Lake Anna Striper Guide Journal

Stripers, Stripers, Stripers

2013-06-15T06:55:00.000-04:00

Ned

School of Stripers

School of feeding Stripers. Fish are streaking.

School of Stripers next to a school of bait.

Left screen shows the Stripers on the left [arches] with the bait to the right of them.

Structure scan clearly shows the difference in the fish [larger lines]and the bait they are about to feed on.

These Stripers were not aggressively feeding in this pic but 10 minutes later they attacked the school of bait then we had our way with them.

A Whole lot of fun

This kind of action is what we are enjoying on the lake now and for the next month.

Book a trip soon to get in on some great Striper fishing!

Harry, Cora, Lizzy and Jared

2013-06-09T18:12:00.001-04:00

Tony had a morning trip today and took these folks out for a fun morning of fishing on Lake Anna. Not only did they end up with a lot of fun memories they have plenty of wonderful table fare.

Tony, Jim, Zeek, Bob and Daniel

2013-06-07T14:12:00.001-04:00

Cloudy, heavy rain, Water temperature 80* and Clear.

I got out on the water at 3 this morning to catch bait. I was worried that the weather would mess the bait catching process up like it usually does when it rains so hard. Well by 5:15 I had thrown 50 times for 6 baits. I went and picked my clients up at High Point then went out searching for bait. After burning a half a tank of gas I finally caught bait at 9 o'clock. I drove to an area that I knew had been holding some nice fish and we put the baits out, or attempted to. We started taking hits immediately and for 2 hours straight we had constant action. I could not keep up with baiting much less counting the fish we caught. Here are a few of the fish we caught this morning. It rained so hard I thought it might ruin the guys day but I warned them last night that the weather would not be good but they insisted on going. Believe it or not once we got on the fish they did not care at all about the rain. It ended up being a fun day with plenty of fish to take home.

A couple of Heavy Stringers

2013-06-06T16:10:00.000-04:00

Paul

Bubba

Cloudy and Cool, Water Temperature 80* and Clear.

Today we had two charters, Tony took Bubba out and I took Paul. We both caught bait way before daylight and filled our tanks up. They thought fighting the fish was hard, they had forgotten they had to hold the fish up for a picture by themselves.

Harold, Unju, Sean and Mijoo

2013-06-04T16:46:00.002-04:00

Guide DP took these Guys and Gals out for a memorable fishing trip on Lake Anna today. When they had live bait the action was great. They caught 50 Stripers today and took home plenty of wonderful tasting meals.

Too Much Action

2013-06-03T11:48:00.000-04:00

Rob and Conner Cross

This is a school of fish up on a shallow flat that I found while looking for bait early in the morning.

We are over some nice Stripers and my side scan is showing me that there are more on the right side of the boat. I simply turned my boat to the right and all the rods bowed over.

This is a picture I took this morning of a School of Stripers after we had caught 12 to 15 fish. As you can see not only on the sonar but also on my side scan that I was in the middle of a major school of Stripers. Notice the larger fish were at 26 to 30 feet. We had our baits set at 28 feet and were catching the nicer fish.

This is a picture that I took 30 minutes later than the above picture. We were still in the school of Stripers and wearing them out. I would have loved to got pics when we were really on the fish but I was kept quite busy.

Rain, Rain and rain. Water Temperature 79* and Clear.

I got out very early this morning to catch bait. It was raining so hard that the bait would not come to the lights. I struggled to catch 150 baits after hanging lights in 3 different places. I picked the guys up at 5:30 and showed them how to deploy the line to put the baits in the Stripers faces. Once they set out a couple of baits properly I knew they were ready so I had them bring the baits in and I went looking for a school. I ran over a school of Stripers as big as the UVA campus. [Rob is a professor in the management department at McIntire School of Commerce.] I set the boat down and we attempted to get out baits out. We would no sooner engage the reel and a Striper would hit the bait. It was total madness, excitement, joy and fun for a whole hour. In fact, we could not get but 3 or 4 baits out for over 50 minutes without getting hooked up. Conner was having sooo much fun he looked like a chicken with his head cut off running around the boat. He wouldn't even get the reel engaged before a Striper would try to take the rod from him.We worked the school till we ran out of baits, at 7:15. It is amassing what a boy [and a adult] can learn in an hour. They went from catching 30% of the fish that hit to boating almost every one. I kept hearing Rob talking to himself saying "This is incredible, this is incredible....." There was no way I could keep track of how many fish we actually caught but I do know it was way too much action for two anglers. If you come fishing with us in June and July you better have at least 4 anglers on board or you will certainly regret not taking my advice. My thumb is still bleeding from taking fish off of Conner's hooks.

