Effie's Log May 11, 2009

Hit the river for a little fishing. Launched at Leesylvania under threatening skys and light breezes. Ran the 7 miles up to the Occoquan River for bait but it was hard to come by. After an hour of deploying and retreiving the gill net I had exactly one Gizzard Shad in the baitwell. As I was motoring out, I found another one floating...it was a little smelly but it also went into the live well.

I ran another 8 miles upriver to a super double-secret spot that I located two weeks ago and deployed three lines with the smelly Shad. First hookup was about 5 minutes later...a 10 lb Blue Cat. I had just boated it when another rod bucked in the holder and the drag screamed. It took some effort to remove it but after a decent fight I slid the net under a chunky 30 lber. Both fish were released quickly and lines rebaited. Several more bites produced cats of 15, 20, 17, 12 and 25 lbs...all nice healthy looking fish.

Then the tide changed and the fishing slowed. I was running out of bait anyway so I decided to call it a day. The wind kicked up on the way back to the dock and I faced three foot waves and whitecaps...the boat handled it well but the beating shook several screws on the windshield loose.

All-in-all a nice day to be on the water.