing 1lb even (my biggest Redbreast came out of Contentnea Creek and weighed 1.2 lbs).
The man who I knew has now passed away and you have to know someone to get into this pond. Gerald knows someone who lets him have access and I immediately jumped at the chance to Fish with Gerald at  this old millpond. We got and early start at 7am after  getting crickets but we would bass fish first and then go after the Bream and Shellcrackers this millpond is noted for. Gerald is an excellent fisherman and he wore me out on the bass using plastic worms and a senko. Here are a few of our bass,

The '"Swamp" areas of this Millpond had quite a few of these, a sign of the ducking hunting that once took place here.

We had decided that at around 9am or so we would switch from bass to panfish and we  proceeded to catch  some of the nice Bream and Shellcracker this place has.

Wow!   I had missed this place.It was like visiting an old friend who you hadn't seen in a long time. There were many highlights on this trip one of them being a Red colored Fox Squirrel that Gerald spotted walking down the bank. Gerald said "look at the long tail on that squirrel" I said that's a Fox Squirrel. Awesome!! I had known for years that Fox Squirrels were in this county but I had never personally laid my own 2 eyes on one in this county.  A big thanks to Gerald for taking me fishing. Mack

#holtspond

Fishing with "The General" on Friday the 13th

I started my Internet fishing on Georgiariverfishing.com and catfish1.  Todd "The General" was one of the first members there and now he has moved to the great state of NC.  We have talked several times on the phone about fishing and whatnot but finally worked our schedules out and made a trip on Friday the 13th!

Would it be a lucky day or a bad day on a North Carolina Piedmont River????

We launched right at 630 am and immediately got into some stripers hitting top water baits and Sebile swim baits. Here are a few pics..

We then shifted our focus to Bass and we had a good day .  Todd mainly used a buzzer while I used mainly a white spinnerbait, the Sebile swimbait, and a Bagleys Smallfry Bream. We each probaly caught 20-25 bass apiece with Todd getting the big one at 5-14. I lost a 4lber but caught 3 -3lbers.

I also caught 6 species on this trip.  10~Stripers, 25` Largemouth,  1 Channel cat, 20~ Redbreast,  1 Bluegill and 2 white perch.  This is the second time I have done that in a week.

Here are the channel cat , some nice Redbreast, and the small bluegill and white perch.

And a few more fish.

 A good day on the water with lots of fish caught. We also saw lots of wildlife including Bald Eagles, ospreys and Otters. Thanks for Going Todd. Mack

Hot Cats

Since it is so hot I decided to go to one of my favorite cat spots late and fish late....I Left the house at 4 and was on the water at 6.....Today I would be in my scanoe with my 55 lb thrust motor.....I headed upstream from the put in. The water was fairly swift and I did have to get out and pull through 2 rapids, but I made it to where I wanted to start . My first priority would be to catch bait......

I had a fairly hard time catching bait but by dark I had managed to get 3 greens, several redbreast and a few bream for bait.....Also caught 2 smallies and missed a nice one.....all bait caught on a beetle spin..

                                                                           Bait

The outfits today would be a Bantam 50 loaded with 20lb line on a black ugly stik (light cat outfit)and a Abu 6500 loaded with 30lb line on a white ugly stik(medium size cat outfit).....Hooks used were a 9/0 circle hook used on the 6500 and a 7/0 j hook on the Bantam 50. 2 of the Bream were used as cutbait sprayed with garlic juice and the rest would be used live. The bream would be kept alive in a Flow troll Bait bucket which you can see in the above picture just below the redbreast anal fin. You can see some of the fish in the bucket.

1st fish right at dark was the flathead that hit a small (4" green) on the 7/0 hook. Next fish was a blue that hit a bream head soaked in Garlic juice and the 3rd was also a blue that hit a live bream....both on the circle hook.

I did lose 2 nice fish and called it quits at 1230 am......Back home and finished cleaning fish at 330am.....

Nothing huge tonight but a few decent size cats....Highlight of the trip was right at 1030pm i hear some splashing in the water river left and shine my light there. 1 doe and 2little bitty fawns in the shallow water and they stayed there probably 30 minutes......Mack