If you are one of my subscribers you may have noticed a little delay in my entries this month. I spent the past two weeks in Virginia for my mother in law's family reunion. I may have picked up a little bit of the slower pace that the southern folks are sometimes known for. I will try to catch up on my entries both here and on Sarah's site over the next couple days.

Now many of you may think It would be crazy to drive cross country with a two year old just to spend time with your in laws and a bunch your wifes family that you have never even  met before, but this reunion was going to be held on the shores of Smith Mountain Lake. A beautiful lake in western Virginia full of large mouth and smallmouths, not to mention a fantastic striper fishery. My father in law had setup a striper trip for wed morning so Monday after the knife lake tournament I packed up the truck and we headed south, driving straight through. 22 hours and god knows how many miles of road construction, we made it. A short night sleep and we were getting up at 4am to hit the water.

Margaret is the wife of a gentleman (Mark) that plays golf with my father in law. She is pretty much a fishing addict. Pictures on the wall in their house prove she has caught her share of Smith Mountain Lake stripers (and helped other to do so as well). She is also your typical southern hostess and greeted us with a hug, fresh made biscuits, eggs, and coffee when we got to their house. We readied the deck boat, packed breakfast up and were on the water before sun up. Mark isn't as big on the fishing as Margaret but he does what he is told which was, "speed up, slow down, go over there, no back there, turn back past that, speed back up, your getting to shallow," etc. We all were laughing as Mark calmly did what he was told and Margaret worked the rods in the rod holders. We were using live shiners dropped down about 10 feet on heavy tackle. Shimano Calcuttas on Shakespeare rods. The bait was kept lively in a 25 or 30 gallon bait well with twin aerators. Southern heat can be hard on live bait so Margaret and Mark added ice occasionally to keep them lively. Margaret also ran a bucktail jig out on a planner board for a while.

The most bites came right in front of the house and mostly when we were all working on the biscuit and egg sandwiches. Only real problem was the bites were all coming from a school of white bass. We caught several and lost a few more baits before deciding to fire the big motor and try a few different areas. I enjoyed the ride on the Blackwater river arm of the lake. I had not been that far up the blackwater and like most of the lake, it is ringed with beautiful homes. We stopped to troll around a rock point at the mouth of a creek. As we got a little close to the point I could see big chunk rock in about 6 feet of water. I couldn't resist the temptation so I grabbed one of my baitcasters and slung a shakey head worm out onto the point. Mark slowed down some and I let out line as we slowly dragged the worm over the point. It didnt take long and I was fighting a nice 3 1/2 pound chunker largemouth at the end of a lot of line.



We gave up on the stripers a little while later and tried for some more largemouths but didn't have much luck. As lunch time approached we decided to call it a day. It was a great morning on the water. I look forward to fishing with Margaret and Mark again.
I have some more pics coming from a few different fish I manged to catch while in Virginia so I will post those when they come in.

As far as the reunion goes, it was a pretty good time. I ate so much I had to loosen the straps on my life vest when I got home.

Sport