September 11, 2008Yes, I know the difference between a catfish and bass
This picture of catfish expert Travis Patsell of Vinton and this awesome 28-pound Smith Mountain Lake flathead was supposed to run. Instead, due to a production glitch, we had a picture of Harry Townsend with a huge smallmouth bass he caught earlier this summer. That picture had run in the report in July. The error was my fault because I attached the picture of Travis to the wrong story in our publishing software database. I've gotten a lot of snide phone calls and e-mails already, and I'm sure more are coming. I'm glad some people are able to laugh about this because, at this point, I'm not. August 27, 2008What does John Crews do in his fun time? Goes fishingAt the Virginia Outdoor Sportsmen's Classic on Sunday I got a chance to catch up with pro bass angler John Crews, whom I hadn't seen in person since the Bassmaster Classic way back in February. Crews, who lives in Salem, had a frustrating year on the Bassmaster Elite Series, catching plenty of fish but falling short in weights and failing to qualify for the upcoming Classic. We didn't talk much about the pro scene, but we did talk fishing. And the more we talked the more it became clear that fishing isn't just a job for this guy. For a while I picked Crews' brain on fishing buzz frogs, a technique those of you who kept up with my Summer Smallmouth Tour in The Roanoke Times know I'm just getting into. Crews' eyes brightened as he talked about the technique. He gave me some great tips on hook types and confirmed my suspicion that the rig I had been throwing the frogs on (medium casting rod with 10-pound mono) probably contributed to my low percentage of good hook ups. (I'm ready to roll with a heavier rod loaded with 30-pound braid.) Crews also talked about his own fun fishing, including the time he's been spending with his 9-year-old stepson, Noah. They've been going to the Roanoke River here in the valley and fishing for smallmouths. His priority has been keeping Noah in the action, but clearly Crews has been getting into this himself. He told me about one hole he found that has some resident smallmouths in the 2- to 3-pound range. "You can see them, but they won't hit anything," he said. He tried one finesse technique that was so unbelievably tricky that he said no fish in America could resist. But these did. Crews outlined other techniques he plans to try to get these bass. Keep in mind this is a guy who gets to fish some of the country's best bass waters. It think it's great that he can get fired up about catching (or trying to catch) bass even when there's not a $100,000 check on the line. I think most of his peers on the pro tour would be the same way. They are pro bass anglers not because it's a job, but because they just love to try to outsmart fish. Crews' enthusiasm shows something else: Fun fishing is where you find it. I feel sorry for the poster who wrote in a comment to an entry below that, "There is NO real fishing around here." He just doesn't get it. But John Crews does. August 12, 2008Who says bass anglers can't be glamorous?
The pond is packed with stunted bass so we took a bunch home. We ate some down there and I was surprised that it was pretty good compared to some mushy late-summer bass and bluegills I've had before. After the girls had their fill I spent maybe 10 minutes working the shallows with a Zoom Horny Toad and had a blast. I got a bunch of blow-ups, although I was having trouble keeping the fish buttoned. Needed a bigger hook, I think. March 20, 2008Video: Fishing for smallmouth bass on the New River
March 4, 2008Hooking a big one at Smith Mountain LakeI got out for a few hours on Smith Mountain Lake on Monday afternoon with Scott Wiley and Charlie Machek, two guys on the Virginia Tech bass fishing team. I'm doing a story on the team for Friday's paper, the day before they host a college bass tournament at the lake. Wiley and Machek have been fishing the past few days and it's been tough. It was slow Monday, too. Then in the middle of the afternoon we saw some bait moving around in the upper end of a creek and went to check it out. I was fishing, too, and about the third cast I felt a tug on my Lucky Craft jerkbait. I set the hook and the bait flew back at the boat and nailed Wiley right in the back. It didn't hook him, but it got pretty well stuck in his VT team jersey. I managed to get it out without damaging the jersey too bad. We ended up catching some of those fish -- big gizzard shad that we were snagging. If there were any bass eating those things they would have been huge. But we fished around just in case, and also in the hopes of maybe finding a big striper. That didn't happen. With temps near 70, it was a pretty great day to get out on the water for a few hours. I expect fishing should really pick up out there in the next couple of weeks. February 25, 2008I ask for a bass, John Crews delivers
