Lake Anna

[SkunktimesN]

Me and a bunch of friends will rent a vacation house on the private side of lake Anna from Jun 13 to 16th. We will stay near Bills Island. I'm the fisher man and I only have a kayak. Although I'm getting a fish finder, most likely I'll only be able to cover water within a two mile radius. I plan to bring all kinds of baits except an A rig. Hope I can get at least 10 bass in total for three days of fishing (although I've never been to Lake Anna before and I fear there's a good chance I'll be skunked lol).

[TOXIC]

15 hours ago, SkunktimesN said:

Me and a bunch of friends will rent a vacation house on the private side of lake Anna from Jun 13 to 16th. We will stay near Bills Island. I'm the fisher man and I only have a kayak. Although I'm getting a fish finder, most likely I'll only be able to cover water within a two mile radius. I plan to bring all kinds of baits except an A rig. Hope I can get at least 10 bass in total for three days of fishing (although I've never been to Lake Anna before and I fear there's a good chance I'll be skunked lol).

You are lucky.  You will be in Elk Creek where the water temperature will be manageable.  Mid June on the hotside the water temps can get over 80 degrees.  I’ve seen it near 100 in August.  Stay in the creek and you should do fine.  Look for the deeper drop offs.  

[Choporoz]

On 4/5/2021 at 9:29 AM, Nitrofreak said:

Let me know when your coming, I have 3 tournaments coming up on the public side, I post conditions as well as areas in this thread of all my trips there, April 24th, 25th, May 8th are my tournament dates.

Thanks for the great info, Sonny...and @TOXIC& @Logan S.  I'm fishing public side tx on 17th.   Will post observations and conditions after.

[SkunktimesN]

32 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

You are lucky.  You will be in Elk Creek where the water temperature will be manageable.  Mid June on the hotside the water temps can get over 80 degrees.  I’ve seen it near 100 in August.  Stay in the creek and you should do fine.  Look for the deeper drop offs.  

Thanks for the info! I'll do more homework and report back after the trip.

[Nitrofreak]

23 hours ago, Choporoz said:

Thanks for the great info, Sonny...and @TOXIC& @Logan S.  I'm fishing public side tx on 17th.   Will post observations and conditions after.

Your very welcome Dave, I have a tournament this weekend at SML, otherwise I would be at Anna, I may make it there the following weekend which will be the 17th, you in a yak tourney out of CR?

[Choporoz]

4 minutes ago, Nitrofreak said:

Your very welcome Dave, I have a tournament this weekend at SML, otherwise I would be at Anna, I may make it there the following weekend which will be the 17th, you in a yak tourney out of CR?

Kayak tournament.   Any public launch

[Nitrofreak]

5 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Kayak tournament.   Any public launch

Mid lake this time of year is usually good, the back Pigeon Creek usually produces as well also, the main lake point to the left of Pigeon is one in which you will probably want to investigate as well as all those little pockets on that stretch all the way up to the splits may be really good too.

[Choporoz]

7 minutes ago, Nitrofreak said:

Mid lake this time of year is usually good, the back Pigeon Creek usually produces as well also, the main lake point to the left of Pigeon is one in which you will probably want to investigate as well as all those little pockets on that stretch all the way up to the splits may be really good too.

Thank you!!  Will look at that.  I'm most familiar with Hunters Landing, so I expected to spend much of the day in Plentiful.  I thought the two bays just south of Stubbs Bridge might also be productive.  But, I'm not sure I'll get to pre-fish, so I was going in a bit blind.  I'm going to research Pigeon. 

[Nitrofreak]

I wish you the best buddy, let us know how you get along if you would please !!

[Nitrofreak]

I fished her yesterday (Sunday) surface temps were in the low 60’s close to the dam, water clarity was roughly 5 to 6 feet in a lot of places, mid lake surface temps were mid 60’s all the way into the backs of creek arms, clarity was roughly 3-4 feet, up lake temps were mid to upper 60’s, clarity was about a foot to a foot and a half.

 

Bass in the lower ends to mid lake are pushing up at the mouths of major creek channels, some were paired up already, the first major pockets in almost all of the lower sections had some quality fish on them but they were not in any mood to participate, the upper sections appear to have already been done with the spawn, I graphed some fish that seemed to be just hovering around some deeper lay downs and on some of the flats in those areas, by next week the upper regions should be producing some quality bites again, I did fish some of the grass that was just starting to turn green and managed a couple of swipes (nips more or less) at my spinner bait, that’s a good sign of things to come, there will be lots of pressure up there soon I suspect so be prepared to finesse them as well.

 

I have a tournament next weekend there and will add to this post with updated conditions.

 

Thanks for reading and replying to the thread guys, best of luck and be safe !!

[TOXIC]

Odd, normally the spawn starts down lake first and then moves up the lake into the river arms.  

[Nitrofreak]

9 hours ago, TOXIC said:

Odd, normally the spawn starts down lake first and then moves up the lake into the river arms.  

