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This is the rapids on the other side of the island from the launch at West View. It was a pain in the butt getting back up to the launch. Down stream isn't as bad. There are lots of smallmouth in this section.

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This is the first of two boat slides at Powhatan State Park. Again it was very shallow in this section which made for an interesting launch. When I was there you could walk across the entire river in most if not all places. Very scenic river. I enjoyed it. Caught a sizeable catfish on ultralight tackle.

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Cartersville on the James is a great place to launch a canoe or kayak. When I was there it was shallow at the launch. Too shallow for a motorized boat. Lots of rocks too. Down stream there are places where it gets deep but it's pretty shallow for the most part. I'd say about 3 foot average. River left is deeper than right and I found a very deep hole which had a 50lb + carp hidden in it. Downstream there's a sort of dam which turns into a rapid the entire width of the river. I didn't go down it because I wouldn't have been able to return to my car upstream. Very passable though. There's a bunch of catfish in this section. I caught some smallmouth too.

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The Nottoway River 6/12

Yesterday me and my fishing partner went down to the Nottoway River on the Dinwiddie Brunswick county line. Both of us had never fished this body of water before. It was his first time fishing out of a kayak as well. Neither of us are morning people, so I arrived at his house at high noon. It was hot and balmy so of course I was already in a foul mood. We loaded up his truck with the two yaks and were on the water around 1430. The place where we launched (Rt. 613) is only about 20 minutes from his house but we had some technical difficulties okay... Plus he had to make a stop in Blackstone. Two days before, I had fished the South Anna River, my home river and caught a ton of big bream and fallfish. There's a certain point in the year where lake fishing becomes unbearable and I switch from greenbacks to bronzebacks. I had reached that point and was looking forward to catching some rural smallies in a place I'd never been before. The night before we went to Nottoway I had spent 2 hours researching the river. It looked like something I was definitely looking for. I used Google maps to look at all the bridge launching. Apparently you can launch at all the bridges that cross over the river with the exception of I-85. I chose the Rt. 613 bridge because it was the closest to my friend's house and was on Fort Pickett, which we had gotten passes to fish on. Best of all, it had the best looking launch. Not a concrete ramp mind you or a slide. The most quaint launch of all, a well worn path to the river, and a well defined pull off. It was easy getting the boat to the water. You have about a 30 foot walk through some weeds to get to the bank. Once there it's about a six foot slide to the mouth of a shallow creek that feeds into the river. The river is about 30 feet wide at this point which remained the average throughout our trek. I launched my boat in no time and had to remind myself to wait on my friend being his first time and all. After leaving the creek there was a quick drop off into a hole which led up to a sandbar. Down stream was the bridge with riffles and shallow sand. I immediately wanted to go upstream after survey. My friend on the other hand wanted to go down. His reasoning being he didn't want to get shot on Pickett. I didn't want to go down because I hate paddling against the current after fishing. We had decided not to shuttle. Glad we didn't in the end. As we passed under the bridge I started hitting deep holes with a gulp minnow. It had been a big hit on the South Anna. I immediately noticed I wasn't getting hit. Then I noticed all the sand. The river had no rocks, just wood and sand. Ever optimistic I tried putting the unease out of my mind. We floated and fished for over 4 hours. In that time we encountered countless sandbars and had to get out and drag across shallows several times. Each frustrating time I wanted to keep going further and further downstream against the counsel of my friend who had originally wanted to go down in the first place. Finally we came across a massive willow oak that had recently came down across the river making passage impossible. That sight must've been a metaphor for something. I wanted desperately to cross it. I could see the other side, but there was absolutely no way to pass it without a chain saw. A big one at that. Tired, I turned around at the relief of my friend. It took us about 30 minutes to paddle back upstream to the bridge. The going back was rough. Especially getting the boat out of the water at the end. In all that time I didn't get a single fish in my boat. I know there were in there. Every time I stopped to dip my feet in the water I was swarmed by a hungry school of minnows. They groomed my feet but which was weirdly awesome. I saw a dead catfish that was about 8 inches long. And I hooked into no less than a dozen fish. Each came off the hook. I presented tubes, gulp minnows, 4 inch yum dingers, and a white fluke. The dinger was by far the most attractive but the fish were too small. I alternated between #4 and #6 hooks. Nose hooked minnows and flukes and tubes weightless. Wacky for the dinger. Another aggravation was all the wood in the river. I got snagged so many times. My friend used a yellow curly tail grub and white fluke. He only had 3 hits. It was a long day. Overall it's a scenic river. You feel like you're in a jungle. This stretch of the river is very REMOTE. We saw turkeys and kingfishers. The only human sounds were from the Guard conducting live fire drills on distant Pickett. We didn't see another human until we got back to the bridge. With tree preventing passage I won't be going back there unless I get some local knowledge. If I fish the Nottoway again it will be way down stream. More research to come. On a positive note, on the way there we found another Pickett pond to try later. Being mad at being skunked we went back to my friend's house and put in on his pond. Within seconds I was catching crappie. Just had to throw the skunk off.

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A little about me. I've been fishing since about 2007. Born and raised in central Virginia I'm a recent college grad who's self taught in bass fishing. I do a lot of small water fishing in local ponds and rivers. Up until last year I was a bank fisher man. Now I have a kayak. I've realized the more you fish, the more you don't know. That's the best part though.

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Hello, I'm new to this tumblr thing and all. It's not live anyone will ever read this anyway. Oh well. I've decided to combine my two biggest hobbies, writing and fishing. If you should stumble upon this tumblr, be warned posts shall be sporadic at best and I have no how to work a "blog".