OK, I have to admit that the second and third days weren't as rough for me as the first. The second day my coverage focused on the weigh-in. I went to the Expo but it was absolutely insane. There were no parking spots. But even if I had taken a shuttle bus I would have been out of luck as I learned that the fire marshall showed up and wouldn't let anybody else in the Carolina First Center. Seems the people of Greenville are just a bit hungry for outdoor gear. If you saw my stories in the paper you know that amateur angler Jeff Freeman of Max Meadows just missed the cut on Saturday, coming in at 28th. I hated that for him because he was so close. It's really impressive that a guy who works 48 hours a week can do so well against guys who do this for a living. On the other hand, he was so sick that he needed a break even though he didn't want one. Sunday I went out to the lake in the morning (but not too early) to get on a media boat so I could get some pictures of John Crews. The ESPN/BASS folks track the anglers using GPS units, and that helped us know the general area where Crews was fishing. But that lake is 56,000 acres (well, it is when it's full, which it's not, by a long shot) and it turned out John took off as soon as we did. So it took us about 45 minutes to find him. The media boat driver had to be back about an hour later to pick up another photographer so we had all of about 30 minutes to watch Crews. He was fishing almost in the shadow the football stadium at Clemson -- Death Valley -- so I got a couple shots of that. So I was OK. But I really wanted a fish. I said to the boat driver and the other photographer with me, "I really need him to catch a fish." Next thing I know Crews had one on. When he got his hands on the 4-pounder he let out this incredible whoop. The only thing that wasn't perfect was I was shooting with second-rate, obsolete Nikon digital gear that I got when our photo staff switched to the good Canon pro gear. Despite that, I was pretty happy with the series of shots I got. I thanked Crews for catching the bass and we took off. It was kind of funny. He ended up having a really solid day with the 5th best bag. But the way it worked out he didn't move up a single spot, and finished 16th. Amazingly, the guy just ahead of him was Charlie Hartley, who started the day in second. Crews has had some really solid tournaments, and some great days out there on the pro tour. His best finish is a third. I think it's only a matter of time before he puts it all together and gets his first win.
February 23, 2008First day of Classic proves to be epic
I earned another badge yesterday. I spent the day with Jeff Freeman (above) of Max Meadows, who is competing for the first time in the Bassmaster Classic at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. Just getting on the boat required a 3:30 a.m., wake-up, not exactly pleasant for a non-morning person such as myself, but not all that unusual for me, either. At launch time the temperatures were in the mid-30s and it was raining. And it kept raining. All morning. My Gore-Tex gear, which isn't really intended for fishing, did only an OK job keeping me dry. My camo hunting parka eventually became saturated. My 10-year-old ski pants did better, but they ride down on my butt, so water got in at my waist while I was sitting in the wet boat seat. My old ski gloves sucked, frankly. I would have to pull out the fleece liners every 30 minutes and ring them out. That said, it could have been much, much worse. My head was warm thanks to my trusty windproof fleece hat. (Props to Mountain Hardwear.) My other most important pieces of gear were a cheap neoprene face mask I bought during a frigid ski trip last year and a new set of cheap ski goggles I got before this trip. Without those two things, running at 65 m.p.h. would have been murder. But it was OK. Really, I didn't start shivering too bad until after we got