A good night of Catfishing Using Goldfish and Cutbait

Dan River VirginiA

June 7th 2014

I went  to one of my favorite rivers in search of some cats 6/7 430pm -430am 6/8.

 I arrived at my spot a little after 4 and  I was at my first hole 430 ish, 

 Bait today would be 12 bream I caught earlier and had on ice for cutbait. These would get the garlic bath. I also bought the last 8 goldfish a bait store had so these would be my flathead bait.

Gear and Outfits used- 
Abu 7000c on American spirit Nite Stik , 40 lb Cajun with 3 oz bank sinker and 9/0 j hook.
Shimano 6500 baitrunner on Ugly stik tiger rod loaded with 25 lb big cat. 2 oz sinker with 9/0 circle hook.
Abu 6500c on white ugly stik loaded with 30 lb big game. 2 oz bank sinker with 7/0 j hook on 3 way rig.6
Oh, I cant leave out the boat.  Sears 12' Jon with 55 lb thrust motor. Water too shallow for my gas motors.

I immediately started getting hits on cutbait(didn't used goldfish till 30 min before dark) from blues 5-10 lbs with the biggest at 10-11 lbs. Moved every hr to a different hole and caught fish on each hole and also lost several big ones, still nothing big.

^^^^This equals this \/ \/ \/

  
I also brought along a Banana (oh no he didn't!) because the forum post the other day had me laughing. I bring bananas a lot while fishing and it has never hurt my fishing.

anyway, aprox 245 I set up on my last hole. Apox 3 am I get a good run on the Abu 6500 set with a goldfish. I set the hook and the battle is on!!!....It was crazy for a few as I had to hold this strong fish and wind in 2 lines that were out. After 5 mins I bring in a good 35lb flathead to anchor the blues I caught today. Can you say Banana Smana??.

                                               ^^^^^ This equals this \/ \/ \/

I set the lines out again and get one more run at aprox 4 am. A small 5 lb flattie. I release her and head home. A nice night of fishing.

going to bed..........

#catfishing

#danriver

#fishing

#danvillevirginia

Staunton River Camping and Fishing

I had plans to take my son to Georgia for a Get together for  some Camping, Canoeing/fishing and to see some old friends but the weather did not cooperate. The Flint was too high to float so we had to look for an alternate plan close to home. The first place that came to mind was the Staunton River and the Staunton River State park in Virginia. Now, I have fished the Staunton before  but not down this low. This would be new water to me. Here is a view of the entrance as we arrived on 6/22 around lunchtime.

The visitor station was a very nice place with a very helpful staff plus they had plenty of merchandise if you left something at home or didn't want to drive the 20 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart!

 Plus, they are open to 10 pm and they don't lock the gate at this campground so if you do need to run into town late at night you can. Here is a view of the visitor station and the pool beside it.

Both are Top-Notch facilities.

Here is a view of our camping spot.

This campground is the nicest I have been in so far. It is a meca for the fisherman because you have the choice of 2 ramps. 1 on the Dan river arm of Kerr Lake where you can launch and either run up the Dan river or run down to the main lake. 2. You can launch on the Staunton river arm of the lake and run up the Staunton river or go to the main lake. We chose to spend all of out time on the Staunton side. Here is a view of that ramp.

Left takes you up into the River and into some backwater areas and right takes you to the main lake. We launched at 4pm and headed upriver.

This is part of an old pumping staion that was used for the campground. This is no longer needed now as the Park is now on City water.

Mack N. started off throwing a frog and I started off with a chartreuse spinnerbait since the water was high and muddy. The spinnerbait was getting hits from some fat chunky bass so it didn't take him long to change to a spinnerbait as well. We were getting hits by throwing at Willow trees and the hits were about every 30 yds down the bank.  Most were 1 1/2 lbs to 2 1 /2 lbs but Mack Nicholas caught 1 that went just over 4 lbs. Here are a few of those pictures.

We left biting bass to go catch bait for a night of catfishing. Our bait of choice would be either Bream and/or White Perch.  We used 2 rods for this, both ultralites. 1 was rigged with a 1/2 oz  bell sinker on bottom with 2 gold hooks spaced 6 inches apart above the sinker. The 2nd one had a splitshot just above a cricket hook . We tipped each hook with a piece of nightcrawler.  Hits were many and often, catching all the white perch we cared to catch and a few bream and 2 shell crackers as well.

This is a picture (a poor one but you can get the idea) of the 2 bottom rigs we used for White Perch.

You can use sabiki rigs for them or the rig I used with the 2 gold hooks does well even with 4,5, or 6 hooks spaced a few inches apart. Tip each hook with just a piece of worm.

Right before dark we started catfishing. The hits were few and far between. At aprox 10pm it started raining hard and I thought Mack N. would want to call it quits for the night but he wanted to stay, so we stayed until 2am with it raining the whole time. Thank goodness for Frogg Toggs!.. We did manage a  couple of Blue cats with the  biggest at maybe 5 lbs. Both caught on cutbait sprayed with Bang Garlic Spray on a7/0 circle hook with a 3 oz bank sinker.  This is a picture of the rig I like.

The next day we launched again around 4pm and headed upriver to do some exploring.
Here is a short video of us and the Scanoe running up the muddy Staunton.