A Whole lot of Stripers

2013-06-02T15:31:00.001-04:00

Dp's clients Tim, Ryan and Steve

Tony's Clients Corey, Janet and Ron

Today Guides DP and Tony had charters so they both got out on the water very early to catch bait. Today was not only a fun day on the water but a great fishing day as you can see by the smiles on their clients faces and the large stringers of fish. This morning our clients caught over 100 Stripers. That is a lot of work for the guides and they certainly earned their tips today. Looks like the summer Striper bite is on!

Richie and Guy

2013-06-01T17:17:00.002-04:00

Guide DP took Guy and Richie out today. Here is his rendition of the day.

"Picked the guys up at 5:30, went to look for fish. After a short drive we found a few to set up on. We set up on 4 different small pods of fish today and would catch a dozen on each set up. This was a half day trip and at 9:15 the guys said that they wanted about 4 fish to take home to the wives, I looked in the live well and there were 8 in there already, oops! We had a dozen baits left so we set up on one more school. The first 3 fish were some of the best fish of the day and they swallowed the hooks. They would not have survived if we had released them. By then we had gone through 105 baits and boated nearly 50 stripers, allowing us to get off of the water before the lake got crowded."

John, Bruce, Collin and Ben

2013-05-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

Sunny and warm, Water temperature 75* and Clear.

I got out very early this morning, caught bait and picked the guys up at High Point. I looked for fish for about 10 minutes and found enough to set up on. We put our first set out and caught 15 Stripers in less than 30 minutes. We were on our way to a fun morning. Today we hit school after school picking 8 to 10 fish out of each stop we made. Today we took about 200 hits and caught about 50 Stripers. Collin is going to remember this trip for a long time. He went from not touching a bait and having difficulty reeling in fish to changing his own baits, setting the lines out and spanking a lot of nice Stripers today. Caught the better fish today on Cicadas.

Lowrance HDS Technology

2013-05-24T08:59:00.002-04:00

This is a picture off of a HDS-12 with traditional sonar on the upper half of the screen and Side Scan on the bottom half. DP was collecting bait for a trip early in the morning. In the sonar portion of the picture the boat is over 35 feet of water and shows some small Stripers in the upper water column with plankton stratified between 20 to 25 feet on the left side and on the bottom on the right side of the sonar screen. Very little bait is showing up on the sonar. The bottom half of the picture shows Side scan in a 60 foot scale [looking out 60 feet to the right and left side of the boat]. It clearly shows bait to the left of the boat. It also shows very clearly DP's 10 foot net and rope sinking into the bait. At this point there was one bait in the net but after letting it fall he caught about 2 dozen baits. We use this technology daily not only catching bait but also while we are on fish to track the direction the schools are moving.

This is a cropped view of the picture above showing the net falling into the bait.

This screen shot shows traditional sonar on the left side of the screen, side scan on the upper right and bottom scan on the bottom right of the screen. The Stripers are suspended between 22 to 35 feet. The line in the middle of the pic is us dropping our bait down through the Stripers. On the side scan you can see Stripers not only under our boat but more Stripers to the left side of the boat. Down scan is simply is confirming the fish under the boat. We caught about 15 fish in just a few minutes while fishing this school. If you look at the upper portion of my sonar it shows my history of the previous few minutes. The purplish square is the same as the current sonar and the further you look back to the left the further back in time we go. With the touch screen I can simply touch any area in the history, it pulls the screens back to that moment so I can view what I previously went over and if I wish I could touch that area again and way-point it to return to the exact spot.

This shot of my Lowrance shows the boat in 16 feet of water. This is a massive school of bait.