back to the dock at 3:15. In his Helly Hansen rain suit, Jeff stayed dry. But he doesn't like to fish with gloves so his hands froze. He kept blowing on his hands to warm them up. It got better eventually, he said, because his hands got too numb to be in pain. He was also coughing bad because of a lingering cold. But even though he may have been miserable, he never let on. Sitting on a bass boat watching a guy fish for 8 hours can test anyone's patience,even when the weather is nice. Really, yesterday went pretty fast. Jeff moved around quite a bit, which kept it interesting. And he managed to catch fish reasonably regularly. (He had seven keepers and is 17th place after Day One. Full story here.) Plus, he talked and let me talk. Not a lot -- which is understandable given how hard they have to concentrate -- but enough. Some of these guys will stand up there casting and not say a word all day. Sometimes it takes some recovery time to look back on and appreciate an epic day. I don't need time, this time. It wasn't an easy day to be out there, but I'm glad I was. I'm not on the boat today. I've got some writing to do this morning, then hope to hit the outdoors expo for a couple of hours before the weigh-in. February 21, 2008First day of Bassmaster Classic could be epicI just got to Greenville, S.C., where I'll spend the next three days covering the Bassmaster Classic. I don't normally cover bass tournaments outside Western Virginia, but there are a couple of interesting local angles here. One is that pro angler John Crews of Salem is fishing in the tournament. But I actually did some pretty significant coverage when he fished in his first Classic (in Pittsburgh in 2005) so I probably wouldn't have gotten the OK to come down just to cover him again. My main focus out of the gate will be on Jeff Freeman, an amateur angler from Max Meadows. He's a full-time deputy who worked his way through a series of quailifying tournaments to earn a spot here. Basically, it's like a guy from your local country club earning a spot in the U.S. Open. While Freeman is a longshot, it's not impossible for an amateur to win this thing. Bryan Kerchal did it in 1994. I'll be on the boat with Freeman tomorrow. It promises to be an interesting day. The weather is supposed to be in the low 40s (at best) with rain. It's tough enough to fish in conditions like that. But I'll just be sitting there. I can only hope my Gore-Tex gear functions properly and that Freeman is really slaying 'em, which will make it more tolerable. How Freeman and Crews do tomorrow will tailor my coverage on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to my stories that run daily in The Roanoke Times, I'll be posting additional info on the blog throughout the weekend. February 14, 2008Big bass are biting -- in Florida
While the fishing may be good in Florida, we've got a ways to go before the bass bite picks up around here. But things usually get going pretty well by mid-March with the pre-spawn so start getting that tackle readey. October 14, 2007A trophy smallmouth for Hank Lindahl
July 16, 2007Legendary bass writer Tim Tucker killed in car crashI just got the sad news that bass fishing writer Tim Tucker was killed earlier today in auto accident near Gainsville, Fla. Full details haven't been released, but the Gainsville Sun carried this breaking report on its Web site this afternoon. Tim isn't identified in the story but BASS, for which Tim was a senior writer, has confirmed HERE that he was killed. I saw Tim maybe once a year, but he always treated me like an old friend. It wasn't because we were both fathers of twins (although that gave us something other than bass fishing to talk about) or that we were both fascinated by the world of bass fishing (although I didn't get to cover it near as much or as well as he did). As far as I could tell, he treated about everybody that way. Not that he always went easy on me. If I screwed something up -- or he thought I did -- he'd send me an e-mail and tell me as much. Of course, he'd do the same thing with compliments. Tim didn't pull punches with his coverage of bass fishing and that didn't always sit well with some anglers and others in the sport who thought stories had to focus only on good news and ignore the not-so-good details. But Tim did it his way -- the right way. This is a profound loss for Tim's family and friends, and for everyone in the bass fishing community.
