Catchin’ Gators with Matt

Matt and I headed up to the Elizabeth River – I’ll just let the photos do the talkin.

Not so Hot Ditch

Matt and I headed up yesterday afternoon because we were desperate to catch some fish.   We usually don’t go up the days after a hard rain because the water looks like chocolate milk.  Well, sure enough – it looked like chocolate milk.  We knew we were doomed as soon as we pulled up to the launch.   Fished for a couple hours with only 1 trout to show.  The water temps are in the low 40’s and the fish just won’t move a whole lot to eat your bait.  When the water is super dirty – they are VERY inactive.   Oh well – I did burn some calories.

Frozen Redfish

After a brutal cold snap – the puppy drum finally pushed out of the sound.  Fish are being caught in and around the inlet and beaches.  This is the same scenario we had last year – and we enjoyed excellent fishing during what would typically be a very slow time of year.  Well, they are back – and they are bigger! I headed down this afternoon and bagged a couple on the fly rod.   Sure is nice to have some fish to pull on close to home.

Bucketmouths

Hope you all had a great Christmas!!!  I know my family and I sure did.  The kids have a ridiculous amount of new toys.  I can’t see the floor of my house….

My Pops got me a TWs gift card for Christmas, so of course I was in there the next day.  I picked up a new trout reel.  The reel is a new for 2015 Diawa Procyon 2500.  My overall first impression was I was very impressed.  Smooth and solid – the drag feels great.  Only time will tell how well this reel holds up.  I threw a Strike King slow sinking twitch bait and managed a few nice bass.  Gotta love throwing on the waders, leaving your house, and catching bass in 5 minutes.

RAIN!

We have had more rain in the past couple days then we’ve had all summer.   Of course, it coincided with “turnover” weekend so the traffic has been madness.   All that equals me not leaving the house.  So finally Ray and I got stir crazy enough to go out for a couple hours when the rain seemed to be letting up.   It was still sprinkling a little, but we pulled some live baits around behind a chum slick and managed a nice cobia, a great way to break cabin fever.   Charters this week so stay tuned for plenty of reports and thanks for checking salt minded!