The last time I have been able to make it over to the lake with any frequency at all was a few years ago and that was my experience as well, all of the shallow pockets up in the northern stretches were dotted with pan fish where I would normally find bass on the beds, the further north I went the warmer the surface temps got, from the top to the bottom there is a significant difference that showed up on my units, just judging by what I saw and experienced up north I believe they very well could be done already, it certainly seemed that way.

[Nitrofreak]

Weekend tournament was an absolute bust for me and my partner, the water temps had dropped significantly from the previous weekend visit, Saturday we managed a limit but it didn’t come easy at all, Sunday was an absolute disaster, I managed one bite from a day in which we fished in, we fished out, we explored and fished many structural changes, many cover options, many techniques were employed when we located fish but to no avail, I personally focused on fishing my strengths after coming out empty handed by mid morning, drop shot, finesse style skirted jigs, shaky heads, those are my confidence baits and I flat wore them out, the winds were brutal, so much so that I had to flip a jig 5-7 feet to the side of I wanted to hit my intended target, just a difficult day all around but the one thing I am very proud of is that we never gave up until the last seconds ticked off the clock, we were both plum tuckered out.

 

Thanks guys and gals for the read and I hope you all have a great day !!!

[Sam]

Were you down-lake, mid-lake, or up-lake?

 

Did you hit the docks and rip rap?

 

I did not read "Wacky Senkos" in your report. Did you throw any stick baits wacky rigged, along with any trick worms rigged wacky, too?

 

Fished any marinas or creeks with marinas on them?

 

Just curious.

[Nitrofreak]

9 hours ago, Sam said:

Were you down-lake, mid-lake, or up-lake?

 

Did you hit the docks and rip rap?

 

I did not read "Wacky Senkos" in your report. Did you throw any stick baits wacky rigged, along with any trick worms rigged wacky, too?

 

Fished any marinas or creeks with marinas on them?

 

Just curious.

Sunday is what I am assuming your asking about?

 

We started in Anna River at Sunset Cove and worked up to Barnes Point, both sides of that area, suspending jerk baits in Nude to Shad pattern colors, SK 100’s, LC Pointers, 110 and 78, MB vision 110, drop shot with Robo worms, Berkley finesse, Zoom, Missile Baits Bomb shot, SK Ocho from white to natural colors, Wacky Rigged as well as nose hooked, we left that area and went to Ware’s point and fished all in there up to Stubbs Bridge and down to the State Park area, same baits added a couple of square billed Spro Little John 50 series flat sided crank baits, we left there and went to Pigeon Creek fished that entire area, left there and went to Mitchell Creek we fished the back half of that entire area, added finesse flipping jigs, first and only fish on Sunday came off of that technique, left there and fished the mid lake region from the 208 bridge down to Sturgeons Creek.

 

Saturday we started in the back of Pigeon Creek, left there and went to Valentine, Blount, Dukes, Boggs, Sturgeon, all of those were heavily pressured as well as the upper regions of the lake.

 

[Sam]

Thanks, Nitro.

 

Seems the lower lake towards Dike 1 is producing more now than the mid and upper lake areas.

 

Great report. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

[Nitrofreak]

50 minutes ago, Sam said:

Thanks, Nitro.

 

Seems the lower lake towards Dike 1 is producing more now than the mid and upper lake areas.

 

Great report. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Your very welcome, The issue is with me, we found fish but I need more experience on that lake this time of year, I never fished it during any of the spawning month that have in memory, just never had any interest in disturbing/disrupting the process as personal opinion, can’t say that I didn’t try this past weekend that’s for sure ?? I have some work to do before I try that again.

[Nitrofreak]

Next Anna update will be in two weeks, I have a club Benefit tournament on the 8th, hopefully I can do a little better next time around for you guys.

[TOXIC]

Looks to me like you explored every option.  When I was regularly guiding on Anna, the key was to get on fish and stay on them.  Trying to find them from scratch is always a chore on that lake.  You went upper to mid and lower and that’s about all you can do if you haven’t been on the water a lot and located some.  I had spots that always held fish but they were not tournament grade, they were what I called “client fish”.  

[Nitrofreak]

On 4/28/2021 at 9:26 AM, TOXIC said:

Looks to me like you explored every option.  When I was regularly guiding on Anna, the key was to get on fish and stay on them.  Trying to find them from scratch is always a chore on that lake.  You went upper to mid and lower and that’s about all you can do if you haven’t been on the water a lot and located some.  I had spots that always held fish but they were not tournament grade, they were what I called “client fish”.  

I could not cover the whole lake but I thought that I covered enough that I felt like we should have run into enough to have a shot, there were I believe 3 tournaments on Saturday which might have contributed to not gathering the weight we needed due to fishing behind others but in all we did catch our limit so I’m ok with that but Sunday came and she just smacked me around like a red headed step child, we covered a lot more water but I believe we may have fished too fast looking back on it now since the front hit but I really thought that big wind would help locate some but it simply just was not my day.

