Green Top Hunt Fish Blog » Fresh Water Fishing

Fun Fishing for All

Gabe — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:35:12 +0000

The beginning of May often brings frustrating times for Bass fishing. Most lakes and ponds have Bass in post-spawn.
One can turn to tidal rivers for spawn and pre-spawn Bass, or turn to another option in the month of May.
Bluegills, Shellcrackers, and other Sunfish species offer outstanding catching, as well as fishing. Perhaps the best
aspect of “Bream” fishing is that it can be done from the bank as well as from a boat on any body of water. Anglers of all
ages and skills can enjoy these scrappy fighters.
Another great aspect is the choices of presentation types. Fly fishing, live bait on cane poles or ultra light spinning
tackle are only some examples of the wide range of options that are available to the panfish angler.

The term panfish refers to what outstanding table fare these fish offer. They also offer an education for how to play
and land fish. I’ve often heard it said, if they grew to 5 pounds, we’d never land them.A fight with a citation bream
is one not easily forgotten.
I can’t think of any angler, at any skill level, that doesn’t enjoy this wonderful resource.
-Stan Cobb

Finally Found Time

Gabe — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:52:31 +0000

It’s amazing how sometimes time is always something you never have enough of. You find you find yourself at work or school (or in my case both) for the most part of the day, then you come home and take care of whatever it is you need to do there, then it is time to go to bed and get ready to do the same thing again the very next day. Well I finally made some time to visit one of my favorite private ponds last week, and it ended up being very productive. The day was a little overcast and windy, but hey, when I had finally made time to go, I was going, fair weather or not.

I went with a friend of mine and I started off throwing a spinnerbait, which was not productive, while he was throwing a green pumpkin colored jig. He had great success with the jig, and it did not matter if it did or did not have a trailer, he caught fish both ways. After watching him throw that for a while I decided to tie on a jig, not the same color of course because I didn’t want to use the exact same thing as him, but I used black and blue and had similar results. Next I decided to throw a lizard, which ended up working fairly decent as well. We fished all afternoon and into the early evening and the final tally between us were about 15 fish, 6 of which were 3lbs or more, and after the bass bite seemed to die off I pulled out my ultra-light and tied on a slider grub and had a ball catching what seemed to be every brim in the pond.

Spare time is a luxury, and I believe it is something many of us undervalue, use it wisely. All of mine will be spent on a body of water and a reel in my hand.

-Mark Tate

Fly fishing for bass!

Gabe — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:33:47 +0000

Fly-fishing is not just a topwater game. Most fishermen know that when fly-fishing for trout, dry flies imitate insects, and under the surface you use nymphs to attract the bite. What about fly fishing for other species? Largemouth bass, for example will eat anything that swims, floats or crawls. Limiting yourself to using hard poppers or deer-hair bugs when using the fly rod for bass is cutting your game in half. Baitfish imitations, called streamers in fly fishing lingo, are a huge part of getting the drop on the bucketmouth.
A streamer can imitate all of your favorite color patterns. Black and silver bucktails are a very productive searching pattern, while sunfish or sexy shad style patterns can bust a slump quickly. My favorite all around has to be a baby bass, maybe because it makes me laugh to see a creature eat its own kind, or maybe because I catch bass like crazy with it! Size and shape are more important than color, so choose imitations that match both in the body of water you fish.
The most important thing about fishing, as in real estate, is: location, location, location; and the central issue in fly fishing for bass is presenting your fly to the correct place in the water column. While it is true that there are limitations to the amount of weight you can throw with a fly rod, covering the whole column effectively is no problem. Shank weighted hooks, dumbbell eyes, and even material weighted flies will deep dive, jig, crawl on the bottom, or suspend like a jerkbait.
Catching bass with a fly rod can be one of the most primal and exhilarating of the sporting endeavors, so don’t limit yourself to only one side of the largemouth world. Go down there and get them!

-Gabe

Wytheville Trout Fishing

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:25:46 +0000

On Tuesday, June 30, 2009, two of my close friends and I departed Richmond and headed south to Wytheville. We were making our annual pilgrimage to Cedar Springs Sportsman’s Lodge located on Cripple Creek. We’ve been fishing there at least once per year for the past seven years with excellent success on almost every trip. The trout stocking program that they have is top notch. There are always plenty of rainbow trout in the stream with good numbers of brook trout and brown trout stocked as well. The size of the trout is what keeps us coming back. Over the years we’ve landed rainbows up to seven pounds, browns up to eight pounds, and brooks over three pounds. This trip was no different

After a restless nights sleep at the Hampton Inn in Wytheville, we rose out of bed at 4:45 in the morning, loaded the truck and drove to Joey’s, a great place to grab some breakfast on the way to the stream. We finished our breakfast and were at the stream fishing by 6:30 in the morning. A light rain had just quit about the time we wet our lines. Immediately we were catching fish. My first trout hit a ball of yellow Berkley Power Bait. A nice three pound specimen. Over the course of the day I landed eleven rainbows, three of which were over four pounds. I caught most of my fish drifting live night crawlers and throwing #2 gold Panther Martin spinners. I released all but five of my fish, since there is a five fish limit on the stream. One of my buddies also landed eleven rainbows, keeping only five. My lass fortunate friend only landed three rainbows, all of which he kept.

The next morning started much like the previous. We started fishing at 6:15 in the morning. After landing two quick fish, one on Powerbait, and one on a night crawler, I started fly fishing exclusively. The trout were all over the flies. The most productive was a #8 black woolybuggar. Dead drifting the woolybuggar seemed to be the best presentation. I lost more fish than I landed. I had at least five or six throw the hook on me, and two that broke me off. One of the two that broke me off was a rainbow in the six pound range. I did manage to land three fish on the fly to complete my five fish limit. My friend with eleven fish the day before also caught five on the second day. But, my less fortunate friend managed to land four trout with a little feeling of redemption. At 2:00 in the afternoon we packed up the gear and headed back to Richmond with another good trip under our belts and some fillets for the freezer.

-Billy

King William Pond Bass Fishing

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:14:02 +0000

Last week I went fishing on a private pond in King William. I took along a friend and fellow employee that had never been to this pond. Freddie and I got there early and used topwater lures first. We threw wake baits and frogs and had some luck with 2lb. bass. Freddie made a switch after a while to a Super Speed Craw green pumpkin color. I switched to a black and blue jig and we had better luck. Freddie landed an 8 pounder! Big bass of the day.

As the day unfolded, we had much better luck than we did at first light. We ended up catching 1 bass over 8lbs., 2 over 7lbs., and 12 4lbs. to 5lbs.

I’ve been fishing for over 50 years and thought that I knew most of what is out there to know. Freddie taught me a couple of things. I always want to learn something new, especially if it keeps me catching the big ones.

The very next day, I took another friend to the same lake. This time, we got there at 2pm instead of first thing in the morning. I started using my favorite bait: 3/16oz. black and blue jig with a swimming chunk. That’s the same thing I used the day before with Freddie.

Clay Lewis was throwing a 10.5” ‘Ol Monster in red shad. He caught two over 8lbs.!! That’s when I made the switch to what he was throwing. When we got done, we had 4 over 8lbs., and 15 from 4lbs. to 5lbs. It was another great day. These are days to hope for, but rarely ever happen.

-Mickey