Kerr Lake Striper and Bass report My cousin Jim reports that the stripers were pulling hard on Kerr Lake recently. Jim, his son Joshua, and local angler Randy Owen went out last weekend and brought in a nice limit of stripers. They were up near the dam and landed some good fish using jigging spoons (pink and white from what I heard).
Angler Mark Inman won the two day BFL divisional regional event on Kerr last weekend. Inman, of Greensboro, N.C., caught 10-bass weighing 24 pounds, 7 ounces to win $6,604 in the BFL Piedmont Division tournament. He reported using spinner baits, crank baits, and spoons to catch his limit. He was fishing mid lake and said that the top water bite was good early and then he switched to spoons to get the afternoon bite. Local ace Jeff Coble from Manson, N.C. brought in eight bass weighing 18 pounds 9 ounces to take home $767 for 7th place.
On the co-angler side 16 year old up and coming angler Tyler Purcell from Chapel Hill, N.C. took 7th place with four bass weighing 11 pounds to READ MORE ....
Emerald Isle Fishing report Susan, Fred, and I pulled out of Henderson early Friday morning and headed to Morehead City for a couple of days of camping, sun tanning, pier fishing and general relaxation (along with a few good meals of shrimp and oysters). On the way we pulled into a Piggly Wiggly parking lot near Pikeville to fix some breakfast. Susan opened the camper refrigerator door to get out the bacon and an Orange Crush can fell out, landing on its edge and almost breaking her big toe. The can had fallen over on the ride, positioning itself in the door in anticipation of ruining her vacation. Luckily the broken toe turned into a bad bruise by late Friday and she was walking with a slight limp by Saturday morning.
Fishing was slow on the Bogue Inlet pier, with a few fish being caught early in the morning and just before dark each day. Someone also hooked a huge tarpon late Friday but it jumped and threw the hook. A nice king mackerel weighing 24 pounds 7 ounces was landed there Friday morning. Th READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 3:54 am
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Fishing Report - Kerr Lake Well it finally happened – Susan and I fished together in a bass tournament without winning. We were 4 for 4 going into a small husband and wife event on Kerr Lake on Saturday, and hoped to make it 5 in a row. Susan even caught a bass that we could weigh this time, but it wasn’t enough to put us in the money. We ended up with a 5 fish limit weighing 6 pounds 15 ounces, enough for 3rd place but no money, as they only paid the top 2 places. At least we weren’t in last place. Most of our fish came on top water lures and crank baits before 9:00 AM. We lost a few good ones that might have put us in the money if they’d made it to the boat.
Despite temperatures in the low 90’s Susan, Fred and I all made it fine. We started drinking water and gator aid before day break and drank steadily all day long. The 20 bottles we carried with us seemed like more than enough but it turned out to be exactly how much we needed as we split the last bottle on the ride back to the house. Fred sta READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 4:47 pm
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Kerr Lake Fishing Report Susan, Fred and I had a great time at Kerr Lake with my mother Ellen last weekend. Momma even rode on the back of the Jet Ski with Susan and Fred for over 2 hours Saturday, covering nearly all of the Nutbush Creek area of the lake. I wish I’d thought to get some pictures. While they were out cruising, Vern Fleming and I were competing in a small tournament that launched in Grass Creek.
We’d practiced on Friday with little success, other than one keeper I caught using a plastic worm on a point back in Grassy Creek. There were a lot of fish and schools of bait visible on the sonar unit, but getting one to bite proved difficult. We even tried to get up into the Roanoke River beyond Clarksville, but between the shallow water and the mats of hydrilla grass that had choked the river, we could not safely get by the silted in area where the Dan River and Roanoke meet. Vern remembered how in years past the fish would often bite better way up river than they do on the main lake this tim READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 4:20 pm
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Kerr Lake Report With much of my family up at the lake visiting last weekend I didn’t get a lot of fishing in, but the fish I did catch were nice ones. After spending most of Friday being a plumber, I finally got on the water at around 4:30. I fished around Nutbush Bridge a few minutes with no success, then drove a mile or so to a rock pile that I’d found recently on my sonar unit. The first cast was nailed by a big bass that decided to try and swallow a Dolphin colored Zoom Tapp. I thought at first it was a striper because it ran really fast like stripers do, and it also never jumped like a bass. When I finally brought the fish alongside the boat I saw it was a big bass. She had the crank bait sideways in her mouth which tells you that it’s the right color. If the fish has just one hook it usually means that it was just nipping at the bait because it wasn’t completely fooled by the lure, but when they swallow it sideways it means they thought it was a real baitfish.
