Bass float turns into crappiefest!

9/11/2010   Floated a piedmont river from 7 am -1pm.  Water temp at 7am 74 degrees. water temp at 12 was 76 degrees. Water low and clear.  I started off by throwing old dependable(white spinnerbait) and only had 2-3 bass that were 12-13 inches.  I then saw a tree laying over in the water and casted to it. A big crappie nailed it but then I lost her.  I then casted a red roostertail and was rewarded with a broken line(knot) . I mainly was planning to bass fish but dug through my stuff and found some chartreuse curly tails with pinkhead(see shad atricle for pics of lure), a few beetlespins and a roadrunner. I proceeded to catch 30 or so crappie off  of this one tree along with 2 bass  mostly on the jigs. Most crappie were average but all were eatin size and a few were over 12 inches.

I caught the Crappie and Bream on the Beetle spin.  Get it here-  https://amzn.to/3eZlz0P

On the paddle back to the bridge I caught a few more  bass and a few bream for a total count on bass at around 12......... some were caught on spinnerbait and 2 on  chartreuse lunkerlure. Not a single bass went over 2 lbs today.   Also saw 2 nice 5 lb plus goldfish(koi)     that actually hung around my canoe for a while.

 A nice morning float saved by the good ole crappie. Mack  

#fishingislife

#fishing

#crappiefishing

Piedmont River Float 9/3/2/10

Floated a section of river 9/3 that I have not been on in a while. 10 am -3pm Water low and clear. Water temp 84 degrees. We immedieatly saw 2 bald eagles at the put in. I started by throwing a white buzzer and put 6- 8 fish in the boat real quick. I also was throwing a white spinnerbait and a white floating worm. Most hits came on the buzzer and spinnerbait. A few fell for the worm. 19 bass caught in all by me . Steve I think caught 12,  with 3 of his being the biggest.
Here are the baits I was using today on this river.  These baits work great anytime the water is warm and
clear.
















Clockwise: White Lunker Lure, White Strikeking spinnerbait, and white zoom floating worm

Here is the avg bass caught today.
















Some fish were caught in still water up against wood and others were in fast current areas.

Here is probaly my best fish of the day.

And here is Steves best fish of the day.

A very nice day on the water. Signs of life everywhere, minnows, fish, deer, muskrats, the 2 baldeagles and we saw 1 big monster snapping turtle.

Haw River float 8/27/2010

Floated a section of the haw I had not been on in years with my good freind Jeff and caught a few fish. Nothing to bragg about but a good day on the water. Put in at aprox 3pm and took out at dark. This was about a five mile float with the first half very slow fishing. Jeff began to catch fish off of wood with plastic worms and lizards. I lost a few on worms but was mainly throwing a lunker lure buzzer. Here is Jeff with a Haw River Bass.

Here is Jeff playing tag with some female ducks.

Finally my bite started to p/u and I caught 2 good fish , both pushing 4 lbs. I can thank the inventor of 50 lb braid for this one as she wrapped me around a log up against a rock and i just held her there and pulled my canoe to it with the rod.

Near the end of the float I knew of a spot that holds large numbers of crappie so we fished this spot for a while and caught probaly 10-15 crappie on tube jigs under corks and sassy shads.

Kinda a slow day on the Mighty Haw but any day is a good day fishing. Mack

Haw River Float trip July, 6th 2010

August the 6th 2010 Steve and myself made a trip to our favorite river. The Haw. Last night it rained cats and dogs so I postponed our trip from am to pm so we could check out the gauges and other flows on other rivers as I thought the haw would be flooded. It was not. The haw went from a flow of 100 to about 500 and was a little muddy. Mud has never stopped me. Actually I like a little muddy water. We hit the water late in the afternoon and immediatly started catching fish. Almost all on spinnerbaits and most around wood structure and some around rocks. Bait(fry) were everywhere and they were jumping out of the water trying to get away from our baits as they thought the spinnerbait was a fish trying to eat them.

Here is the first fish

Here is Steves best fish of the day. 

And here is a nice bass caught after dark.

This is the spinnerbait I was throwing. It is a 3/8 oz Stanley Wedge spinnerbait.

Today the water Temp in the river was 84 degrees and in one tributary we went up it was 80 degrees.

No doubt made cooler by last nights rain. We caugth a bunch of bass and could of mopped up on some bream and crappie that were chasing the small fry around but all we had was bass tackle. We saw lots of birds including blue herons, little green herons, kingfishers and 1 osprey.