 

I am in total agreement with you, I need more time on the water during this time of the year, I think I need to start about a month earlier actually and not bother bringing any fishing gear, just me and my sonars and scan, scan, scan.

 

Thanks for the reply @TOXIC

[Brad Reams]

Fished Anna for the first time since mid 90's!

Fished out of Christoper Run, on Sun-Mon-Tues.

 

Sunday PM was pretty brutual, high winds and trying to learn the lake on a slow day. 68-69 Temp

 

Monday was real good, started with drizzle and light rain till mid afternoon.  Bite was consistent.  70-71 Temp

 

Tuesday was good, not great and Temp 72-74. 

Caught 90% off Riprap in 5-10'  

no bites chasing lures

Did all of the fishing above 208 bridge. 

[Nitrofreak]

On 5/4/2021 at 9:44 PM, Brad Reams said:

Fished Anna for the first time since mid 90's!

Fished out of Christoper Run, on Sun-Mon-Tues.

 

Sunday PM was pretty brutual, high winds and trying to learn the lake on a slow day. 68-69 Temp

 

Monday was real good, started with drizzle and light rain till mid afternoon.  Bite was consistent.  70-71 Temp

 

Tuesday was good, not great and Temp 72-74. 

Caught 90% off Riprap in 5-10'  

no bites chasing lures

Did all of the fishing above 208 bridge. 

Sounds like you had some fun !!

I have a club Benefit tournament tomorrow there, no points involved but I am going to take this event and spend some time with her, I have a different approach than I had two weeks ago, maybe it will work, maybe it won’t but I will defiantly come away with some educational experience that I need for this time of year.

 

I don’t know if I will have a report for you guys by weekends end but I will try, thanks for the post and I hope you get back soon to fish her some more !!

 

Be safe !!!

[Nitrofreak]

Well, yesterday I had a grey matter malfunction but all in all a great day.

 

We started the day focusing on areas in which the old river channels would swing close to points, which in turn provided for some good adjustments throughout the day.

 

Water surface temps stayed roughly the same throughout the the day, 66-67.4, clarity depended on areas that were not affected by the high winds we fished in, some areas had roughly 3.5 to 4 feet of visibility while others had maybe a foot and a half.

 

We started our day at the Northern point of Marshall Creek (the one on the left at the splits) and worked our way around that point, picked up our first two on a deep fronted dock and deep laydown, the dock was in 23’ of water, the laydown in 32’, this told me that they were doing both moving in and out as well so we went up to fish Ware cove and a couple of other pockets near the State Park and struck out, we came back to fish some pockets that had man made cover, I.E. docks and brush piles near the old channels and found that the further away we got from our game plan the less success we had so we stuck with it and fished the areas, specifically pockets, of Rose Valley, Harlow Point, Godwins Point that had a mixture of man made and natural cover.

 

The gray matter malfunction came after I had caught our first two bass within the first 45 minutes of the day, one being that I had a deep bite happening and two being that they came from my favorite jig set up.

 

That combination led me to get all excited and worked up over what “I thought” the day was going to hold, shortly after catching those two bass I began having issues skipping my skirted finesse jig under and into any area I wanted to fish, I was not having any issues skipping my swim jig nor my shaky head nor my weightless presentation, I let that get to me and in turn kept trying to force something that I shouldn’t have which also in turn cost us valuable time.

 

The one huge takeaway from yesterday was that the adjustments we made in fishing areas of the lake gave me a ton of confidence that what we were doing was the right thing, all we lacked in our efforts was for a couple of bigger ones to come play with us, had I been more open minded and not tried to keep forcing something to work we may very well have had that opportunity.

 

All in all it was a great day, we ended up with a 12.07 bag, not sure exactly where we finished out of 15 boats but I will take it because we learned a ton about that lake for this time of year, big improvement from two short weeks ago.

 

Thanks for reading guys and I wish you all the best !!!

 

[Str8BraidPowa]

My fishing buddy and i took our first shot at Lake Anna yesterday. It was pretty cool to fish in 5'-6' of clear water, we are used to the Chickahominy lake and river with little to no visibility. We caught 5 lost the last one, would have been the 6th and my best fish of the day. Most were only 1-2 lb, one of my buddies was close to 3. We both caught one on a brown jig, I caught two on a jerk bait, my buddy caught his second on a white spinner bait. we spent most of the day in the lower section of the lake. It was fun we shall return soon!  

[Sam]

On 5/4/2021 at 9:44 PM, Brad Reams said:

Fished Anna for the first time since mid 90's!

Fished out of Christoper Run, on Sun-Mon-Tues.

 

Sunday PM was pretty brutual, high winds and trying to learn the lake on a slow day. 68-69 Temp

 

Monday was real good, started with drizzle and light rain till mid afternoon.  Bite was consistent.  70-71 Temp

 

Tuesday was good, not great and Temp 72-74. 

Caught 90% off Riprap in 5-10'  

no bites chasing lures

Did all of the fishing above 208 bridge. 

Good report. Thanks. Now go out there next year and clobber them!