Kerr and Gaston reports Well I had a great time catching bass on Lake Gaston last Friday, but in hind sight I would probably have been better off practicing for Saturday’s tournament on Kerr Lake. Based on my wife Susan’s recommendation that I not practice (since she thinks I do better when I don’t) I went into Saturdays event blind so to speak, having not fished on Kerr at all since early July. As it turned out the Kerr bite was somewhat shallower than I anticipated, and had I practiced I may have figured that out in time for Saturdays Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament. The bass seemed to be lying in ambush around cover in 5 – 10 foot of water, waiting for small schools of young butterbean sized shad to pass by, offering an easy meal. I didn’t realize this until Sunday when I went out fishing for fun with Susan and Fred.
I did have two nice fish Saturday weighing 6.31 pounds total, including one that weighed nearly 4.5 pounds. One came on a jig around rocks, and the other on a plastic worm on a READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jul 29, 2010 at 2:51 pm
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Way up North Report From last week’s trip to the great North –
On the first night in my campsite at the Plattsburg NY RV Park I met two nice couples from Quebec City who I found out travel 3.5 hours each way weekly to camp and boat on Lake Champlain. I was grilling a steak and getting ready to go in my camper to eat when they asked if I would care to bring my plate over and join them for dinner. Being the outgoing people person that I am I said sure and we had a great meal and discussion. Most of our talk centered around politics, mainly on how they feel about Canada’s government provided healthcare system.
They weren’t very pleased with the state of healthcare in their country, and reported that if you get a major illness you have two choices. Either wait in line for services until you die, or travel to the US and pay for your own healthcare. They also reported that while education including college is basically free in Canada, most doctors move to the US when they graduate in order to make READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jul 22, 2010 at 12:58 pm
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Kerr Lake Striper and Catfish report Randy Owen from Henderson sends this report from Kerr Lake -
I went out on Kerr Lake Friday at 2:00 p.m. to do some live baiting for Stripers. We put the boat in at County Line park and made our way through the Islands, eventually coming upon a nice size school of Stripers in 40 foot of water.
Joel Bartholomew (AKA Houndog) and I dropped 6 lines in the water. Houndog caught a 6 lb striper and then I had a take down. I grabbed the rod and I knew right then it was something big. It took a good 10 min to get him up just
to see that it was a Blue Catfish. As soon as he saw the boat he went straight back down to the bottom. On the 3rd time when he came up, Houndog was able to get the net under his head just before he bolted out of the net and went back to the bottom.
On the 4th time when he came up Houndog was able to net his head and I threw the rod down and grabbed his tail and the other side of the net. It took a total of 30 minutes from the time I hooked him to the READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jul 22, 2010 at 12:08 pm
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Kerr Lake fishing (not catching) report Last weekend I experienced some of the slowest bass fishing on Kerr Lake that I’ve ever seen. It’s always slow this time of year, but it was brutal last weekend. I caught only a few small bass over 4 days fishing (I only fished a few hours each day due to the heat). The one good bass I hooked at around 5:00 AM on Monday morning jumped and threw the hook after eating the white and black Jitterbug I was retrieving by the rocks on Nutbush Bridge.
There were a lot of boats out jigging, live baiting and trolling for stripers. Randy Owen from Henderson reported catching nice limits of stripers between 6 and 11 pounds, as well as several catfish, all on live bait.
I will be going from the slowest fishing I have experienced in a while to what I expect will be some of the best fishing I have ever experienced, as I am heading to Lake Champlain on the US Canada border for 10 days of bass fishing, the last 3 of which will be in the FLW American Fishing Series tournament. Last year w READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jul 8, 2010 at 11:34 am
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Kerr Lake Fishing report You may find this hard to believe (I know I do and besides I AM a fisherman), but my wife Susan, our dog Fred and I won a husband and wife tournament on Kerr Lake this past Saturday. No that’s not the part that’s hard to believe, but this is - Susan and I have entered 4 tournaments over the last few years, and we have come in first place in all 4 of them, along with catching the biggest fish in two. While the latest tournament was not a big event and had only 6 teams competing, one of the others was a big deal with 59 boats, and the other 2 were around 20 boats each. Now that’s hard for even me to believe.
We aren’t sure whether this results from our each of our kindred spirits motivating the mood of the other thru praise and mutual love, therefore positively impacting our performance, or that we aggravate each other to the point that we perform well to spite each other. I tend to hope it’s the former.
