Dara, Oliver, Cy, and Beckett joined us on the James River for the ultimate adventure. We started our trip bright and early at 4 AM with our sights set on catching as many fish as we could before the sun came up. From the second, we got to our first spot we were catching white perch, and striper left and right. Everybody had a chance to catch themselves a striper and there were some pretty good ones in the mix. We continued to catch striper, but the white perch bite heated up

Travis, Connor, Nolan, and Declan joined us on the lake for a morning of multispecies fishing. Their goal was to catch as many differnet types of fish as possible. We set out shortly after sunrise and started to drag crankbaits and jigs behind the boat along the channel ledges. It didn't take long before we started to work through a number of white perch. Just about everybody on board had a chance to catch a white perch. We started to target some shallower water near creek mo

Cody, Randy, Trey, and Tee joined us for a day on the James River. We started the morning off collecting a bunch of fresh bait while a patch of heavy fog burned off. It wasn't long before we were taking off down river. We marked a giant fish and tried to drift past him without success. We went ahead of him and anchored up current from the mark and started to wait him out. After about 20 minutes a rod folded over but never hooked up. A couple more taps resulted in nothing then

Dara, Oliver, Parks, Kyle, and Gwathmey joined us on the river for a morning catfishing trip for Oliver's Birthday. We had bait ready to go and took off for our first fishing spot at sunrise. We set the gill net to snag a little more bait while we fished on a channel ledge. We tossed some rods shallow, some deep, and some on the channel drop off. Over the course of 45 minutes, we had a lot of taps, a few good takedowns, and landed one small fish to get the skunk off the boat.

Darin and Nash joined us for a morning trip on the James River. We set our gill net to start the trip and pulled in a few gizzard shad. We scanned a channel ledge, which was holding fish, so we set the gill net and fished next to it for about 40 minutes. These fish were not very active, and we only saw a few small taps on the rods. We deployed the Alphaboardz and started to drag baits in a mud flat. As soon as we hit water less than 5 ft deep, the rods starts to light up. A l

A Morning on the James River Lyndsey booked a morning trip for her and her husband to spend some time on the river, hoping to land a big blue catfish. We had the bait ready when the couple jumped on the boat, and we took off down the river, excitement buzzing in the air! We scanned the channel ledges and found some promising marks. Setting the boat up, we cast the rods out and settled in. The anticipation was palpable as we watched the rods, which got a few taps here and ther

Gibson, Harrison, and Ezra joined us on the river to celebrate Harrison's birthday. They wanted to try their hand at trophy catfishing. We pulled the gill net and started the morning off with fresh gizzard shad for bait. We started our trip in the dark and made it to our first fishing location as the sun was coming up. We had a rainy morning and the bite was not fired up to start the trip. We pulled planer boards through schools of bait and marked plenty of big fish but none

We had David, David, David and Kevin on the boat to celebrate a bachelor party. We had bait ready to go and got to work scanning for some fish. It took a second to check out a few areas as our usual locations were not holding fish. We pulled out the Alphaboardz and started to drag baits in some shallow to moderately deep water. A few minutes into pulling planer boards and we had our first eater size fish of the morning on the deck. We reset the boards and continued to drag al

A Day on the Water with Family Fred, Lindsey, Charlotte, and Jackson joined us on the lake for a half-day multispecies fishing trip. The kids were eager to catch some fish, so we deployed the mini crankbaits right away and began trolling. We played around with our speed and depths, and soon enough, we landed our first fish of the morning—a beautiful largemouth bass caught near a grass line. Not long after, two rods went down simultaneously! We pulled in a big white perch and

A Thrilling Day with Friends Lucas, Brett, Tim, and Matthew joined us from Indiana for their first trip on the James River. We kicked off the day with high hopes, ready to fish some patterns that had been consistently producing. However, the fish had other plans. Despite our efforts, they weren't biting. We spent quality time at several locations where we marked fish, but they just wouldn’t commit. It was a gorgeous morning on the water, with the rods tapping, but we needed t

