The Snakes Had Me Turning in Circles Today

They were everywhere--sometimes in bunches of two and three. As a result, I repeatedly found myself spinning completely around on the pedestal seat just to make sure one of them didn't decide to try and crawl into my boat. It may have been my birthday, but I wasn't looking for a party--not one with any snakes in attendance anyway.

I launched about 7:15 or 7:30 this morning and headed straight to the back of Albright's Creek. The water was so high I couldn't even see the water-level gauge, so that made the decision to run down there an easy one for me.

I had three bass come unbuttoned before I was able to put this nice 4-6 in the boat. She hit but missed my Yo-Zuri SS Minnow once, and I started to move on. It had been two weeks since I had a fish give me a second chance, so I figured I'd just be wasting my time.

As luck would have it, though, I got the SS Minnow even closer to the target stump on my second cast than I did the first one. I let it sit for just a couple seconds, then turned the handle of my Lew's baitcaster ever so slightly before she got the whole enchilada on the second pass. After she had showed me some acrobatics, I slid the net under her, checked her weight, took this pic, and let her swim out of the net.

In the next three hours or so, I boated three more bass on the SS Minnow. It didn't matter what color I threw; they'd hit all three colors I had equally well. In the same time span, I missed at least a dozen strikes before they seemed to lose interest in my offering.

It was at that point I shifted to a chartreuse/white, 3/8-oz. spinnerbait with a frog trailer. On my first cast, I saw a grindle coming for it in high gear, and despite my best efforts to get it back before he could catch up, I failed. He smashed the spinnerbait and then proceeded to destroy it. I made him a permanent present of the bait, rather than battle the ornery critter for it.

Fortunately, I didn't see another grindle, but three nice white perch found my spinnerbait enticing enough to grab it.

That was the extent of my day, but I received a couple of email reports from other anglers, too. Jerry told me that he launched at West Neck at 9:20 this morning and stayed north of the bridge. He didn't have any bass activity but did manage to boat a nice white perch before calling it a day. He said he talked to a couple of bream fishermen who had six or seven, plus a catfish. He also met up Eddie Sapp at the ramp and learned that he had caught five or six small bass today.

Charlie spent the period from 6:30 this morning to 1 o'clock this afternoon in Nanny Creek, where his luck was limited to a turtle that he snagged. He ran into three guys in a johnboat who said they had caught three white perch.

That's about all she wrote for this time. I likely won't get on the water again until a couple of days next week. With the Pungo Strawberry Festival and the long holiday weekend, I plan to avoid the crowds and get my licks in after everyone has gone back to work.