July 13, 2007Summer sight-fishing for big smallmouth: not easyI was in the Bristol area Wednesday and Thursday and got to spend some time on the North Fork of the Holston River, a stream I've been wanting to check out for a while. The NF is supposed to be a pretty good smallmouth river. One reason: the bag limit is one fish over 20 inches per day. That rule allows someone to keep a trophy, but discourages people from keeping fish to eat, which makes sense considering the river is under a consumption ban because of mercury. Wednesday evening we got to the river late with a guy I'm doing a story on for Sunday's paper. (He had a treestand accident last fall, and fishing is one of his forms of therapy.) Even though it was late I could see how low the river is. Brutal. I didn't think we'd have any luck but our host actually caught a nice smallmouth about 30 minutes after dark. Photographer Sam Dean and I went back on our own the next morning to get stuff for a story on the river. Around Bristol it was kind of murky, but as we got upstream toward Saltville it cleared up. We fished one nice hole near Bristol but didn't do anything. Later, we stopped and fished for about an hour at the DGIF ramp near Saltville. Again, it was shallow, but there were a few pockets and we could see some fish. Some nice fish, actually. I saw a few that would push 3 pounds. But, man, were they were spooky. I had a little soft plastic crayfish in front of one and when I twitched it he bolted the other direction. I didn't get a strike. Sam caught a small on his fly rod with a streamer. I'd like to get back there and try some of the stuff my brother and dad use on the ultra clear rivers they fish in Oregon. Not sure if it will happen this year, though. That's a pretty good haul. June 16, 2007Fun, but few fish on the New RiverFriday I went on a short float trip on the New River with some friends who are in town for the Outdoor Writers Association of America's 80th convention. The group included Bill Monroe of the Oregonian and Mark Freeman of the Medford (Ore.) Mail-Tribune, Trout Unilimited PR guy Chris Hunt of Idaho Falls Idaho, and Brett Prettyman of the Salt Lake Tribune. I had originally planned to take them on my favorite stretch of the James River but had moved the float in the wake of the fish kill on the James. (Still no answers on that, but the kill seems to be abating.) Logistics were more difficult for the New float, but I figured that was OK because the river is Virginia's best smallmouth water. I was especially eager to show off the New to Monroe and Freeman because they fish some of my old waters in Oregon and I wanted to know how they thought this river compares. So, naturally, the fishing was brutal. Seriously, the only time I've done worse was on a day when the river was totally blown out. On the float from Pembroke to Ripplemead I caught one small bass. And I mean small. It looked like an X-Rap, maybe 5 inches long and barely bigger than the fly it hit. That was it. I had only fly gear (as did the other guys) and maybe I could have wrestled up a few more fish with conventional tackle. The other guys struggled, too, and they know what they are doing. Even Freeman. Chris was high hook, with four. Mark had two. Brett had a couple. Bill? Let's just say he saved me from being low hook. He claimed to have been "working" most of the time. I can't wait to see that column. But the scenery in that section is great, I saw a bunch of wildlife, including a young whitetail buck on the bank, and even got a good laugh when Chris and Brett swam after hitting a rapid sideways. It's hard to complain about a day like that even when the fishing is awful. June 10, 2007Blazing across Smith Mountain Lake at the Blue Ridge BrawlI’m sitting here in what has been my home away from home the past four days – the ESPN/BASS media trailer. It ain’t bad. Basically it’s a 21-foot cargo trailer with rows of desks along the side. It’s got high-speed Internet (although I haven’t gotten it to work for me), a fridge, TV and, most importantly, AC. It’s not bad out there today – I’m thinking 85 – but Friday and Saturday it was oppressive, so getting in here was a nice break. I got here this morning at 5:30 a.m. for the launch. I’d hoped to get up in a helo but that didn’t happen. So I got in a camera boat, which wasn’t much slower than a helo. It was a 21-foot Blazer with a 300hp Yamaha. The driver said it will top 80 and I believe it. The lake was smooth so the ride was nice. Unlike yesterday. I spent a couple hours out there and it was rough. My driver was careful but on the way back he didn’t see a rogue wave (neither did I) and when we hit it I launched about 3 feet off the seat. Had I not been holding on I would have been in the water. This morning we got started after all 12 anglers had taken off. Somehow in the next two hours we found five boats, which I thought was pretty fortunate. It helped that a lot of guys have been hammering main lake points. Apparently this is going to be a really close finish. It looks like leader Casey Ashley is struggling while a couple of other contenders, including Skeet Reese and Dean Rojas, are doing well. Weigh-in is about an hour away. You can watch it live at HERE. June 8, 2007Two days down in the Blue Ridge Brawl