Zach joined us for a paddleboard trip on the upper James River. Our goal was to catch some blue catfish and flathead catfish. We hit the river with two buckets full of live bluegill. The first couple holes we hit were not holding fish like they had been all summer long. We continued to work down the river until we got to a deep section. We put on some floats and started to let some live bait drift down the river. It wasn't long until we hooked into a clue catfish way down riv

Joshua, Madden, Mackenzie, and Tim joined us for a return trip on the James River. It was a rainy morning but the group was in good spirits and ready to catch some fish. We checked out a section of river that was new to the group and Captain Dan told them to expect a slow but quality bite. We ran down river and marked some fish right away. We tossed out some fresh shad and white perch and began waiting for the rods to go down. We had a tap right away that didn't amount to any

Joel and Ellie were in town from Wisconsin and joined us for their first James River experience. We had a cooler full of white perch ready to go and grabbed a few fresh gizzard shad to start the trip. We started by scanning a channel ledge and saw a few nice marks hanging on the ledge and towards the bottom of the ledge. We set the boat up and got some fresh bait in the water. The bite was very quiet for the first hour or so but we saw fish continue to work their way under th

Lou, Kerry, Anthony, Nicholas, Layla, and Lennon joined us for their first trip fishing the James River. They wanted to catch some catfish, hoping for a mix between eaters and trophy fish. We set off down river and got right on some action with a small blue catfish being the first fish in the boat. We lost a few other small fish and one nice fish at our first anchor. We decided to move to deeper water and saw some great marks on the sonar. We weren't anchored for 20 minutes w

Dylan, Tanner, Chris, and Robby joined us for their first ever fishing trip on the James River. We took off down river and got right to work slinging out fresh bait. The tide was slowing down as we sat on our first anchor. Captain Dan explained how the big fish like to move and look for a snack when the water slows down. Right on queue, a rod was hit and we thought we had a decent mid size fish on the line. The fish was coming to the boat pretty easy until it was right under

Skip and Edward joined us on the James River for an afternoon trip. They wanted to catch some fish and a trophy would be an added bonus. This trip followed our morning trip from the previous blog post so we went right back to the hot bite we were on earlier. Unfortunately, the tide had flipped while we were picking the guys up so the pattern had changed. That’s one major challenge of fishing a tidal river. Stan and I theorized where the fish went and we took off to use our so

We had Donnie and Carson on the James River looking to land a couple of big catfish. We picked them up at the ramp and headed down river with a bunch of bait in the cooler. On our first anchor we had multiple rods getting hit at all times and managed to catch a couple of small eater catfish. We made an adjustment to our position and fished a little deeper water and caught another small catfish right away. As the sun got higher in the sky, the quality of the fish continued to

We had Steve, Drew, Christian, Matthew, Landon, and Keegan on the boat for a night trip. We started the trip off by fishing some deep pockets for catfish. While we’re waiting for the sun to go down, we caught our first fish of the night a small blue catfish. A little while later, another fish came in the boat about the same size. We moved to a new stretch of river and didn’t have much luck, but we didn’t spend much time before the sun was finally setting. As soon as the sun w

Dan, Aidan and Sienna came out for a morning trip on the James river. We started the morning fishing a channel ledge, throwing some rod deep and rods shallow. We sat on anchor for about 35 minutes with only one tap, shallow, and one tab deep. No fish hooked up, so we moved onto dragging baits in the shallow area. We saw a lot of fish on the side skin and committed to dragging for the next hour and a half. A couple promising hits early never turned into fish, but we were soon

Harold and Allison came out to the James River to try and catch some trophy fish. We started the morning off well before the sun came up looking for striper and white perch. From the second we pulled up we were catching white perch and striper left and right. After the first hour, we had caught nearly 70 fish and the biggest surprise in the morning showed up when a rod went down and there was a flounder on the other end. This flounder was too small to keep so we tossed it bac