Another striper run has come and gone. I'm back home in Virginia watching it rain today and we are actually supposed to get inches of rain over the next 24 hours. This big system of rain would of been real helpful a month ago. Its been a dry start to my busy season and it showed on the Roanoke River for the annual striped bass spawn run. My first week started off well with good flows and hungry stripers but Army Core of Engineers had to mess with the flows. They started dropping river flows because of the lack of rain. There was plenty of fish in the river but as flows dropped the striper bite got picky. A lot of the fish there had already spawned or were spawning, the fish started dropping back to the Sound or lower river. I can't say I blame them with not having normal water flows over their heads. I ended my time there a week and half earlier this year which was a bummer but don't want to take folks fishing if its not up to par. Hopefully this will be the last year I see low flows during the striper spawn and we can have normal fishing. Appreciate everyone that made the trip to fish with me here though and hope to see you next Spring.
Before I left for the striper migration I was either guiding trout on the Jackson river on the tailwater section below Gathright Dam or chasing after pre spawn smallmouth bass. Jackson River has given up some nice wild trout this Spring. The pre spawn bite for smallmouth was good this year with the dryer than normal Spring flows have kept the rivers fishable and provided good flows for the bass to spawn. The smallmouth bass spawn should be close to done if it hasn't finished already. Keeping my fingers crossed this large rain system doesn't wash the fry away with the likely high flows that are coming. I have a few musky trips to run that were postponed from early March and a few more trout trips left before June. June 1st I will be guiding smallmouth bass until October 1st, still have some availability in July and August with September being my favorite for catching big smallies on the topwater with the annual cicada die off.
Thank you for all the support and hope to see you on the water this Summer!