Using last Friday as a practice day, I landed several fish, including two READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Wed Jun 30, 2010 at 2:24 pm
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Jolly Mon My King Mackerel tournament fishing career seems to have begun much like my bass fishing career did, coming in just barely out of the money. We weighed in a 16.95 pound fish to take 34th place in the Jolly Mon King Mackerel tournament out of Ocean Isle this past Sunday. Fishing on a 26 foot Sea Hunt named “Stick Slinger” with my cousin Jim Bowen (he’s in the lumber business) and friends Will Callihan and Skip Canipe, we landed the big king at 4:29 PM with a 30 minute ride between us and the Ocean Isle fishing center where the scales closed at 5:00 PM. If our fish had weighed 1.05 pounds more we’d have taken 31st place, which paid $1,047. But you know what they say, if if’s and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a wonderful Christmas.
Slow trolling triple and single Pogies at Yaupon Reef got us the bite that almost put us in the money, and we were in the same area where the winning fish was landed. A local team on the boat “Do Work” captained by Jeff Beck from Ocean Isle READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 9:52 pm
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Gaston and Kerr report Well Vern and I cashed a check in last weekend’s final NC Central division of the Fishers of Men tournament on Lake Gaston, but we came up 2 points short of capturing the year end points championship. We ended up in 9th place for the day and took home $196 with 5 fish weighing 12.53 pounds after one good fish jumped and got loose that looked to be between 3 and 4 pounds. That one would have culled a two pounder and put us in the top 3 or 4, plus given us the point’s championship. One fish lost equaled over $2,000 in missed money.
Franklin County Finance Director Chuck Murray and his partner Randy Groves brought in 5 fish weighing 19.3 pounds to take 1st place in the Michael Henry Memorial Tournament. Chuck is on a roll coming off a big win in Kentucky last week. They didn’t offer much in the way of information about their catch, but they probably used a combination of crank baits and football jigs.
I caught the fish in the attached picture late Sunday afternoon on Kerr Lake j READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jun 17, 2010 at 2:30 pm
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Fishing report from way up the Roanoke River Although this site is NC focused, I wanted to report on my trip up to Smith Mountain Lake last weekend (actually that’s all I have to report on this week).
I took Thursday and Friday off from work and headed up to Virginia last Wednesday night to start practicing for Saturdays Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament at SML. The weather was hot but not too bad, and the fishing was great both Thursday and Friday. Bass were positioned around the outside post of deepwater docks, those with 20 foot of water at the end. By looking at my map I was able to find 4 good areas where the old Blackwater River channel came close to the shore and repeat that pattern.
Early Thursday morning I saw a school of fish busting the surface out in open water and was able to catch a couple of nice stripers on a Zara Spook before they disappeared, both close to 10 pounds.
I also took the photo accompanying this report while fishing near buoy B8. This is what you do when you have plenty of money a READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Jun 10, 2010 at 2:38 pm
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Vern Fleming and I headed over to Gaston Lake last early this past Saturday hoping to get in a few hours of pre-fishing to check out a few spots in preparation for the season ending Fishers of Men event there where we hope to win the points championship. We are 9 points out of first place with only the Gaston event remaining. We hit the water around 6 AM and started catching smaller bass right off the bat on crank baits and Carolina Rigs. There was one place along that old roadbed where I have always caught a few decent fish and there was one there this time as well. We headed over to the Holly Grove next and caught several fish, most small except for one good one off a deep stump.
Sunday I had a big day lined up with a lot of family coming in for a cookout and homemade ice cream, but I was able to squeeze in a couple of hours of fishing on Kerr Lake before it got too hot. The fish were biting and I’d landed a nice limit before 7:30, mainly on Carolina Rigs on main lake points. READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Well I had big plans last weekend that involved moving from my home of 15 years into a new house on Saturday, then fishing in a bass tournament on Jordan Lake on Sunday. About 9:00 PM Saturday night, with what looked like at least 6 more hours of moving left to do, soaking wet from unhooking the refrigerator ice maker and discovering that the valve was broken and setting of a BP oil spill sized geyser of water in my old houses kitchen, I made the decision to abandon thoughts of fishing anywhere on Sunday.
