Monday, July 26, 2010

Alex and I Beat the Heat on the River - 7/25/10

On Sunday, Alex decided that she wanted to do some fishing. Particularly, she wanted to catch a striper from her yak and I really wanted her to do so. We decided the best bet would be to float a stretch of river south of Durham. With temperatures reaching 102 over the course of the day, we decided to head out and fish the late afternoon to early evening bite.

We launched around 4:30 PM and were on our way in the sauna like conditions. Alex caught a spotted bass on her second cast, but that would be our only fish in the area we started fishing. We slowly floated down river fishing around cover and on the shady bank. We were regularly catching spots with some catfish thrown in as well. The first decent fish of the day was about a 4-5 lb channel cat that Alex brought to the boat. A few minutes later, I got a good bite in the same general area. I expected it to be a cat, but to my suprise it was a spot...and a nice one at that. The fish measured just over 15 1/4" - good enough for a North Carolina fishing citation. This would be my second trip in a row catching a citation size fish.



A few casts later Alex got a huge strike. The fish ate the bait and jetted for the channel, exposing a large back. Neither of us could say for sure what type of fish it was, but it was certainly a brute and would be our "one that got away." We continued catching decent fish and I lost another that felt good, but which we could not identify. We decided to switch to the other bank, which would prove much less fruitful.

I had a couple bites on a buzzbait, but they were few and far between. Alex did get a bite from and fought a gar to boat side before it tossed the hook. It was her first gar ever.

As the day dwindled we headed back up to a rapid area in hopes of landing a striper or hyrbid, but it wasn't to be as we didn't land a single fish. We left a little early since this particular area has a repuration for unruly characters and headed to get some Cook Out...the perfect ending to a great multi-species day on the water.

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