While we've certainly tried to target different species as of late, one guest always finds a way to make it to the party, the Longnose Gar.
I have personally been on a mission to knock down a trophy class Channel Catfish over the past month, with some limited success, there's no real way to specifically target one species when fishing with live bait. Thus resulting in a lot of exciting, toothy by-catches.
Recently, Grant and I have upgraded our personal bests for the Longnose Gar. My skinny 48 incher a few weeks back and a thick 43 inch fish for Grant this past Saturday.
We managed three citations between the two of us and I am now just one trophy Gar away from "Expert Angler" status for the species. "Expert Angler" is a status dubbed by the VDGIF for any angler who catches and records ten or more trophy fish in one particular species. This will be my first "Expert Angler" in any species and I look forward to highlight it with the capture of a Gar 50 inches or greater. It would be a new personal best and an achievement Longnose Gar anglers everywhere put on their bucket lists.
(a 40 incher reminding me why most people don't land Gar in a kayak)
(This thick 44.75" fish put me one trophy Gar away from "Expert Angler" in the species)
While we will continue to seek out different species one thing has become clear, it is definitely the year of the Gar. Which is undoubtedly fitting considering we're still planning on taking down another one of the Earth's biggest freshwater creatures again this August, the Alligator Gar.
As any skilled angler knows, you must
fish with the cards you are dealt and chase which bite is hottest on any given
day. This post is more or less a collection of exactly that. The past month or
so has been very good to us on the water and it’s pretty tough to be
sitting here and typing this instead of chasing fish.
Flash back to the start of May. Many different
bites were picking up and it was actually difficult to choose which species to
target. I got word from a good friend that the Carp were on fire at a lake I hadn’t
fished in years. I made it a point to leave work on time and gun it down the
interstate for some evening carping action. Fishing late into the evening, I decided
I better pack it up and head back to RVA that way I could get a little sleep
before the next work day. While loading up my gear I received the drag peeling
run that I had come for. After a brief fight in the dark with no visibility due to a busted
headlamp, I quickly got the fish in the landing net… the landing net that I then
proceeded to break because I didn’t realize just how big the Carp was. Needless
to say fishing solo isn’t always easy, it’s even harder with malfunctioning gear.
However, the struggle was worth it considering the fish tied my personal best
Carp at 22 pounds. It was also my first ever Mirror Carp, a close cousin of the
Common Carp.
(22 pound Mirror Carp, surpassed Virginia trophy fish standards)
Some other recent catches.
(A respectable pre-spawn Flathead)
(A notable Chain Pickerel, just short of trophy standards)
May 16 marked the 7th
annual Yakattack tournament benefitting Heroes on the Water and Project Healing
Waters; Two organizations that use the power of fishing and fellowship to help heal
veterans both mentally and spiritually. The tournament was a blast, as always.
Grant and I had a great time. Nothing is better than time spent with friends
talking about fishing and getting the chance to make new friendships with other
anglers in the sport. The fishing itself was pretty tough. I managed a few
decent fish that landed me 3rd overall, edging Grant out by only .25
inches… which is pretty amazing considering we fished for 9 hours straight on
two completely different parts of the lake. You never know how much those
precious extra centimeters can matter! More importantly the tournament raised
over $10,000 (I don’t recall the exact figure at this moment) for a great
cause. Needless to say we can’t wait for next year!
(tournament fish)
As we approached June the fishing continued
to get better. Grant bagged a nice 6.9lb, 23.25” post spawn Largemouth that
crushed a white Buzzbait he was working near the shoreline. Once female bass
get over the rigors of spawning they tend to be very aggressive in an attempt
to regain whatever body mass they may have lost during the spawn. The topwater bite tends
to heat up as well due to the increase in temperature along with the
aggressiveness of the bass. Frogs and Buzzbaits work great during low light
conditions, early morning, late evening, and overcast days for example.
(A Virginia trophy Largemouth Bass)
More recently we've been focusing on some of the "roughfish" species, specifically Longnose Gar and Common Carp. Gar are opportunistic fish and will very rarely pass up an easy meal. When water temps rise and the spawn approaches this behavior is even more profound. Gar become highly aggressive and will do nothing short of burning up a reel's drag when hooked. They are the heaviest during the prespawn-spawn period and they use that added weight along with their torpedo body shape to their advantage, making it almost impossible to slow down and turn a big female with a full head of steam. Both Gar and Carp are hard fighting fish and are completely underutilized in the angling world. Do yourself a favor, go catch one.
(Personal Best Longnose Gar at 47 inches, a Virginia Trophy)
(44.25 inch Longnose Gar, a Virginia Trophy)
(Pre-spawn Common Carp)
Lastly, and most recently, I was able to get together with my good friend and mentor Stephen Miklandric. Stephen is Virginia's most decorated multispecies angler and nothing short of a machine when on the water. So it goes without saying when I was invited aboard his boat to chase some trophy fish, I was more than ecstatic. I learned a lot from my friend. Most importantly, fishing can be slow no matter who you are, no matter how good you are; as it was for us that day. However, we kept the faith and continued to fish hard, which rewarded us with a beautiful dinosaur of a different kind. The Bowfin!
