Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Neuse River 10-02-2010 17:24
– – 50-60 Degrees
My son and I went out to do a little scouting this morning and it was eventful, but not productive.
We found 4 roads that we tried to travel down flooded and closed, one let us get almost to Washinton, NC before we had to turn around and backtrack about 20 miles. Then we had to backtrack again when we encountered it flooded out as well. It was a theme repeated 4 times before we finally managed to get to the Bridgeton boat ramp and launched(about 1 hour after sunrise). We went to a spot I used to hunt quite a bit(the spot I refer to as “the mud flat”) but I quit using due to heavy hunting pressure as more and more hunters took up the sport in the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s. By 2000, I had surrendered it to the invading hoardes.
My son and I set there for nearly an hour and did not see a single duck, other than a boat dock mallard that was hanging around the boat ramp begging for bread crumbs.
However, on the way home there were several positive signs as the roads that were under several feet of water at 4am were clear at 10am.
I am hoping the problem is solved by the Oct. opener. It is ironic that we went from such a extreme drought that hunting was only possible at the coast to so much water that even the coastal waters are inaccessible.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Hyde Co. 09-05-2010 08:09
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – Over 70 Degrees
My son and I went out for the dove opener and it was a good day. Of our entire party of 5 people, there were no limits taken. Plenty of doves were seen, but there weren’t enough parties in the area to keep them moving, or to capitolize on the numbers.
I and my regular hunting buddy managed 9 each(with one lost dove each that would have brought the number to 10). My son managed 2 and the other two good friends in our group managed 3 each.
Dixie the wonderdog did great. She did have one brainfart and break on the shot, but overall her performance was outstanding.
Can’t make Monday at daybreak as I am picking up my son’s new gun from the gunsmith at 10:00am. But I think my son will do better with his new gun than he did with my old 20ga.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 06-07-2010 13:07
Sunny & Clear, Morning Fog – Over 70 Degrees
My son and I went out to do a little bream/bass fishing on Sat. He went armed with crickets, myself with my trusty flyrod. We got to the boat ramp at sunrise and set about our business.
The water has dropped quite a bit and the water is much clearer. We both set about our different types of fishing and the results were equally different. While I had a number of very small fish hit at my fly, I fished for 2 1/2 hours and caught one small bream. I changed flies frequently, I seemed to have more attempts at a chartruse surface fly than any other. But again, it was mostly small fish, a lot of hits, but nothing was sticking.
Meantime my son was catching fish on crickets, both more fish and larger. I decided at around 9 am to switch to my ultra-light and fish crickets as well. The change in action was dramatic. I immediately began to catch fish, including a number of larger bream. We then fished hard until about noon when it started to get really hot and the shade became more difficult to find.
The end tally was 25 keepers and a number of baitfish sized bream.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 05-23-2010 12:01
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
My son and I went out to do battle with the mighty bream this morning and we went to one of our favorite spots. It is a small, unimproved ramp that on the back of a farmer’s property. We arrived just as the sun was turning the sky orange in the east. It is many miles from the nearest WRC ramp and this is why we like it so much.
The fish were slow, but a little bigger. My son caught one very nice shellcracker, it was not huge, but it was a nice pansized fish of approx 3/4 to 1 lb. I was fishing my new,hand tied flies, the bream seamed to really like something called a Caddis Fly(I think that is how it is spelled). I don’t know what a Caddis Fly is(or even if I have spelled it right), but the bream went to town on it as well as a small red surface bug my friend tied for me.
All in all, we caught about 25 or so bream and no bass. It was a blue bird day and it was nice. We did have more people show up on our creek than I have ever seen, which surprised me. But everyone I encountered was very nice and everyone gave a respectful distance to thier fellow fishermen to allow for solitude for all. But I was still surprised so see 3 boats over the course of the morning.
I guess when you have a 150 hp motor on the back of a bass boat, no place is too far away.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 05-21-2010 13:09
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
Went out this morning to do a little fishing. I forgot the crickets and my ultra-light, but I did remember only a couple of miles down the road. I could have turned around to get them, but I decided that I would just use my flyrod and save the bobber fishing for this weekend with my son(he was in school).
I got to the boat ramp at sunrise and launched. I decided to go to a spot I have not fished or hunted in over 20 years. It used to get heavy pressure for both endeavors, just got all hunted and fished out. Nothing has changed.
In the intervening years, the WRC has put in a new ramp and dock at what used to be a privately owned, unimproved ramp. It is a really nice floating dock. I have found that it is easier for a cripple such as myself to launch and recover from a floating dock, so this was encouraging. I launched the boat and decided to fish away from the ramp rather than go down the creek on the gas motor. It was quiet and I was going to keep it that way.
The heavy traffic of yesteryear has increased, no doubt due to it’s proxemity to New Bern and the new ramp and dock. This was on a Thursday, by 9 am there wewe a dozen trucks at the ramp. I caught a few, but not many. On the positive side, the bream I caught were bigger. On the negative side, not a single boated bass all morning.
My son and I are going out Saturday. I am looking for a turnaround as we are going to one of our dependable spots(a unimproved ramp). We have not been catching any fish of any size there, but there are a bunch and a few bass.
I will also have a new batch of hand-tied flies to try out on Saturday. Every year I save my wood duck feathers and I send them to a gentleman in NY state(not NYC, but western NY state). In return, he ties me hand-tied flies to fish with the following year. I sent off my woodie feathers in Feb. and my flies had arrived in the mail yesterday when I returned from fishing. They are some good looking flies, there are some brightly colored surface flies as well as several deer hair mouse flies that are awesome looking. I can’t wait to get them wet.