Non-boaters, sometimes called co-anglers, are randomly paired with boaters, who run the show. Non-boaters just have to do the best they can. Plenty of them enter because they want a chance to spend a couple days with pro anglers. Embry, who lives in Williamsburg, is enjoying the heck out of his experience. He fished with Davy Hite yesterday and today he was paired with Mike Iaconelli (to Embry's right, for the two of you who somehow don't know who Ike is). Embry didn't even pay to enter the tournament. He won a raffle at the Bass Pro Shops in Hampton. He made thecut and is fishing with Ish Monroe tomorrow. How cool is that? (Ironically, Embry had some problems with the heat today. But Ike iced him down and he was able to get back to fishing after about an hour's rest.) A couple of years ago I rode as an observer with a couple of anglers during the Bassmaster Classic. It was interesting. But, I'm telling you, spending eight hours in the boat and not fishing is pretty brutal. I don't care who you're with. But fishing? That's a different story. Non-boater entry fee for the Elite Series is $750. So, if you make that cut, that's $250 a day, about what you'd pay for a day with a guide. Even if you draw a rookie, those guys are incredibly good and would be worth spending a day with. If you draw a guy like Ike (or any number of those pros) -- and the odds are 1 in 108 -- you could have one of your most interesting fishing days ever. I'm going to be out on the lake tomorrow some (in a media boat). It is going to be interesting to see how boat traffic affects the fishing. February 1, 2007The subtle approach
Making it as a pro bass angler is as much about fishing well as it is about savvy marketing. Few are more savvy than Crews. Every single driver Crews passes or who passes Crews on the road this year is going to notice this rig. They will all be in cars or trucks. Advance Auto Parts sells parts for those cars and trucks. Sounds like a pretty good partnership to me.
October 25, 2006Searching for IkeSmith Mountain Lake is hosting a Northern Open bass tournament this week. The tournament will feature mostly weekend anglers with big dreams, but a few well known pros are here. The list includes Mike "Ike" Iaconelli, who I'd say is the best known young pro bass fisherman in the county. I told Scott Martin, an official with co-host Franklin County, that I was going to do a feature story on Ike after the tournament's second day. He asked if I wanted to hook up with Ike ahead of time. Of course I said yes. Tuesday Martin sent me an e-mail saying I could meet Ike at his rented house at 6:30 p.m. I used Mapquest to find the place, but didn't get directions. I figured my detailed map of the neighborhood (on the lake's Bedford County side), combined with my trusty "Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer" would be fine. I was wrong. I took at least four wrong turns before I finally reached the house, just before 7 p.m. Fortunately Ike and his roommate had just gotten there, too. It turned out his boat broke down. His uncle was driving down from New Jersey with Ike's spare boat -- wouldn't it be nice to have a spare boat? -- and Ike had to get all his gear out of his main ride so he could put it in the other boat. He didn't stop what he was doing. But after he made a dent, he took a break for about an hour to talk with me. Yeah, he's savvy about the media. But there comes a time when you just can't fake that stuff. After the interview I thanked him, wished him luck and stumbled through the complete blackness to reach my truck. That's one thing about those older neighborhoods out there at the lake -- they are seriously dark. Living in the city, I take streetlights for granted. When I reached the first intersection I took a right to reach the main road out -- but hit a dead end. I went the other way, took a turn, and reached another dead end. After studying the map I tried again, and ended up back at the first dead end. At this point I was looking at my truck's compass and the map. I knew I had to go Northwest. I finally figured it out and headed up the road -- and there was Ike's truck and boat. I had gone, literally, nowhere. Five minutes later I finally got out of the neighborhood. I had been pretty stressed when I was late getting to the interview. But at that point, all I could do was laugh. August 7, 2006Gas moneySaturday's final weigh-in of the Wal-Mart FLW Tour championship had plenty of interesting moments. One came when major sponsor British Petroleum (BP) presented each of the 12 finalists with a $1,000 check. While the BP executive helped hand the fishermen their oversized checks, the FLW Outdoors executive with the mic said something along the lines of, "With today's high gas prices, this is going to really help you guys out." I don't think that was scripted. July 17, 2006Blue Ridge BrawlAfter an amazingly successful BASS Northern Open event at Smith Mountain Lake in the fall of 2004, anglers and BASS officials alike said they felt the lake would be an ideal site for an Elite Series event. They were right. Smith Mountain Lake is one of 11 site for next year's series. This is the most prestigious tournament to ever hit the lake. Here's the full 2007 Elite Series scedule, plus the three Bassmaster Majors:
The Western Run #1 March 8-11 Battle on the Border, Lake Amistad Del Rio, Texas #2 March 22-25 Duel in the Delta, California Delta Stockton, Calif. #3 March 29-April 1 Golden State Shootout, Clear Lake Lakeport, Calif. The Southern Swing #4 April 19-22 Pride of Georgia, Clarks Hill Lake Evans, Ga. #5 April 26-29 Southern Challenge, Lake Guntersville Guntersville, Ala. #6 June 7-10 Blue Ridge Brawl, Smith Mountain Lake Moneta, Va. The Turn #7 June 21-24 The Sooner Run, Grand Lake Grove, Okla.