Last Saturday my cousin Jim Bowen took a trip to the Jungle, a large live bottom about 20 miles offshore of Little River SC. His son Dylan took one of his friends, Hylan and it was his first trip offshore. They started putting the lines out and got hit, King on!! Well, he was on. They put the lines back out and twice more this same thing happened with Hylan losing the first three fish. Then it was Dylan’s turn and he put fish in the boat like always.. Hylan did pretty good READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Vern Fleming and I won this weekend’s Fishers of Men Central Division tournament on Kerr Lake with 5 fish weighing 14.16 pounds. We were fortunate to find several good groups of fish and had a limit (5 fish) by 7:15 and culled throughout the day. I hooked up with the big fish of the day on a Zenith Junior D crank bait at around 11:00 am. On the prior cast I had hooked and landed a large chain pickerel. At first I thought that fish was a big bass after seeing it just below the surface, only to be disappointed to see a jackfish at the net. When the 4.49 pounder struck on the next cast I figured it was just another jack, yet that all changed when she almost cleared the water on the first jump. That fish was strong and I had to peel off line several times before getting it close enough for Vern to net. Several other good fish came on plastic lures.
We had one fish in our creel that was just less than 2 pounds, and we both felt that we needed to cull that one in order to have a ch READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Tue May 18, 2010 at 9:19 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Vern Fleming and I competed in last weekend’s Boys and Girls Club of North Central North Carolina fundraiser tournament on Kerr Lake. Chuck Murray and the BGCNCNC crew did a great job putting on the event. We especially enjoyed the biscuits they handed out at check in. We caught enough fish to weigh in a 7 fish limit as specified in the tournament flyer and as broadcasted numerous times prior to blast off. Unfortunately neither of us caught that there was a 7 fish limit, and we started culling at 5 fish. We would not have gotten a check even with our best 7, but we would have certainly looked more respectable and not felt quite as foolish. Oh well, live and learn. We caught fish on spinner baits and Carolina Rigs. It took Robert Walser and Eddie Cook 16.6 pounds to take the win for the $5,000. The top 7 all had over 16 pounds, and it took almost 15.5 pounds to get a check.
Vern had practiced during the week, and our starting spot had been covered in good sized bass when he READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu May 13, 2010 at 12:17 pm
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter My son and I decided to skip the wildcat at High Rock Lake last Sunday morning and head over to the new lake that was created on the Deep River by the newly constructed Randleman Dam near Asheboro, NC. This brand new lake just opened for boaters a month back. Reports were that the fish were biting like crazy. That often happens on a new lake, much like the stories I have heard over the years about how Kerr Lake was during the 50’s and 60’s when it first opened. The newly filled lake overtakes ponds and creeks, and those fish (along with fish stocked by wildlife management) grow fast the first few years on all the nutrients from the areas recently covered by the new lake.
There is a 100 boat limit enforced by the lake warden there, so we got there around 5:30 and were boat #21. In line in front of us was Joel Richardson, who had brought a guide friend of his from Vermont, (Captain Gilbert Gagner of Bronzeback Guide Service), along with Joel’s dad. They said this was their secon READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter I decided to head up to Clarksville, VA Friday to begin my practice for last weekends Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament on Kerr Lake. My thinking was that I would either eliminate that end of the lake from my list of possible areas or confirm it. After fishing until after 9:00 without a keeper in Bluestone, Buffalo and several main lake cuts the decision was easy. I took out and headed to the south end of the lake, launching out of Hibernia landing to spend the rest of my practice between Eastland Creek and Nutbush Bridge.
I caught 3 nice keepers along with a bunch of short fish on secondary points, including one that seemed to be loaded with fish, before taking out and heading up to South Hill, VA for the tournament meeting and pairing. A friend also reported catching good fish in the same general area so my plan was made.
Tournament day started off just as I had envisioned it, right up to the point where the 3 pounder I hooked on a fat free shad jumped and threw the hook READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 4:52 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Fishing was good at Kerr Lake this past weekend. I fished Eastland and Nutbush Creeks, landing some decent fish on both Saturday and Sunday. With the water dropping down below 303 and pulling out of most bushes, it looks like the fish may be setting up on secondary points, some on there way in to spawn and many on their way out.
Many of the fish I landed were on secondary points in around 8 foot of water. No really big ones were caught, however I did see a co-angler in Saturdays BFL event land a nice 5 pounder on a small spinner bait. His angler partner looked pretty shook up.
Crappies are biting as evidenced by the crowds lining the bank in many of the shallow cuts, especially near Williamsboro Wayside.
