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Yearly Roanoke River trip.
Just got back last night from the Roanoke River. Fished Tue./Wed./Thur. of the last two weeks for 6 days total. Week one is for me and my son along with whoever from church/family/friends wants to come up, and the second week is my son and mine's trip with his grandpa (my father in law).
1st day we fished with my uncle Roger and his two stepsons. Drifted a lot of the river to sample it and kinda see where the fish were. We drifted a LONG way to catch 5 fish and then anchored up in a good spot and caught 37 more to give us 42 for the day and also caught our limit of keepers. We probably had 18 keepers total caught all day.
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Day 2 was just me and Zach. We do get one day a year usually by ourselves and I believe they are my favorite. He is graduating high school in a month and turning 18 this September so who knows if this will still be an annual trip or not as he begins to make his own journey in this world. I certainly hope and pray it will be. We went straight back to our anchor hole and started catching fish. After a very long day on Tuesday we decided to call it a day just after lunch once we hit 50 fish on the clicker. The amazing thing was we had around 35 keeper sized fish.
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Day 3 of the first week we got to take our pastor and his two sons out. Got a little later start than we wanted, but got right back down on the anchor hole. Unfortunately the fish had moved. We picked away at them till around lunch and then saw some guys catching some drifting (which hadn't been happening) so we broke loose and started drifting about a 2-3 mile section picking up fish most every drift. It wasn't heavy by any means, but was picking up a little in the afternoon when we needed to leave. Finished the day with 45 on the clicker, our limit, and threw probably 5 more keepers back.
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On Saturday we went to Buggs Island and fished a kids "tournament" with one of the children from Oxford Children's Home. We don't have any pictures as requested by the home, but Zach and I got to spend the day with a really nice girl and her chaperone and her name was at the top of the board for most fish brought to the scale, and was #2 for total weight and largest single fish. We had one hit right at the end that if it had hooked up would've had her taking the whole thing.
Tuesday we picked up my father in law in Raleigh and headed back up. We ran back down near the anchor hole and started drifting an area my brother hit em in on Sunday. We picked up several over several drifts and then they quit biting so we drifted into the anchor hole. Not much going on there so we cut loose and hit the section we left them in on Thursday and there were still some in there. Ended that day with a total of 61 on the clicker, our limit, and helped put a buddy that comes up with his son and dad on some fish as well.
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Wednesday was a beautiful day on the water with warm temperatures. We did a mix of drifting and anchoring again picking up fish here and there, but they were really scattered all over the river. My buddy had a little boat trouble and they stayed out a little longer than we did so no group shot, but everyone caught their limit again and had a good day. Our clicker had 40 on it when we left. Zach also caught the biggest one of the trip with a 22 1/2" fish.
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We started the final day with plenty of rain to go around and fished in it all day. We went straight to the run that was producing the day before and drifted about a 3 mile section and kept narrowing them down till the last few hours we were literally drifting about a 300 yard run and then cranking up and hitting them again. My brother had joined us with his son on their boat and we felt really blessed for all three boats to end the day with their limit. Our clicker read 72 when we decided to call it a day as we had a lot of fish to clean and several miles to go to get back home. We kept our six, and probably threw back 10 more that were keeper sized. The hardest part was that we still had a little bait left and the fish were still there biting when we quit. Of course right when we quit the rain stopped and the skies cleared a bit. Go figure.
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We met a lot of people on the river, at the ramp, and around Weldon that were not catching fish so I felt very blessed of the Lord to be able to catch a limit of keeper fish every day along with helping my brother and buddy get on keeper sized fish too. Especially when I found out they had extended the season due to poor catches. I am going to go back through my albums and see how this year stacked up to others, but we were very pleased with the trips considering the water conditions and temperatures.
Last Saturday night a gentleman lost his life on one of the lakes catching bait and I talked to the game warden on Thursday as we were leaving and they still hadn't recovered the body at that point. Please pray for his family and the recovery team as they try to bring closure to the situation.
Mike
Take a kid outdoors!
