Memorial Day weekend on the upper Roanoke.

[smldlv]

Saturday morning I took my brother-in-law out to chase stripers before the wakeboarders hit the water. We had some medium gizzards and medium to large ales.
He was first up when a planer board went down. The 26” fish was his biggest ‘in a while ‘.

Just before the crowd I got 25” fattie on board.

Monday morning was slow on the live bait, but I hooked a nice 30 1/2” fish on a hand tied bucktail.

On Tuesday I pulled medium to large ales in the main channel. Lots of bait on top and a few breaking stripers. I fished alone again and started out with 12” baby striper, followed by 30” and 29” fish.

Around 9 I was ready to head back to the dock. I had pulled in 5 or 6 baits when a fish hit the long redi-rig with a medium gizzard on it. She pulled drag for a good 5 minutes but I got her in the net. Just missed a citation at 36 1/2”.
Maybe I’ll catch her another day!

Water temp 77-78.

[mwardncsu]

nice weekend of catching!

that water temp is getting on up there........

[smldlv]

Yea, I'm dreading the 80 degree water! Maybe it will stay cloudy for all of June!

[31Airborne]

what a great trip. awesome pics, too. you're a brave man combatting the rec traffic on a holiday weekend.

[smldlv]

May 30, 2018 6:00:24 GMT -5 31Airborne said:

what a great trip. awesome pics, too. you're a brave man combatting the rec traffic on a holiday weekend.

Thanks, I was off the water by 10 am! The level of courtesy shown by the wakeboarders is amazing!

[lund2]

great catching, and great hog. with a pinch of the tail she would be darn close to 37".

One question i have is, do you know for sure that was a female fish?

I always tend to think that larger fish are females, its pretty obvious when they have a stomach full of eggs...but this fish looks fairly skinny for fish of that length this time of year. could this be a large male fish or do you think its just a female fish that has already deposited eggs?

Just curious what you guys think.

[smldlv]

I was just assuming it was a female. It was skinny through the stomach. I do think they have mostly spawned and are making their way back to their usual patterns.