The small bass in the picture was caught on a crank bait that was about the same size as he was. It must have been one of last years spawn, and he was confident he could swallow a zoom small duck that was about one inch shorter than he was. It was a beautiful fish. T READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Tue Apr 20, 2010 at 5:31 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter This past weekend was a learning experience for me, especially on Sunday. More on that later.
Saturday morning Vern Fleming and I launched my boat early at Farrington Point ramp on Jordan Lake to participate in a team benefit tournament. Vern had spent Thursday there trying to locate fish and a pattern with limited success. We headed to a no name cove where we have had success in the past this time of year and I made a long cast with a crank bait across a rocky point. At least it should have been a long cast, and would have been except for the giant backlash that developed in my reel that jolted the lure to a halt about half way to its intended target. After spending 5 minutes recovering from that disaster by cutting half my line off the reel I was back in business. The fish didn’t seem to want crank baits or spinner baits, so we started working down the bank flipping small soft plastic lures to bushes and lay downs.
Noticing a slight jump in my line when the lure was settlin READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Fri Apr 16, 2010 at 4:09 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter I welcomed the chance to spend this past weekend fun fishing with my wife Susan and dog Fred. I was off on Friday for Easter and spent the day catching decent bass at Kerr Lake, most on a wacky rigged weightless bubblegum colored senko. I caught around 10 keepers and the best 5 would have probably been between 11 and 12 pounds. The largest was probably close to 3.5 pounds. I spent the day in the Hibernia area of Nutbush Creek. Fish were biting well in some cuts and others areas were very slow.
Susan, Fred and I spent the day Saturday fishing in the same general areas as on Friday, but the bite was completely different. It seemed that the bigger fish were off the bank a ways, maybe due to the water dropping just as rapidly as it had risen the week before. After having very little success on the senko, I ended up catching some good fish on a weighted wacky rigged worm in 6 – 8 foot of water, including two close to 4 pounds. My best five would have been close to 14 pounds. I h READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Lake Gaston was busy again this past weekend, as there were several large and small tournaments launched on Saturday. I competed in the Bassmaster Weekend Series which had 81 boats that launched out of Americamps. In practice on Friday I landed a 21.5 pound blue catfish that swallowed a red rattle trap I was burning over a shallow flat in 2 foot of water. I also caught a nice bass there that hit the trap while it was hung on a stump.
Saturday started off cold as ice, and the cold front had slowed the bite down considerably. I was still able to catch 4 nice keepers on crank baits and Carolina rigged Zoom speed worms, but the bite went away by around 9:00. I headed upriver to some docks in a shallow cut and caught one more nice fish on a green Senko, which turned out to be my last keeper. This gave me around 8.4 pounds and 12th place in this first tournament on that trail. The winner was Phil Bain of Youngsville who had a five fish limit. I read that he found a 10-yard sweet READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Wed Mar 31, 2010 at 3:18 pm
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Lake Gaston was a popular place last weekend, as there were at least 4 tournaments launched on Saturday, one of which had 123 boats, the Anglers Choice Invitational. The ramps were crowded which is a good thing because it means that despite the economy people are getting out and fishing. The winners in the Anglers Choice, Scott Griffin and Neal Robertson, had a five fish limit weighing 19.61 pounds. I competed in the ABA district tournament and we had 39 boats, with the top spot weighing just less than 14 pounds. I caught 8 fish Saturday, but only 2 measured and they were only 13 inches long for around 2 pounds, which landed me way back in the standings.
Sunday I fished in another ABA tournament. There were a number of other events that day as well. There were 31 boats in ours, many of whom had fished in the ABA the day before. It seemed that some of the fisherman that caught them good on Saturday struggled on Sunday but my luck turned around. Having only one short fish in READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Tue Mar 23, 2010 at 5:59 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Well the bass fishing really turned on at Shearon Harris Lake this weekend. The Fishers of Men trail held their kickoff event for the NC Central division and 66 teams launched out of Hollman’s Crossing ramp. When it was all said and done there were ten sacks weighing over 20 pounds brought in, of which the largest was the 27.49 landed by Ricky Petty and Jason Michael.
Vern Fleming and I teamed up to take 6th place with 22.05 pounds. We also landed the 2nd largest bass of the day, taking 2nd big fish money with a 10.63 sow that ate a senko. I thought I was going to win big fish until one of the last teams to weigh brought in a 10.89 pounder that knocked me down to 2nd. There were 2 fish over 10 lbs, 2 over 9, and 8 over 7 pounds brought in.