We went back to our spot where the white perch were biting yesterday and they were still there. We caught more than just white perch though,  We would catch a perch then the next fish would be either a BlueCat or Channel that weighed 3/4 up to maybe 1lb 4oz. These were actually pretty fun to catch on ultralites. They were hitting the same rigs as yesterday tipped with a piece of night crawler. Right at dark we started catfishing. Bites were few and far between again. These catfish have to be spawning. I have got reports of them spawning this week too. The biggest that night was an aprox10 lb channel cat that hit a piece of cutbait. There were very bad clouds in the distance but the skies above us were clear and we could see the Big Dipper. We were treated to  an awesome lightning storm display in the sky miles away towards Brookneal or Alta Vista. Here is  a picture of one of the many small cats we caught and then the biggest which may have gone 9-10 lbs

Dont Say it!  I know I look drunk,  but I am just dog tired. We did set out 10 jugs after catching this fish and didn't get 1 bite on a jug.

Summary of the conditions and equipment  used:

Boat- Colemane Scanoe w/ 2.5 hp Mercury
Bait- Live white perch and cut bait for bigger Cats, night crawlers for white perch, small cats and panfish.
Outfits used for Cats- Ambassaduer 6500 with 30 lb big game line on White Ugly Stik, Ambassadeur 7000 loaded with 40 lb Cajun line on 8' American Spirit Night Stick. We also had a Shimano 6500 baitrunner w/ 25 lb Ande on a 7 ft Uglystick Tiger rod but we didn't use that one.
Outfits for panfish- 2 Ultra lites w 4lb line.

Kerr Lake Level- 301.2 ,  1.2 feet up from normal level of 300 ft above sea level
Staunton Flow at Randolph gauge- Aprox 3000 cfm, avg for ths time of year is aprox 1500 cfm.



All in all it was a good 3 day trip. Hopefully we will make it back next year when the Walleye run up from the lake. Thanks , Mack

#stauntonriverstatepark

#danriver

#stauntonriver

Jug Fishing Jordan Lake

I finally made it out to Jordan Lake yesterday 08122012 for some jug fishing. I left worked at 6:05 and was on the water settin jugs at 6:45. This evening I would use 2 types of jugs. 1- pvc pool noodle jugs and the other 2- plastic bottles 1/2 painted white. Most droppers would be 5 ft.   If I were to fish Kerr Lake I would have some jugs set for 15 and 20 ' but 5' does good at Jordan. I used to use orange colored orange juice bottles but switched to these after seeing videos on you tube and  how well they worked and more importantly they take up less space. I made them right at 1 year ago when I was recovering from a surgery and could not get on the water. See this post for more info on these jugs.
 http://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/catfish-jugs.html

My boat used today would be my Old Town 158 canoe solo sitting on the front seat but looking towards the stern. That way the canoe is more level and performs better....I baited the jugs with cut pieces of frozen bream soaked in garlic juice. Then I waited. At aprox 745 I was thinking I could of had  a nice relaxing night at home since I hadn't had so much as a nibble. But, a little while later it was as if someone had flipped a switch to "on"....I had to chase jugs and that means paddling.

Here are some of the jugs

Finally!...............Fish on!!!!!!!!!!

A nice channel cat......

I caught a lot of very small channel cats and then this nice White Catfish....

I left at 10 pm while the cats were still biting --got to wk (tommorow) but had an excellent time jug fishing Jordan Lake for a few hours........ Mack

#catfish

#jugfishing

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

Big Channel Cats

After seeing a bud of mine catch some nice channels I decided to hit a pond in my Town Limits and see how it is.  Problem........I had no good bait.....except,  my box turtles night crawlers and some frozen catalpa worms......Heck,  I do have some good bait but  I was out of cutbait which I usually keep in my game freezer.
So off to the pond I went.....stayed a couple of hours.  Rods were a Abu 5600 C4 with 15 lb ande on a 7' rod and a Shimano 3500 Baitrunner on a short 6' ugly stik loaded with the same 15 lb ande.  These are what I call by "light" cat rods.

Had 3 hits but only one hookup which was this bad boy . A 13 lber!

Then a couple of days later I took my son and a freind of his Thomas.

This time I also had no cutbait but I had gone by Foodlion and picked up some White Bass fillets.  These I cut into strips and soaked in Garlic juice. 

Here is our first hit.

A 16 lb 4 oz monster

Thomas then caught a 9.5 lber 

 A good night fishing and the boys had a great time.....I will have to hit up a few more local ponds as most around here are loaded with Channels......Thanks Mack

Channel Cats at a Local Lake

My Son, 2 of his Freinds and myself met up with Aki "FishinCary" on NCAngler  at a local lake for some evening catfishing between 6-8pm.

Equipment used....
Shimano 3500 baitrunner on 8' rod spooled with 17lb line
Ambassadeur 5600c4 Spooled with 15lb line on 7' rod
Rig used. .....Modified Carolina rig(bank sinker instead of barrel sinker) 2oz sinker with 4/0 hook
Bait used....cut bait and live bream.

FishinCary was mopping up on some cats using liver while I was having a hard time getting bait. After finally getting some bait the action picked up for us.  FishinCary probably caught 10 or so and us probably 7. All were eating size from 1-3 lbs with 2 big fish missed. Hate to say that I left our secret attractant at home(garlic spray and/or garlic juice) SSSHHHHHHh.

It was very nice meeting FishinCary and if you ever fish with him you had better be on your A game!
My son and him are aprox the same age and even though they didnt know each other until yesterday they have some mutual friends .

Anyway a good time was had by all.....here are a few pics and a short video clip.