The Bowfin or Grinnel(Grindel) dates back millions of years, as does the Gar, and though they are hated by most Bass anglers and feared by many for their sharp teeth and ferocious attitude, Bowfin are actually one of the few trophy eligible species that are actually native to Virginia. For a Bowfin to qualify as a trophy in Virginia it must meet or exceed 30 inches in length or 10 pounds. Luckily for me, my fish went 31 inches and 11.20 pounds, a true beast! As with all of my catches, the gnarly beast was quickly photographed and released to be caught again someday!
(Virginia Citation Bowfin)
That's all from our corner for now. We've been fishing relentlessly and will continue to do so in the coming weeks. So much time on the water makes it hard to type reports for the website, so if you are interested in seeing more content on a more frequent basis I recommend "liking" our Facebook page www.facebook.com/peelindragextremefishing. The fishing is only going to get better as the year pushes on and I really hope you chose to follow us on social media if you haven't already. There's sure to be more fish pics coming and undoubtedly more trophy fish destined to be caught! Stay Tuned!
Shad fishing for us, along with many
others, has been rather frustrating and difficult to pattern this season. Fishing
for them in general hasn’t been all that great, which left us unsure of what
to expect for this year’s Shad Shootout. Nonetheless, we were excited to get
another opportunity to participate in a great event benefitting Heroes on the
Water. Not to mention getting to spend a little time with our kayak fishing brethren
from near and far that we simply don’t get to see often enough.
I know some may be curious of what
we did on tournament day that led to us catching the fish we needed to catch. Therefore,
the following will be a play by play from my (Josh) point of view of the day’s
events.
5:45 a.m.
Knowing how insane and impossible
the Anncarrows ramp can be on a Saturday morning, Grant and I made it a point
to be at the launch earlier than some might think necessary. With the
particular tide cycle we had, and the rest of the fleet starting upriver, we
decided it would be wise to start our day downriver.
We got in position and awaited the
6:45 “lines in” call. Meanwhile, through the fog rising off the water we were
graced with one of the coolest spectacles any angler could hope to see, the
tiny topwater pops of herring getting obliterated by the abrupt, destructive blasts
of Striper inhaling fish like candy!
IT. WAS. EPIC.
6:45 a.m.
The casting began and fishing was
tough. Slowly but surely we started picking up Hickories here and there. Grant began
sticking them left and right while I was retying a broken leader. I got a new
gold spoon tied on and quickly evened the odds by catching a few on back to
back casts.
8:00 a.m.
I left Grant with the Shad and began
searching for a catfish. He had me by a half inch at this point but I wasn’t worried….
I’d catch a good cat and it wouldn’t matter, or so I thought. After getting
pestered by tiny cats while drifting I decided to hit a few spots that have
produced good Flathead for me in the past. As I got anchored up Grant began
drifting over the same water I just covered. Sure enough after what seemed to
be two dozen passes over the exact same stretch of water, I watched him hook up
with a good Blue Catfish. It was the Blue that would eventually help him win
the tournament.
12:00 p.m.
By this time the clouds had moved
out, making the task of catching a respectable cat almost impossible. I decided
to head up river in search of Striper and Perch, Grant followed close behind.
We began to get word of a big cat that had been caught earlier in the day, and
if the rumor was true such a fish would threaten Grant’s chances for a repeat
Shootout victory.
1:00 p.m.
We got into position and began
casting again; it wasn’t long before I started picking off Striper. I ended up
catching around a half dozen, the biggest at 20 ½ inches rewarded me with 1st
place in the Striper Division. We both tried for Perch in the areas we caught
them the day prior but it seemed they had simply moved farther up river with
the cycle of the tide.
Knowing it would be a very tight
race for 1st place with two nice Blue Cats being caught, we decided that
it was very important for Grant to land an American Shad. Generally Americans
are larger than Hickories in weight and in length, so landing even an average
American could add precious inches to his overall total. The only problem… the
Shad were not complying with the plan. As it would seem, the Shad we were after
were not in the area, however Grant mentioned that he kept bumping what he
thought were herring. This sparked the memory of a situation I had from two
years ago where the American Shad would lightly strike the bait I was throwing
and if you weren’t keyed in on such a minute strike you simply would not hook
them. I relayed this knowledge to him and he executed within minutes, landing a
solid American Shad to add the few inches that proved to be just what he needed
to pull out the win. That’s a great example of why we do pretty decent in these
tournaments. We combine our knowledge and experiences to form a plan of attack…
and in the end we’re usually both competing for the win.
We
fished for a few more hours and left the river at around 4 just to be sure we
beat traffic.
The
weigh in and raffles were fun as always. We spent some fun times with a great
group of guys all the while raising money for an awesome cause. Grant brought
home the 1st place trophy for the second year in a row with a total
of 72 inches, beating out 2nd place by a half inch, proving that
last American Shad was as important as we thought it’d be. I won the Striper
Division and brought home about $155 bucks along with some sweet winnings in
the raffle which included a badass Bubba Blade brand fillet knife! We love this
tournament because of its variety of species along with its multiple fish limit
and I think it could go without saying but we can’t wait for next year! It was
a good way to end the Shad season and a strong momentum push for the Yakattack tournament
in May. Until then, it’s back to chasing that paper. Trophy fish beware.