We only had a little over 8 pounds at 1:00 and then found some shallow fish. I casted the senko by some grass and pulled a small backlash out. When I reeled down I noticed that my line had moved about 20 feet, and knowing that senkos READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 3:57 pm
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Billy Lawson and Tony Vernon won the Stokes County 2010 5th Annual Bass Fishing Tournament that launched out of Carolina Marina on Belews Lake on Saturday, March 6th, 2010. They took home the $2000 first place prize money, as well as contributing to a great cause along with the other 60 or so teams.
It was bone chilling cold when we launched. Even the hot and now doughnuts were frozen, but they were still delicious, as was the hot percolated coffee. I competed with a friend of my sons. Patrick Helton. This was his first bass tournament and I hoped we’d do better that the 28th place we ended up in with 3 fish weighing a little less than 6 pounds. First place had around 15.5 pounds. One of our fish came on a crank bait and several others came on Carolina Rigged Zoom 4” Dead Ringer in Green Pumpkin. There weren’t a lot of 8 fish limits, and many of the best local anglers came up short. Billy and Tony have a lot of experience on Belews and can be expected to place near the top i READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Sun Mar 7, 2010 at 10:55 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Well even though the water temperature is still in the low 40’s at Shearon Harris the bass fishing has started to pick up some. My son Jimmie and I fished all day Saturday practicing for a Sunday tournament without a bite, except for one big channel catfish I caught late in the day jigging a blade bait. We came in to watch the 3 o’clock Carolina Bass Series (CBS) weigh in and found that many of them had experienced the same kind of day. One fish weighing 2.32 pounds won that event and they took home over $1100 for the one fish. I know they probably were not figuring on that when they came in.
Sunday’s Mid-Atlantic Tournament Trail out of Hollemans launched at around 6:45 AM in subfreezing temperatures. We headed to a cove with a somewhat steep bank where I had caught a big fish the week before hoping to catch a big fish on small crank baits. We stayed with that for about an hour without success, except for one I lost on a rattle trap that looked to be about 18 inches long, whi READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Sun Feb 28, 2010 at 8:35 pm
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter I spent one day last weekend fishing in the land of the hawgs, Shearon Harris Lake. While no super hawgs came to my boat, one that looked close to 5 pounds (but would have been short of the 20 inch slot limit) fell for a small shad rap (#5) in a shad color. Unfortunately I tossed her back right before remembering that I wanted to take a picture for this posting, and had to make do with the photo of the 13” fish I caught a little later in the day.
I heard reports from several smaller club type tournaments held there last weekend where no keeper fish were caught, and one other where a single hawg around 9 pounds won.
There are two good sized tournaments at Harris this weekend. One on Saturday 2/27 by the Carolina Bass Series (CBS) launching out of Hollemans. More information is available on their web site at www.carolinabassseries.com. The other is on Sunday put on by the Mid-Atlantic Tournament Trail also out of Hollemans. For more information see their web site at www.midat READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Fri Feb 26, 2010 at 4:19 am
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Finally, thank goodness, finally a weekend without a panic inducing milk and bread hoarding snow storm, or at least what we in North Carolina call a storm. While I’m sure that the fishing is going to be tough, I cannot wait to get out on the water in a few hours. With all the snow and ice we’ve had recently slowly melting and running into the lake the water is super cold and very muddy. About the only choice I’ll have to catch a fish will be using a jigging spoon or blade bait to find a school of them huddled together on the edge of a drop off in 25 to 30 feet of water. This year a significant portion of the shad population in most area lakes is dying off because of the extended cold weather. This will have the fish (bass, stripers, catfish, white perch) picking up easy meals of these baitfish as they spiral down to the bottom in the last moments of their life. While this isn’t the outcome the shad were hoping for, game fish higher up in the food chain wind up with all the food t READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 7:38 pm
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Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter With the weekly blizzards coming thru every Friday afternoon, I have not been fishing in over 3 weeks. I think this is making me physically ill, I guess sort of like the withdrawal symptoms a chain smoker goes thru when they throw down that habit. If things don’t get better soon there’s no telling what I might do. Kerr Lake is up about 11 feet above normal so I guess no fishing is being done there either. There looks like a possible window of fishing opportunity opening up for me a few hours on Sunday afternoon, right before the next winter storm comes threw that night.
