Tuesday, March 20, 2012

And So It Begins...

I watch the water temps like my 3 year old watches Curious George, with pure delight.  Staring at the graph of steady upper 40's to lower 50's translates to actively feeding togs swimming in the deep of my mind.  The time is now and I know it.  Only thing is, my calendar is consumed by work.  As reports start to trickle in, the shackles of my office feel heavy while my tog rod gently weeps.

With the year's maiden paddle to the first island of the CBBT finally scheduled for Saturday, weekend just couldn't come soon enough.  The promise of hungry togs and hard thumping drag pulls came to fruition using fiddler crabs for bait.  The morning was beautiful with light winds and I met with Josh Williams of MKF out on the prime kayak-toggin waters.  I kept telling him how much "I love this ---" every time I set the hook.

19" Tautog





Football fat 20.5"er

All fish were released
The wind picked up dramatically around mid-day and made things very challenging.  But I stayed persistent and ended the day with a dozen fish ranging from 15" to 20.5".  Clocking 10 physically demanding hours on the water seems to go by so much faster and maybe even easier than 10 hours in the office chair.  Although I admit, I'm a little sore since I remained relatively stagnant throughout the winter.

But that didn't keep me from spending a couple of hours on the river the following day.  I knew I wouldn't have any time during the week to get out on the water, so after some quality family time on Sunday, I got out for a little shad fishing.



I ended with about 15 or so hickory shad in the 2.5 hours.

Spring is here, and so it beings...
Good times.

8 comments:

  1. Good times indeed! Nice shot of the jumping shad!

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  2. I want to go tog fishing again!!!!

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  3. Rob, how far up the James are the Shad? I've heard of boats already at Rocketts Landing...

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  4. They're all the way up to the fall line (14th street bridge). My guide friends are busy now.

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  5. Glad to see you guys got on 'em. I gotta find some time to get out while its hot. Awesome shot of the jumping shad. The one of you smiling reaaly shows how much fun the shad are. give me a shout next time you hit the James. The cats are up there too.

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    1. Thanks Seth. Shad, big cats, stripers... lots to target up here.

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