Canoeing the upper Haws old mills July 2010

Made a trip on the Mighty Haw in Late July 10' with Steve to do a little fishing and to see a place where I pretty much learned how to fish but hadn't been there in a few years. My Parent's house sits on a bluff over looking the Haw. I also cut my teeth fishing the Haw as young man. The Alamance County part of the Haw has numerous dams so as a kid I fished every one I could get to. These are 2 of those dams.

This is the remains of Ireland's Dam. Most locals now call it another name but I stick with the old name. All that is left is actually the foundation of the dam which now makes it a 1 -1/2 ft tall dam. This mill started off as a grist mill in the early 1800's then was abandoned in the late 1800's. In 1913 it was turned into a power dam and there is no record of when the dam collapsed. If you zoom in to the picture of the building foundation you will see 2 trees growing on a slope. That slope is the angle of the wood dam(the dam was wooden) and the wood extended to 1/2 the height of the rock building foundation.

This is Steve looking worried as we get ready to run the tunnel .































This is Glencoe dam. There have actually been 4 dams here. The first 3 were wooden and the last was concrete. In this picture you can see the 1st and 2nd dams. First built in the late 1700's and the last dam built in 1951. Its amazing those wooden dams lasted as long as they did.














This is the "new dam" built in 1951.


































Here is a nice flower growing in the log jams just above the dam
















HERE ARE SOME ADDED PICTURES OF THIS PLANT AT ANOTHER LOCATION SHOWING THE BULB AND THE LEAF. i AM PRETTY GOOD AT IDENTIFING TREES BUT NOT SO GOOD ON SHRUBS AND SMALL PLANTS.

IF YOU KNOW THIS PLANT PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT.  THANKS MACK

A sad note to this trip as we found dead fish everywhere and then learned Greensboro had released 1.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Buffaloe creek and the fish kill extended down past glenco. A very sad day.

ADDED SPRING 2014.....video of Glencoe Dam on my You Tube Channel 

Thanks Mack

Bull Loblloies and Eagles

Got out this am on one of my favorite spots at Jordan lake. This spot gave me a 7 lber this spring to a spinnerbait and during that spring trip I noticed an eagle going in and out of a big ole Bull Loblloy pine . I have fished this spot since the early eighties and have seen eagles here regulary, but have never seen a nest on this part of the lake. I have known of numerous other nest but not here. It didnt suprise me as this is a very remote corner of the lake.

Here is a picture of the tree. If you look closely you can see the nest.



















Here is the base of this Loblolly. These pictures do not do this tree justice. This tree is massive. It is at least 120' tall and that nest is as big around as a volkswagon beetle.















I thought the fishing this morning would be great after last night rains but the fishing was slow. I caught 1- 2 lber on a lunker lure and lost 2 and then I lost a decent bass on a texas rigged 10 inch culprit plastic worm. Even though fishing was slow it was a good morning as I saw 2 eagles, 2 ospreys , many herons and 1 white cattle egret. Also, i would not go to the base of this tree if they were still nesting. Eagles are done by the end of June.

Here is a decent bass caught this spring near the eagle nest. Also caught a 9lber in another spot within 1 mile from this nest. Gotta luv spinnerbaits in the spring.















Mack

Bass Pro Tournament June26, 2010 Charlotte

Bass Pro In Charlotte along with Basserdrew and riverbassin.com have started kayak/canoe tournaments with one of the stops this year being Charlotte. This is a catch, photo, and release tournament and since you could fish almost any river withing 100 miles of Charlotte I decided to enter. I knew that some topnotch fishermen were going to be entered so my goal was to be in the top 10, and possibly top 5 and if I was lucky enought to be in the top 5 I knew that I may have a shot at at 1st but I would have to be lucky and others would have to be unlucky. I chose to fish a creek/river that gives up a lot of fish in the 2-4.5 lb range with a few (not every trip of course) 5lbers and it has given me 2 fish in the past that were 8lbs 12oz. This is where I started as we had to take a pic of our creek/river with "legal light".

Here is my first fish of the day.

One big problem this am. I was catching alot of fish. Probaly caught 25 plus but most were 12-13inches so after the first 4 or so I was not catching fish good enough to bump my first 3 pics out of contention. Finally this fish, 7th that i took a pic of, but problay the 20th fish I caught bumped pic # 2 or 3 out.

Then after a few more small fish this fish bumped my 3rd pic out. This fish was caught on a buzzbait.

