April Meet & Greet at Fletcher's Boat House, DC :: April 14

[chex]

Beautiful day out on the Potomac. Lots of rowboats and kayaks... not so many shad, as far as I could tell, but others may have a different story. I lost my anchor... snagged... and almost caught a sturgeon, but it ended up being my other line, not a fish (Sun, thanks for almost catching that sturgeon with me ).

I caught 0 shad, though I tried, but got 5 blue cats from 18" - 30" (my biggest yet). Saw others catch some cats, a few shad and someone even caught a freaking walleye!! (I'll let him post his own report, but that's awesome).

[chex]

[HJS]

Dang... that's a nice clean looking catfish. There is a health advisory for catfish caught in the DC part of the lower Potomac. That being said I still keep a few each year... and have lived to tell about it. I figure a couple a year won't hurt.

[jsnyd86]

Woah, thanks for the tip. Glad I only kept one

[Shady]

Nice meeting everyone today. I ended up catching 5 blue catfish, with one being my biggest so far at about 26" and 9 lbs and I also caught a Walleye! This was only the second one that I've ever caught and first ever on the kayak. Here are a few pics from today:

[HJS]

Mike S. - Just wondering. Did you catch those catfish using the fallfish you caught the other day???

Shady - Very nice looking walleye... good eatin fish.

[chex]

Mike S. - Just wondering. Did you catch those catfish using the fallfish you caught the other day???

I did get some hits/hookups on the fallfish, but every time, I snagged or it came off!!

My last big fallfish got eaten in half. Thought I had the big cat hooked, but he must have been hanging on to the tail. I fished the remaining head the rest of the day with no luck. But definitely, the fallfish got some attention.

Shady - Very nice looking walleye... good eatin fish.

You shoulda seen the teeth on that thing <- much sharper than that

[Shady]

You shoulda seen the teeth on that thing <- much sharper than that

I learned that its not a good idea to try to land them with your thumb last year...

[kevinfry]

Great job on the walleye....my favorite fish.

[CB kayak 02]

Nice work and Pics fellas!!!!

[ictalurus]

Lost the shad skunk!

Nice work on the cats, Mike. Sorry about the anchor. I was hoping you'd get it back.

Ryan, those were some fat fish. Really nice walleye, too. I'd love to learn to how to target them there.

I ended up with 6 shad after almost 6 hours of trying. I was getting frustrated because some guys on shore just downstream from me were slaying them, and two guys in a boat were catching them out of a hole I spent a large chunk in the morning fishing. They suggested I try it from their angle, and I caught one almost right away. It was one of the biggest hickories I've ever caught, probably close to 18". Even the guys on the boat cheered. No pics because I didn't want to drift into them. Four fish came out of that hole, and two came out of the hole the guys on shore were fishing.

I tried fishing for cats but kept getting hung up. I also tried to anchor, and almost lost my anchor. After I narrowly got my anchor back, I decided that was a hint to give up on the cats. Plus, I can catch cats at other places, but shad are only here for a short while. I wished I brought my grandfather's anchor with me because it has spring-loaded tines so it lets go of snags. It's a pretty clever device.

It was good fishing with Sun, bigfluke (spacing out on his name), and Mike (chexone) again, and I finally got to meet Ryan, camelbird (spacing on his name, too), Chris (Meadeo), and John (jsnyd86). I think there was someone else, too. I wish I could've stayed until the evening because I think the shad were really going to turn on as the sun went down. The water was crazy clear. I could see at least 6ft down. My fish finder pretty much stayed lit up with fish the entire time. I think the clear water was the problem because I rarely saw anything above 15ft. It was like some sort of ceiling. Often there would be fish from 15ft down to the bottom, which ranged from 30-50ft in the holes. Water temp was just below 60 most of the day according to my thermometer.

Now for some pics.

camelbird and his buddy:


Sun and Mike:


Ryan:


John and a waterfall:


Clear water:




The crowd of yaks, boats, and shore anglers:


bigfluke hooked up with a shad:

[jsnyd86]

American!

Love the pics as always. I'll have to add my pics later. Im on a plan to Vegas for the week and will add pics when I get my hotel room. I had a good time and loved being in a river type atmosphere, fishing for something new and different. Also meeting some of you. Took me a minute to adjust from lake type fishing to something with a current. After I got the hang of it, I grabbed a few shad. And an American! Caught them on chartreuse shad dart and also a pink twister tale I was fishing tandem with the dart. I couldn't really lock down the retrieval method so switching it up was working best. I did notice that casting up river was a waste of time. Even directly across didn't give much results. The shad were slow so I tossed a worm in. Got a few big blue cats. Kept one smaller one which I measured at 23". Around 1 or 2 I felt really
Crispy and dehydrated so I called it a day

[Shady]

Nice pics and +1 on the really clear water. It was pretty awesome reeling up a cat and being able to start to see it coming up 10 feet down. I remember reeling up a cat and seeing it release large clouds of poo atleast three times on the way up. Gross, but you don't get to see that everyday

[J.A. Veil]

It sounds like a good time was had by all. Lots of fish got caught and the photos are great.

While you guys were catching fish, I went with my wife for our 4th visit to the kitchen remodeling shop. We ended up signing a contract to remodel our kitchen this summer and left behind a huge deposit check. I definitely had a more expensive and less fun day than you did.

[ictalurus]

I remember reeling up a cat and seeing it release large clouds of poo atleast three times on the way up. Gross, but you don't get to see that everyday

You scared the crap out of it.

Congrats on the American, John. I think I might've had one hooked up on my tandem rig with a hickory, which was hooked on the upper dart. The hickory jerked one way, which gave the fish on the lower dart enough slack to get away. It looked deeper than the hickory, so of course it was an American. I've got American shad fever, so every shad that gets away was obviously an American.