James River Float

[Sam]

Friday, August 10, 2007

My friend and I put in his raft in the James River adjacent to the Huguenot Bridge and we floated down to the Pony Pasture.

Along the way we threw a 1 inch grub on a 1/16 jighead on 2 pound Stren mono and a Diawa spinning reel and a light 5 foot rod to catch our catfish bait as our target were the big flathead catfish in the river.

We caught at least 15 largemouth bass; 10 small mouth bass; and over 30 bluegills and redbreast sunfish.  The water was so clear that you could see the fish hitting the bait, or missing it and then turning around and coming back for a second shot.

We could also see the smallmouth and sunfish swimming among the boulders and rocks in the river.

Due to the drought, the river is very low and many times the raft scraped the top of the rocks and boulders.

We crossed over the Z-Dam to save time (dont' do this unless you know what you are doing) and started to use the sunfish for bait.

I caught 12 flatheads, with the largest being 25 pounds (citation size) and 2 channel cats.

The most exciting part of the trip was when a big flathead hit the bluegill and the rod and reel went screaming out of the raft and into the water.

My friend dove in and found the rod and reel in the boulders and I reeled in another beautiful flathead.

The river was simply beautiful. It was also cool, with a slight breeze blowing.

We saw Andrew, the Channel 12 weather man, tubing; and a bald eagle take a fish away from an osprey.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip and it brought back memories of using ultra light gear to catch bass.

I got to do this again and fish for only smallmouth and largemouth using a light rig.

[Sam]

Opps!

It is a 1/64 ball head jib; not a 1/16 size.

Sorry.

[burleytog]

Wish I would have gotten to fish the James this year.  My usual partners in crime were otherwise occupied and I had a tournament on our usual weekend.  I'm running low on catfish in the freezer too.   :'(