M&G The SnakeHead Hunt 7/9/2011

Tired right now , but just suffice to say, we did not achieve our goal of catching a snakehead. We caught fish, just not a snakehead. We were on the water by just after 3:00pm. We had a good group of kayakers today. I ended up only landing 5 catfish. I had another hit while trolling out with a spinner bait. I think it might have been a bass. It hit hard, bending my rod into a U. Unfortunately, by the time that I got it close to my boat, it got off. Memory Maker caught a bass and a big bluecatfish. He got another kayaker to video him netting the behemoth.....yes I said "netting" the fish. See, having a net with you can be useful. Other kayakers caught plenty of bass. It was a beautiful and fun day on the water. The water was very calm, and surprisingly clear, considering all of the rain that we had last night. We all made it back to the boat ramp 30 minutes after sunset. The park is free, it just closes at dark. Time for bed.....

[jffoley]

I think everyone spotted snakeheads but none hooked or landed. I saw 2 big ones clearly. Towards the end of the evening I found a shallow area where I had several distinct wakes following my frog and 2 blowups but they didn't come tight.

I think the rain affected the bite. Saw Capt Mike out there and he mentioned the water temps dropped overnight. My final tally was 6 LM bass and at least that many misses. Biggest maybe 2lbs. Four on a Berkley Power worm while the sun was blazing and 2 on a frog as it got dark. Had 4 other hook ups with a frog after running into Josh and Dan on the way back to the ramp.

In the pics Rockchaser and I found a nice cut through the weeds. Narrow but quite a deep channel. I picked 2 out of there with the powerworm. Oh, and I saw Capt C-Hawk (Bob) pick a bass and I wanted to get a pic but... my memory card was full at that point. Sorry Steve er, I mean Bob!

Great evening, great group. Who's organizing August??

[Rockchaser]

What a great day on the water. I finally got the skunk off the yak after the sun went down. Got 3 LM Bass on a BUZZ bait. Yakfisher, my buddy danny and I fished untill about 11:15 and hadto callit quits do the the bugs and the fish had shut down again. I will be putting some new fishing methods Jffoley showed me for bass fishing to use soon.

[Yak Fish]

Thanks for the report guys. I was anxious to hear how things went.
It's too bad no snakeheads went home to the skillet. It sounds like a great area to fish.

[Redfish12]

I thought you guys were going to kill it!!! I ate my small snakehead, it was actually quite good! Lots of firm white meat and my BBQ guests enjoyed it! Had I been better at not setting the hook too quickly I would have had a chance to tangle with a few more that I pulled the hook from. Definitely a cool fishery that I will have to go back to.

Memory that is a huge cat!!!

[ronaultmtd]

We caught lots of really nice LM bass- I had several nice fish in the three to five pound range that I released and had several blowups on frogs from Snakes- but only one hookup and then lost that one- snake bite from snakeheads-

Anyone who thinks the snakeheads are over running the habitat and eating everything in sight, needs to come out and try to catch one- I think I know how to rig for them and what to do when one hits the lure after losing so many- frogs are early morning and late evening lures and you have to wait until the line comes tight and then set the hook hard- usually you have several pounds of weeds on the line with the fish so you really have to hit these fish hard to get the hooks into them-

Biggest disappointment was my failure as a camera man by having my GoPro on my hat- got lots of video of sky and trees and paddling but the video was not focused on the water- ugh! And I caught several big bass- none are on camera!

[Yakfisher]

Dogue Creek Snakehead

Nice clip of a Dogue Creek Snakehead...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT4eTYR_kyM&NR=1

[ronaultmtd]

You caught a nice catfish on a spinnerbait at the mouth of the creek- it got the skunk off your boat-

But nothing like Memory Makers....

[ictalurus]

I threw 2 types of frogs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, a buzzbait, and some BKDs. I only had one blow up on a frog at the creek mouth that I'll optimistically say was a nice snakehead. It didn't hit like a bass, and it looked brown. It hit really close to the boat, which scared the crap out of me, so I spazzed out and yanked the lure away. I couldn't even buy a catfish on borrowed nightcrawlers. (Martin only caught 5.)

Fortunately, my corpse-like reflexes and an old Pop'R I found on the Occoquan saved me from a skunk. I got 3 bass on the way back to the ramp.

The bigger bass:


The smaller bass:


The third bass was even smaller and was released boatside, i.e. it spit the hook. I had another blow up that I think was a snakehead because it was more sinuous when it struck at the lure than bass usually are. Anyway, it missed the lure by a good 6". I managed to not jerk the lure away, but it wouldn't strike again.

It was a fun and challenging day, and I'll definitely go back. I think I'll spend more time fishing worms, jigs, or unweighted bass assassins. I realized on the ride home that I've only caught 5 tidal bass total, and three of those were today. I'm definitely not used to fishing weedy areas.

Lastly, iIt was good seeing everyone again, catching up, and putting some faces to familiar screen names. More pics to follow.

[ictalurus]

Bob (aka "Steve", aka Capt C-Hawk):


Mike (mmanolis2001):


Rick, so you can recognize him when he's not holding a monster cat. (Memory Maker):


Jeff (forgot to ask his screen name):


Jimmy (Rockchaser):

[ictalurus]

John (jffoley):


Josh (Yakfisher):


Ron and a nice bass (ronaultmtd):


Ron and Martin (moc):

[ictalurus]

A couple of the sunset:

[CB kayak 02]

That sunset is beautiful, glad to see the trip was a success. Wish I could of made it, managing a business sucks. haha

[Memory Maker]

I threw 2 types of frogs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, a buzzbait, and some BKDs. I only had one blow up on a frog at the creek mouth that I'll optimistically say was a nice snakehead. It didn't hit like a bass, and it looked brown. It hit really close to the boat, which scared the crap out of me, so I spazzed out and yanked the lure away. I couldn't even buy a catfish on borrowed nightcrawlers. (Martin only caught 5.)

Fortunately, my corpse-like reflexes and an old Pop'R I found on the Occoquan saved me from a skunk. I got 3 bass on the way back to the ramp.

The bigger bass:


The smaller bass:


The third bass was even smaller and was released boatside, i.e. it spit the hook. I had another blow up that I think was a snakehead because it was more sinuous when it struck at the lure than bass usually are. Anyway, it missed the lure by a good 6". I managed to not jerk the lure away, but it wouldn't strike again.

It was a fun and challenging day, and I'll definitely go back. I think I'll spend more time fishing worms, jigs, or unweighted bass assassins. I realized on the ride home that I've only caught 5 tidal bass total, and three of those were today. I'm definitely not used to fishing weedy areas.

Lastly, iIt was good seeing everyone again, catching up, and putting some faces to familiar screen names. More pics to follow.

Dude ........ you were ON FIRE with that Poppin R ........ Nice job .......

[Memory Maker]

Ok ....... my total count ........ 3 bass ...... biggest 15" ...... 1 big catfish ....... 1 snakehead hit ...... first hit of the day ....... didn't wait till the count of 2 or until I felt him and set the hook to the side instead of straight up ........ learned my lesson ........

Oh and this was from about 5 till 8:30 ....... wanna go back