Roanoke Recap
As Spring is coming to a close, I wanted to take some time to recap the Roanoke River this year. For those who don’t know the Roanoke is river system here in NC that is home to the rock fish (Striped Bass) capitol of the world. My self along with some other guides travel to this river to run trips chasing these rockfish up and down the more narrow parts of the river. These fish are moving up this river in order to spawn, when have such a large bio mass of fish moving through a narrow part of the river, it can make for some epics fishing. That is exactly how this season started, the water was a little warm ( 68 degrees) but the fish didn’t seem to mind. For the first 4 days or so the fish were all down river from Weldon NC, which is where we usually put in, this made for short boat rides to the fishing grounds. Fishing stayed consistent from 6am until a little bit after lunch most days early season, and would pick right back up around 4pm until dark. We were able to catch these fish on everything from top water, large jigs, and flies. After enjoying a consistent early season we had some fronts move through the area causing the temperature and fish behavior to change some. The morning bite began to die off and we would usually catch fish some time around late morning evening. The fish were also less concentrated than weeks prior so there for we did more running around and using electronics to find small groups of fish, of which we would catch a couple before they dispersed. This was the case for most of the middle part of the season, on my last few trips on the Roanoke things got a bit tougher, with rising water temps and an increase in boat traffic, these fish began to swim back down river after they spawned. The targeted groups of fish became smaller and harder to feed and thus brought the rock fish season to a close. All in all it was a great season with some very special moments, it was hot while it was hot and tapered off until it was cold. I am already looking forward to next season and hope to see you out there