We threw the net and caught about 60 beautiful baits.

Lowrance HDS-12 Pics

2013-05-18T07:47:00.000-04:00

This picture shows a brush pile with a school of Crappie suspended just above and to the right of the pile.

This is a school of Stripers that we worked that were suspended in 15 to 20 feet of water.

This is a brush pile that rises off the bottom about 12 feet.

This is a hole in a flat that if work quite often. There are 4 screens on the Lowrance. The extreem left screen is in bottom lock at 3x zoom. The next part of the screen is traditional sonar showing Stripers near the bottom with gizzards above the fish. The bottom right screen is downscan showing a clear picture of the fish and bait.

Tires Unlimited

2013-05-16T16:37:00.001-04:00

Billy, Bill, Larry and Floyd

Billy...20 inch Bass

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 70*and Clear.

I got out very early and caught bait then picked up my clients at 5:15 at High Point. We made a short run and I put out a set of 10 planner boards and 6 or 8 downlines pulling flats. We had an earthquake yesterday and I was wondering if it would affect the fishing today like it did a couple years ago. [When we had the earthquake and aftershocks we would only catch half the fish that we were normally catching.] I put my boards up on the bank expecting to catch the fish shallow but we only took a couple hit the first 20 minutes of the morning but when I pulled out a little deeper we started getting Jammed. The guys didn't expect that kind of action and they were quite shell-shocked by 7:10 this morning. We had taken 100 hits and put over 30 fish in the boat! Our boating ratios were down because we had a clown on the boat today that thought he could do it his way. After loosing too many fish to count and knocking the largest fish of the day off his sons hook with the net he settled down somewhat resulting in us landing more fish. We left at 7:20 and looked for some more fish and bait then picked up Bill at the docks around 8. We fished the rest of the day but never had the kind of action that we had in the morning. It sure was a lot of fun for all of us today, we boated well over 50 Stripers, a couple Bass and a few Catfish.

Fibertech

2013-05-14T16:58:00.001-04:00

Daren

William

Daren, Brad and Dale Roop

Sunny, cold in the morning , Water temperature 66* and clear.

Today I got out early and caught bait so that we could have our spread out at first light. I caught the bait but one of the guys was late because he had to work till after 2 last night. We started to put our spread out around 6 but it was already too late, I could only get a bait or two out before it got hit. [I wanted to have 15 lines in the water so when the fish turned on we could have numerous hook-ups] We had constant action for about an hour, that is when I finally got all my rods baited. We hit areas nearby and picked up a few fish but the major feed was over. I set up over a few more areas before I had to take William back early to the dock so he could go to the airport. I popped a quick picture of him with a few fish, threw the fish in a cooler and sent him down the road. We went back out but our good luck charm had left us, seemed William on board was the key to catching fish. We fished different areas for 4 more hours only to catch punks and a few keepers. At 2 I decided to look for some fish in a different area and the move paid off. We had to get off the water by 3 and we had about 35 baits left. We baited our hooks and the madness began. For the next hour we had constant hook-ups and used every single bait in our tanks. We got back to the dock and snapped a quick picture of the guys holding a couple of fish each from the livewell then they had to rush off. Today we caught over 40 Stripers and a few catfish. The cold front had positioned the fish out near or over the channel today making it difficult to catch everything we saw on my Lowrance. Daren is pictured holding a couple of the fish we caught early this morning.

Happy Mothers Day

2013-05-12T16:09:00.001-04:00

This being Mothers Day Tony and I thought we would let the "Moms" sleep in so we woke up Tony's son Alec and my grandson Michael and took them fishing for a few hours this morning. Michael is pictured holding up a very nice Bass he caught and in the bottom picture both boys are doing battle with two Stripers at the same time. In the first 45 minutes of the morning they landed a dozen Stripers.

We would like to wish all Moms out there a happy and wonderful

MOTHERS DAY.

Sport, Money and Huffy

2013-05-12T12:52:00.000-04:00

Guide DP took these guys out today for a morning of Striper fishing and looks like they had plenty of action.

Steve, Bill, Steve and Brad

2013-05-10T15:58:00.002-04:00

Sunny, Warm, Water Temperature 70* and stained.