All in all a great morning as a lot of fish were caught, mostly on buzzbaits, a few on a magnum torpedo and a few on a fluke. On my way back to Charlotte I was confident I would be in the top 10 but thats all I knew. Like I said a lot of very good fishermen were in this tournament.

Namely, Sumtershoaliefan, Redheron, Toba and others. I started my intenet fishing on georgiariverfishing.com where I am sure Basserdrew, Sumtershoailfan and redheron did as well.

After final tabulation I came in 4th. Very happy with 4th but I missed being 2nd and winning a nu-canoe by 1/2 inch. Oh well. I did lose 1- 4lber that could of won it but thats fishing. 1 guy lost a 7lber so you never know.
Here are the final results of the Charlotte Tournament
Official Results
Angler Inches

1. Robert Dainton 55.75

2. Caja Ormand 52* (20)

3. Todd Braswell 52* (18.25)

4. Mack McCorkle 51.75

5. Lance Coley 48.75

6. Drew Haerer 47.75* (20)

7. Ben Adrien 47.75* (17)

8. Michael Troxell 47.75* (16.75)

9. John Japuntich 46.5

10. Joey Sullivan 45



Here are the final standings for True North River Basser of the Year after the 5 tournamnets.  Tied for 10th place is not to bad after only competing in in 1 of the 5 tournaments
TRUE NORTH RIVER BASSER OF THE YEAR


FINAL STANDINGS
Angler Points

1. Lance Coley (Calera, AL) 270

2. Ben Adrien (Johnson City, TN) 240

3. Sean Brodie (Milledgeville, GA) 220

4. Hal Lambert (Marion, SC) 170

5. Josh Tidwell (Attalla, AL) 160

5. Brian Conway (Thompson, GA) 160

6. John Japuntich (Americus, GA)* 110

6. Robert Dainton (Pittsboro, NC) * 110

7. Tim Emberton (Nicholasville, KY) 100

8. Jon Freeman (Mcdonough, GA) * 90

8. Caja Ormand (Shelby, NC) 90

8. Justin Wallace (Bowling Green, KY) * 90

8. Will Dalton (TN) 90

9. Richie Gudzan (Birmingham, AL) * 80

9. Todd Braswell (Albany, GA) * 80

10. Mack McCorkle (Cary, NC) * 70

10. Glenn Anderson (Hampton, GA) 60

10. . Erik Trent (TN) * 60

10. Blake Condo (Cleveland, TN) 60



Mack

Piedmont River Float

Decided to try a spot that I had'nt fished in 2 years. This spot is on timber land and has no easy access to a river in the  piedmont of North Carolina. Here is my rig that i use to get down to the water. It is about a 15 minute haul to the river with this cart. Sure wish I could hunt here but hunting is not allowed.

"boy, thats a purty rig"

Here is the Average size bass that I caught today.

Here is my best fish of the day. A solid 20 incher that gave me everthing she had.

Here are some nice flowers on the river. I call these plants arrowhead plants but I am not sure of the real name.

This is a nice view of a wide part of the river. When I was here 2 years ago this is the place where I got to watch a family of otters. Pretty smart otters if you ask me with all the fish in this river.

This is a very nice and tall  white pine growing along a bluff beside the river. This picture does not do this tree justice.

I did not bring any ul equipment today. Dumb me! This nice bream hit a buzzbait. Bream were busting top everwhere. This is a day I should of had a nice ul with me and a few beetlespins! I really could of mopped up on them today with all of their topwater activity. A flyrod would of been nice with a small popper. Oh well, maybe next time.

Here is a nice view of a creek entering the river. This channel was loaded with aquatic life.















All in all a nice day as I caught some good bass, saw some nice trees and plants and 1 big Tom Turkey. No otters seen today. Mack

Haw river trip with my son. May 2010

Took my son on a float trip to my favorite river. The Haw of course. We fished it during the heat of the day from 1-5 so fishing was OK at best but we had a good time. 6 bass caught in all, and all on buzzbaits.
Here is my son in his canoe.

Here he is trying to show off by standing up and fishing.

Here I am with an avg Haw river bass.

Here is Mack N. with a Haw River bass that crushed a buzzer!

And here is a water snake that he took a picture of.

A great few hours on my favorite river with my favorite fishing partner. We caught all of the bass on buzzers in slack water. Lots of minnows everywhere in the water which suggest that there was a good spawn this year and ample food in the river. We saw some geese and a few ducks. I cant wait to hit it at daylight one day. Mack