Central VA Fishing Report: January Recap

[TheKurrent]

Howdy All! New to the posting side on Bass Resource, but not new as a lurker to the forums or a fisherman in general. 

 

One of my goals for 2023 was to start journaling in my personal life, recording my activities (both on the water and on the bike) and be more organized in general. With that, I wanted to share some of my backdated fishing logs from my days on the water in January of 2023 as we come to a close. Holler if you have any feedback / questions, find this useful or want to get out for some catching.

 

Total Days on the Water: 4

Total Bass Caught: 12

Waters Fished: Lake Chesdin (0 fish and only one outing) and Chickahominy Lake

Top Baits: Lipless Crank, Spinnerbait and Texas Rig

Overview of Best Day: Launched out of Eagle's Landing at Chick on Jan 7 at 9am with water temps around 45, 2-3' water visibility and a full moon the night before. Started the day off with my usual 7 rod setup, 3 spinning rods (shakey head, texas rig & underspin) and 4 casting (lipless, spinnerbait, chatterbait and a glide bait). 10 minutes into the morning and a BIG pickerel slammed the spinnerbait right next to a cypress knee. The next 3-4 hours were junk fishing, swapping through all my baits and multiple different area types looking for a bite; flipping cypress, ripping grass flats, scanning deep dropoffs, current breaks, etc to no avail. The clock struck 2pm and the bite was on... For the next hour, 5 bites came through with 4 on the spinnerbait and 1 on the texas rig. And just like that, the bite turned back off. Moved back over to a grass flat around 4 and found another big pickerel on a lipless. And that was it.. In all, a 5 fish bag (maybe 10lbs) was pretty successful from my standards in the winter. The key for the day being that one hour bite window during a major moon phase and fishing a shallow bank with a big dropoff nearby. 

 

Biggest of my January fish, weighing in just under 4. This was a one fish day and came 5 hours into a 6 hour day bouncing a lipless on a grass flat. 

 

 

Looking forward to February with a trip to Florida in the works and hopefully some more days on the water. 

 

Cheers,

Kyle

 

[Matt Bacola]

Cool write up, Chickahominy Lake has been on my list to check out for a while. You mentioned "a bike" mountain bike?

[TheKurrent]

@Matt Bacola - it’s typically good for a few fish and one of the closer lakes to drop the boat in from Richmond. Would definitely recommend it over most others from a distance perspective. 
 

I split my time between mountain and gravel. A bit more on gravel these days.