I got out early to catch bait then picked the guys up at 5:30 at the dock. I threw for another 45 minutes till I had the baits I needed then we went fishing. I set out a spread of boards pulling flats and right away we had 5 or 6 fish rise our baits and swirl them numerous times but never hooked up. After a couple hundred yards with out a fish I moved out just a little deeper and we put 4 or 5 fish in the boat within a couple minutes. We worked that pattern for a while then went and caught more bait. We set up fishing yet another pattern and everything we had out started taking hits. After 15 minutes I had to retie some rods and rebated everything and hit it again. We had a great day catching well over 20 Stripers, a Bass and a few Kitties. Today was a celebration of Bill's birthday, his loving wife Joan had bought this trip for him as a surprise birthday gift.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILL

A good day of fishing

2013-05-09T18:14:00.000-04:00

Eric Norby, Ae Yon, and Chris

Erron, Paul, Bob, Jay and Ron

Rainy morning turning into pleasant afternoon, Water temperature 66* and Stained.

Tony and myself both had trips this morning so we hit the water at 4am, caught bait and picked our clients up at the crack of dawn. Tony worked one side of the lake and I hit the other side. We both pulled big spreads of planner boards rigged with big Gizz. Both boats caught 20 Stripers each and everyone went home with great Memories and good table-fare. Fishing was spotty today, there were times of chaos when every rod would get hit as well as times of 30 to 45 minutes of no action. The weather probably had a lot to do with the action today.

A few recent catches

2013-05-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

DP took Rich and Chad out Sunday for a great day of fishing.

Here is Matt holding up a couple nice Stripers from our trip on Friday.

This is Dr. Frank Lewis holding a Citation bass that he caught fishing with me on Thursday.

Chris, Pat, Rory and Kyle

2013-05-01T18:56:00.000-04:00

Pat

DP took Rory Sullivan and his family out today for a great day on the water. Pat showed the Boys how it was done by catching the big fish of the day.

Dan Whetsell

2013-05-01T18:47:00.000-04:00

Sunny and Pleasant, Water Temperature 65* and Clear

Dan took his family out today to catch some fish and to celebrate his birthday. Dan not only caught the largest Striper of the day but also a beautiful Largemouth Bass. We boated well over 20 fish today for a enjoyable day on the water. What a great way to spend your birthday, beautiful weather, great fishing and a wonderful time with your family and Pastor.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN

Tony's trips last week

2013-04-29T11:06:00.001-04:00

Jensen

Here are a couple of Tony's charters from last week. He took Jensen out for a successful morning Spring gobbler hunt then took him fishing after the hunt for a great catch of Stripers.

Bill Irwin

HDS Pics

2013-04-20T06:56:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my boat going over some shallow structure. As you can see in the upper right side scan picture the structure is on the left side of my boat and so tall is shows a shadow behind the structure.


Here is a picture of Punk Stripers mixed in with some Herring. Notice the shadows in the Side scan of the Stripers.

This is a picture of a large rock pile.

Here is a picture showing bait on the extreme left of my sonar and downscan

along with a Striper feeding on the edge of the bait.

Gary, Dave and Bob

2013-04-17T18:29:00.003-04:00

Gary

Guide DP offered a full day trip to benefit the Moss-Nuchols elementary school PTA at a silent auction and Gary had the highest bid. Not only did Gary win the trip he caught the 2 largest fish of the trip. Thanks DP for giving a day on the water to the school.

Gary and Anna Clay

2013-04-16T16:45:00.001-04:00

Cloudy and Pleasant, Water Temperature 66* and Clear

I met my clients at High Point this morning, caught 70 pieces of bait then set out our spread pulling 20 baits on boards. We fished the morning taking hits about once every 20 minutes or so then after 11 the bite died. Gary is pictured holding his big fish of the day.

Mike, Mike, Andrew, Katie and Wes

2013-04-15T04:32:00.000-04:00

Tony took these Guys and Gall out on Sunday for a great day of fishing for Stripers. Not only was the fishing good the weather was beautiful. Looks like they forgot their Suntan Lotion!