#8 July 12-15 Champion’s Choice, Lake Champlain Plattsburgh, N.Y #9 July 19-22 Empire Chase, Lake Erie/ Niagara River Buffalo, N.Y. #11 Sept. 13-16 Sunshine Showdown, Lake Tohopekaliga Kissimmee, Fl.
Bassmaster Majors #1 May 17-20 Bassmaster American, High Rock Lake Greensboro, N.C. #2 July 26-29 Bassmaster Memorial, Oneida Lake Syracuse, N.Y. #3 Aug. 23-26 Bassmaster Legends, Arkansas River Little Rock, Ark. June 24, 2006When it rains...Thunderstorms that rolled through Southwest Virginia last night (June 23) didn't hit my neighborhood too hard. But they dumped some good rain elsewhere. According to the USGS streamflow Web site, flow in the Roanoke River at Roanoke jumped from around 50 cfs to about 190 cfs. The James River at Buchanan blasted from a pitiful 600 cfs up to 1,300 cfs (and is still on its way up as I type this). The New River at Radford, where releases from Claytor Dam affect the flows, is just over 2,200 cfs this morning. That's still lower than usual, but better than the relative trickle that's been running the past few weeks. Fishing action should be decent on all three of those rivers today. On the New and James, that means smallmouth bass. The Roanoke doesn't have as many bass but its redbreast sunfish should be pretty active. More storms are in the future and that could be good and bad. River bass go nuts when a good afternoon thunderstorm approaches. I love chucking big prop baits in those situations. The challenge is to get off the water and to safety before the lightnining starts. And before rivers get dangerously high. (There's a current flash flood warning in effect for parts of Virginia.) If rain storms stick with us for the next few days, which is what the weather guessers are predicting, the rivers could be unfishable in a day or two. So now is the time to get out there.. June 22, 2006A real bass
Barbara Lynch pulled this 22-inch-long pig from a farm pond in Check on Mother's Day. The fish hit a Rapala Husky Jerk. June 8, 2006Crews in fast companyI just got a press release teaser from ESPN/BASS regarding four anglers who have managed to cash a check in all six Bassmastaer Elite Series tournaments and the first "Major" tournament. I bit because I had a feeling who one of the four was. Sure enough, Salem's John Crews was on the list, along with Mike Wurm from Arkansas, and superstars Mike Iaconelli of New Jersey and Greg Hackney of Lousiana. Always good at the business side of being a pro angler, Crews has become the total package this season. He has earned just over 85 grand in prize money this year, and is fifth in the tour's Angler of the Year standings. |
About this blog
While growing up in rural Southern Oregon, Mark Taylor developed a passion for the outdoors while he and his younger brother tagged along with their father on fishing, hunting and camping adventures. Graduating from Northwestern University in 1988, Taylor spent four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy based in Norfolk before moving into journalism. After five years writing about the military for a Norfolk-based publishing company, he became the outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times in 1998. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and twin daughters. .....Advertisement.....
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