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.

Phelps Lake part 2.

Well, we returned to Phelps for another round in spring 09. The fishing was nowhere near what it was last year. This is because of one major condition. The water was down aprox 1.5 ft. This was because of the bad fires and the lake being used for water. Now that doesn't sound like a lot but when it is 16000 acres and the avg depth is like 3-4 ft then you have some problems......I couldn't put my motor down until i was at least 100 yds out!. We could not find any minnows close to the lake. we mainly fished with buzzbaits and tubes. Some fish caught but not many.


here's 1 that nailed a 3 in tube



here's another that nailed a tube



we finally got disgusted of the poor fishing so we went looking for bears in the pocosin refuge.
lots of bears were being seen , one even came through the camp but we missed him. This was at breeding season so the male bears are out searching. We didn't see any but tracks were every where



this was everywhere in the roads!



and then we were out of the car looking for tracks and i happened to walked over to a culvert in a canal and this bad boy was laying on top of it! Picture doesn't do him justice but it is at least a 4.5 to 5 ft timber rattler. Very thick body.


We will be back to Phelps lake. Though the fishing was poor this year, searching the refuge was awesome!. Mack