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By Jeff Turner

RiverGuard Report

 

Spirit of Moonpie and I spent October the 25th through the 27th on the Nottoway below the Bronco Club. The water was clear, leafy and 72 degrees. Air temps ranged from 52 to 78 degrees, it was very nice to be this late in October. I only picked up a couple pieces of trash and saw no water quality issues.

Yes, Virginia, the Nottoway still has the blues. I wasn’t so sure after this summer’s dismal blue catfish catch record by us on the pontoon boat. Also, the fact that we saw a great many dead blues on the Nottoway this summer. But alas, the blues are still in the Nottoway and seem to be okay. Maybe Mother Nature’s culling this summer actually will help the species? I caught nine cats on the limb lines, the two biggest were 12.11 and 16.12 pounds. A friend of mine was also out there, and they had a 30-pound class fish. All were caught on cut bait. I even caught three channel cats! The regular fishing was not too bad either, except for the bream. I had a terrible time catching any for bait. However, I did catch plenty of bass and chain pickerel on tiny bream lures while trying to catch bait bream. I think it’s weird that this time of year the bream are so hard to catch. With 72-degree water temps they should be biting it would seem. What happens to them? Where do they go? Deep water? Do they school? I sure wish I could see underwater just to see what the deal is. I have always wondered about the bream in late fall/winter.

So, it was another great trip. I don’t expect my next trip will be so warm. Another cool thing this trip was that the moon was nearly full, which made it more “Halloweeny” out there on the two rivers we call the Nottoway and Blackwater.

Jeff Turner is the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard. To contact him about river issues, send him an email at blknotkpr@earthlink.net. He can also be followed on the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard Facebook page. Just type in “Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard” in the search field on Facebook.