My son and I will be off to do battle with the wily bass and the enthusiastic bream tomorrow
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 05-15-2010 15:11
Sunny & Clear, Morning Fog – Over 70 Degrees
My son and I set out in the predawn darkness to do a little fishing. We decided to go to a creek that we used to fish in quite a lot, but for some reason had not been there in a while. It is a spot that I refer to in my hunting reports as “The Wood Duck Hole”. I have not hunted there much in the last 10 years or so due to locals that have been hunting the roost. The spot used to produce a limit of woodies for every trip as well as a few mallards from time to time not to mention the occasional Canada Goose. But once the roost shooters showed up, it quickly went downhill.
We got to our spot and began to fish. There was too much wind for my flyrod, so I got out my bream rig. We were fishing crickets for bream, and the action was pretty steady for the first hour when I broke my fishing rod. It is a ultra-light that I have owned for about 15 or 20 years, I don’t know why it broke, but it did while I was reeling in a nice shellcracker. It was not the size of the fish that broke the rod, it just broke. Age I guess. I was forced to pull out my flyrod in spite of the wind.
The wind had died down, even though it would kick up from time to time. I pulled out a white surface fly(they are STILL out of my favorite chartruese fly at the Nuese Sport Shop). The fish were hitting on it pretty good and I even caught a small bass(about 1 lb)over the next 2 hours. I decided to change my leader, so while I was at it, I changed my fly to a blood red surface popper.
Best move of the day! I immediately boated a 3 1/2 lb bass and the bream began to go nuts on the new fly. For the next 2 hours the bream hit it hard and steady. I had several bass hit the fly but not stick and I managed to boat another nice bass that was almost a carbon copy of the bass I caught when I first switched over to the new fly.
All in all, the broken ultra-light rod was a blessing in disguise.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 05-13-2010 13:38
Cloudy, Occassional Rain Showers – Over 70 Degrees
I set out in the predawn darkness this morning thinking that the wind would preclude any fly fishing today. Dixie the wonderdog was waiting for me in the back yard when I went out the back door to get the truck and boat from where I had hooked it up the previous afternoon. She jumped into the truck and armed with a tube of crickets, I set out to try my luck. I arrived at the boat ramp at sunrise and launched the boat.
Much to my surprise, the wind had died down to utter calm with heavy,overcast skies. The water of the Nuese was slick as glass as I steered my boat away from the dock and set off to the creek I planned to fish. I arrived at my destination to see a few drops of rain hit the water.
I had a premonition. Quickly as I could, I downed my rain gear just as the bottom fell out. For about 15 minutes, the water came down in buckets. I used that time to string up my trusty flyrod. As quickly as it started, the rain abruptly stopped. I discarded my rain gear and got my fly into to the water.
I caught a nice shellcracker on the first cast. The fishing was hard paced and steady, I caught one bream after another, on almost every cast for the first hour and a half. I caught so many bream on my mustard colored Round Dinny(they are still out of chartruese at the Sport Shop), that they finally busted the fly up so bad I had to discard it.
I thought this might be a good time to try out the crickets, so I did so. Again, the action was good, but on crickets I caught mostly smaller fish and fed a lot of small ones that stole the cricket without taking down the float. After about 45 minutes, I switched back to the flyrod.
I tried out a black hair mouse fly to target some bass. I fished it for about 30 minutes, but it was only it by bream not large enough to take it down. I then switched to a white surface fly and the bream action began anew. I fished until about 11:00 am, and then I called it a day.
It was a good day.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Fishing report, Sat. May 1st 05-04-2010 13:30
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – Over 70 Degrees
My son and I went out bream fishing Sat and had a good time. The wind was blowing, it made keeping the boat in the right spot to fish a little tricky at times. Today was a cricket day, way too much wind for the old fly rod. In fact, it remained in the case, I never even strung it up this morning. Besides, when you get right down to it, there is very little in life as fun as bream fishing with crickets. There is just something about watching that float and waiting for it to go down.
The fishing was slower, but steady. Caught approx. 35 or so bream by 11:00 am. It was a mixture of shellcracker,sunfish, and googleye. Most of them remained on the smaller side, but I did catch one really tremendous shellcracker that was approx 1 1/2 lbs.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 04-24-2010 15:47
Cloudy, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
Went out on the Nuese near New Bern to try the fish on my trusty flyrod. The fish were still lively, but nowhere near the action of last Thursday. I caught about 25 to 30 bream, mostly small ones. I had no bass hit on my fly today.
Of course, it could be my fly. I was using a chartruese Round Dinny(my go-to bream fly in the spring) on Thursday, two of which I had in my fly box at the time. I lost one to a 5 lb bass, and the other one got hit so hard by so many fish that it knocked a chunk out of the cork and knocked most of the paint off of the fly.
On my way home from my fishing trip on Thursday, I stopped off at the Nuese Sport Shop to replenish my Round Dinny stockpile only to discover they were sold out. I stopped in this morning on my way out only to discover they still out of stock.
So I had to change over to a mustard colored fly Dinny instead. They still hit on it, but I believe the difference between the chartruese and the mustard was the difference in the action today.
Posted By:
Scott-Tolar
Field Editor
Nuese River 04-23-2010 12:48
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
Went out to do a little fly fishing and it was a good day. The bream were on fire on top water(mostly small ones) and the bass were hitting good on the top as well. I landed 3 bass in the boat, had a fourth bass steal my Round Dinny popper when my leader broke and had about 4 more that hit the fly but didn’t stick to it.
The fish are really hitting topwater right now.