My cousin Jim reports from Whiteville that he is also sick and tired of waiting to go fishing. They have been land locked for weeks now and he is going completely nuts!! Al Gores global warming has them expecting 1-3 inches of snow in his area. He has been tying rigs, re-tying rigs and when he gets a chance, he ties some more rigs. All his reels are serviced, spooled with fresh line, and the boat is ready. READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Since the snow and ice have kept me and a lot of others off the water for last two weeks I am forced to use a story from years ago. Let’s call it a cast from the past. Although I have been an avid fisherman since I was a small child at around 5 or 6, I didn’t get into competitive bass fishing until around 1997. At that time my son Jimmie was 14 and we were spending every weekend playing golf or fishing, many times doing both in the same day. Unfortunately we were not getting much better at either sport, and I realized that if we were going to improve our skills to any degree we needed to focus on one sport or the other. One Saturday night after a day of fishing in the morning and golf in the afternoon, I told Jimmie that we should concentrate on one sport in order to get really good at it, and that he could make the decision on which one. We both enjoyed each, and I didn’t want push him toward either. He said, “You know Dad, I like fishing best”. So we put the clubs in the atti READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter While this fishing report probably won’t do you much good this weekend, what with the 8 – 12 inches of snow across much of North Carolina, we can take it as a sign that the fishing will soon be picking up. As the earth tilts back on its axis providing more hours of sun to our part of the planet we will continue to warm. The fish can tell this is happening based on the hours of daylight, despite weekends (and the coming week) like this where the temperatures are barely going to get above freezing. They will start to position on steep lake bottom breaks closer to shallow water in preparation for the spawn which happens when the water starts into the 60 degree range. It is now at around 40 degrees.
Despite having a mean cold and sore throat, I couldn’t stay off Kerr Lake last Saturday morning. In about 4 hours Randy Owen and I caught at least 10 nice stripers (although none meet the 26 inch minimum size limit) and probably 40 white perch. All these fish were in water between 20 READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Sat Jan 30, 2010 at 9:20 am
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Almost ice fishing on Kerr Lake
After spending all day last Saturday in Morganton closing the deal on my new boat there wasn’t time left to take it out. After waiting for the rain to clear out Sunday I finally got on the water around 1:00 in the afternoon. It cranked right up and I drove off in a cold drizzle with the goal of taking the engine thru the break in period without stopping. That proved easier said that done as the rain started to pick up, a heavy fog fell, and the few other boats out on the water decided to head in for the day. I ended up getting the engine break in done, and even opened it up wide open once and saw that it was plenty fast. The new boat is bigger and somewhat heavier than my old one, which means a smoother ride in rough water. I can’t wait to see how it handles some of the larger waves on Kerr during a strong wind.
After spending the afternoon driving around Sunday I planned to spend Monday on Kerr Lake locating and catching bass, white perch READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Fri Jan 22, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Wishing I was fishing
Well I am as excited as a 6 year old on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow morning before dawn I will be heading up to Morganton (near Asheville) to pick up my new fishing boat, and believe me I cannot wait. While the economy isn’t the best it’s ever been, fishing is my passion and if I am going to fish competitively I need equipment I can depend on. My current boat is a 2002 model, and I have travelled over 40,000 miles in it on the water, or the same distance as almost twice around the earth at the equator. The GPS (Global Positioning System) on the boat has an odometer that keeps up with miles travelled and the unit is always on when I am on the water. In addition this boat has also been towed at least 100,000 more miles down the highway. The boat and trailer are in great shape since I spend a lot of time performing necessary routine maintenance, and someone is going to get a great deal on a nice boat with many years of service left, but it’s time for me to move READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Kerr Lake - Mid December Fishing
While I don’t have a lot to report on fishing in North Carolina, I do have a photo of some nice fish from sunny Florida, at least it was sunny last week when I was down there. This week they are experiencing temperatures down into the mid 20’s in Astor, where I was fishing on the St. Johns River and Lake George with my wife Susan and our dog Fred.
There is an upcoming catfish tournament on Kerr Lake that you want to check into at www.addictionoutdoors.com. It is a 100% payout event out of Clarksville on January 23rd, 2010 with a $40 entry fee.
My cousin is 0 for 3 for the blue fin tuna off the North Carolina Coast on his boat “The Stick Slinger” so far this year. He has been leaving the dock in the dark in below 30 degree temps searching the electronics for signs, which has made for some tough starts to the day. He isn’t convinced that the fish are really here yet like they should be and he hopes to get back to me soon when he has some READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Kerr Lake - Mid December Fishing
While I struggled to find fish last Saturday on Kerr Lake in the cold wind, others were more successful. Randy Owen from Henderson reported that he and his brother had a good day on the lake on the NC side of the islands from Steel Creek to the Dam. They reported catching 28 stripers, although none were keepers, however all were 24 to
25 inches, very fat and felt like bigger fish. He said to find the birds and you can catch the stripers using flukes or buck tails.
After catching a nice set of stripers (all released per the winter regulations) they decided to hit the perch and caught about 50, keeping around 30 that weighed 3/4 to a pound. They were on the lake from 8:00 am to 1:30 pm and he if anybody ever wanted to catch stripers now is the time. Sunday he stayed in with his wife and 2 girls while I headed out again in the cold rain! I caught some fish jigging spoons and blade baits in 27 – 30 foot of water.
Top of Page Entered on Fri Dec 18, 2009 at 5:18 am
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Kerr Lake - Mid December Fishing
At Kerr Lake, white perch, stripers and largemouth bass are stacking up on secondary points in about 27 – 30 feet of water. It seems like they are a little deeper this year, I guess since the water is 7 foot higher than it usually is this time of year. They seem to be relating to places where they can typically be found in 20 – 25 foot of water, and can be caught on jigging spoons and blade baits. I heard reports of fishermen catching over 200 per day of a mix between the 3. I didn’t do that well, but Sunday I about had them figured out in the driving rain and mid 30 degree temperatures when I asked myself, “Self, what in the world are you thinking? The house is warm and you could be eating a toasted egg salad sandwich.” That’s when I decided to head in and try again when the weather was a little better. If my gloves hadn’t failed I would have had a much more enjoyable trip. There’s something for your Christmas list, warm water proof gloves. READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Mon Dec 14, 2009 at 4:25 am
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Saltwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Carolina Beach trip and Kerr Lake - Late November Fishing
Even though the fishing was kind of slow at the coast last weekend Susan, Fred and I couldn’t have had a better time than we did while parked on Carolina Beach. The weather was perfect, although a little bit cold. After leaving Kernersville around dark on Thanksgiving Day we drove over to Raleigh to drop off a plate of turkey grub for our youngest daughter Laura, who was working at Duke Hospital and couldn’t make it to our house for the family dinner. We then stopped for the night at the Wal-Mart in Garner and slept in the camper there in the parking lot. The Black Friday crowd starting pouring in at around 4:00 am, and we pulled out around 5:30 headed for the beach. After stopping by Ocean Isle Fishing Center to see the new Mississippi state record King Mackerel, which was on display after being caught recently by a team from Ocean Isle in the Southern Kingfish Association national championship, we headed over to Carol READ MORE ....
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Kerr Lake - Late November Fishing
While I was only kidding when I told the team of Brian Grady and Richard Cooper that I hoped they would come in second in Chuck Murrays NC Bass Federation Open Tournament last Saturday on Kerr Lake, apparently they took me to task. Vern and I fished together in the team event and things started off exactly like they were when I left them on Kerr the weekend before. Pulling up to the rocky point where I had landed over 50 nice keepers on my way to winning a small tournament the previous Sunday, it was clear that the fish were still there as both Vern and I began landing good fish on chartreuse crank baits right off the bat.
Less than 30 minutes after we started fishing the live well contained a nice 7 fish limit that included what turned out to be the big fish for the day, one close to 4 pounds that hit Vern’s Lucky Craft crank bait. Then it was like a light switch was turned off, and despite returning to that spot 4 more times during the d READ MORE ....
Top of Page Entered on Thu Nov 26, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman field reporter
Fishing Freshwater in Northeastern North Carolina
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Walt Bowen - NC Sportsman Field Reporter Kerr Lake - Early November Fishing
I felt very fortunate to be invited to assist fisheries biologist Vic Dicenzo of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and Norm Cowder of the Buggs Island Striper Club with the ongoing study of the striper population on Buggs Island Lake this past weekend. This involved weighing and measuring stripers that were captured in gill nets up in the mid lake area. The VDGIF has done this three times each year since the 1970’s and the data they have accumulated is very valuable when determining the creel limits and stocking rates each year. They caught around 70 stripers, 20 or so big crappies, a 4.06 pound largemouth bass, several white perch, shad, and some giant catfish in the three nets they set out the night before. Typically there are six nets set, but due to the windy conditions they were only able to set up 3. In fact, one of the boats was swamped while attempting to set the second three and they had to paddle it to shore and b READ MORE ....
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Congrats on your success, My G/F goes with me alot and even though i try to focu....