Related Fly Fishing Articles
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| Fly rodders are using red-and-white or chartreuse-and-white Clouser Minnows successfully, but a Half-and-Half (bottom) is more likely to draw the attention of a big, bruising striped bass because the additional feathers give the fly more bulk. |
WELDON — Striped bass fishing has to be pretty darn good when anglers start using “search lures” to find concentrations of stripers of a certain size and then target them with more specialized lures. But that’s what some anglers were doing this week on the Roanoke River near Weldon, according to Bobby Colston, owner of Colston’s Tackle Box near Gaston.
“I went fishing Tuesday after work this week, using bucktails and a fly rod,” Colston said. “I caught about 25 and my partner caught about 10.”
Colston reported catching the fish upriver from the Highway 301 bridge near the Weldon boat ramp. The bucktails were good for finding striped bass. Clouser Minnows and Half-and-Halfs fished on a sinking line were good for fly rod action.
“I could have caught 100 if I had kept fishing a bucktail. It’s a good search bait,” Colston said. “There’s no reason to throw a fly rod unless you find a concentration of fish first.”
Noting that he was actually targeting larger striped bass, Colston said he caught two on a fly rod – a 26-incher that took a red-and-white Clouser Minnow and a 22-incher that was fooled by a chartreuse-and-pink Half-and-Half.
“Normally, you’ll catch fish in the 17- to 19-inch size when you’re fishing a fly rod,” Colston said. “But I was looking for bigger fish. … There were a lot more folks fishing downriver near the ‘big rock’ and the ‘little river,’ but I heard they were catching smaller fish.”
The number of anglers fishing downriver was verified by Wildlife Commission Biologist Chad Thomas, who, like Colston, was on the Roanoke on Tuesday as well. But for Thomas, electrofishing equipment gave him a better opportunity to sample the Roanoke’s striped bass population.
“There were a lot of people fishing even though it was a Tuesday,” said Thomas, the Commission’s coastal region research coordinator. “There were probably 60 boats working from the mouth of the ‘little river’ down to the first bend below the ‘big rock.’ They were all catching striped bass in good numbers – mostly 18- to 20-inch fish – and the fly fishing was picking up significantly too.”
At one survey site, Thomas reported sampling 247 striped bass in about five minutes. Granted, 1,000 volts of electricity will outfish Sassy Shads any day of the week, but the electrofishing data suggest good fishing can be had for anglers who find the stripers.
It’s not just finding the fish. It’s also knowing when to use bait, when to use lures and how to fish them. Colston’s fishing partner, for example, caught 10 striped bass the same day Colston caught 25, even though they were fishing the same spots from the same boat.
“He was from the mountains and he didn’t know how to keep the bucktail on the bottom,” Colston said. “He was using my bucktails and I guess he was too worried about hanging up and losing my lures. … If you’re scared to throw it to the bottom, you might as well be throwing it in a bath tub.”
Topwater action is beginning to pick up, but your best bet is to fish surface baits at dawn or dusk, according to Colston. “Early morning and late afternoon, if there’s not a lot of boat traffic in the area, you can catch them on topwater,” he said.
During the day, white or chartreuse bucktails, Sassy Shads and Flukes are working well for anglers fishing with lures. Pearl with black back produces consistently. More recently, anglers have reported good results using soft-plastic baits in pink. Use 5-inch baits fished on a ˝-ounce lead head. Large minnows, cut bait and live herring caught using Sabiki rigs work well for bait fishermen. Best flies for fly rodders continue to be Clousers and Half-and-Halfs.
Where To Fish
Anglers are reporting catching fish from the Weldon boat ramp area down past the power lines, and almost to Halifax – a distance of about seven miles. Look for deep water on the outside bends of curves or areas where water flows into the main channel.
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| Phil Hart of Clarksville, VA., shows off a 40-incher that struck cut bait. |
Specifically, Colston said that the area above the Highway 301 bridge and the mouth of the “little river” almost directly across from the Weldon boat ramp produced fish this week. In addition, he said he witnessed two fly fishermen successfully working inside the little river.
“Those two guys I saw fly fishing up in the little river were catching fish pretty good,” Colston said. “They were all small fish, but those guys must have found a pocket of them. It’s so narrow in there, they had to kind of just flip out their flies, but they were catching them.”
Thomas said that anglers would notice a difference in the size and the sex of the striped bass they caught throughout the spring, based on the timing of the spawning run.
“For example, early in the season, anglers have to work harder to find big striped bass,” Thomas said. “They're not as abundant and they seem to hang in habitats separate from the gangs of smaller male stripers.”
He added that the fact that the river is full of striped bass right now does not mean they will necessarily bite, or that they will bite the lure or bait that anglers are fishing. Changes in air and water temperatures, barometric pressure, water flow, clarity, forage availability, day length and so on also will affect fishing trips.
“Striped bass, like
all other piscivorous, predatory fishes, will exhibit feeding behaviors that
are hard to predict,” Thomas said. “On the Roanoke in particular, this time
of the year you will often have an early morning ‘bite’ and not much else
until closer to dusk. Some days they’ll hit voraciously from sunrise to
sunset. There’s just no way to know whether or not they will be actively
feeding from one day to the next.”
More information
Guide to striped bass fishing on the Roanoke River
Check current river conditions at Roanoke Rapids
Check current river conditions at Williamston
Low Catches of Striped Bass on Roanoke River Concern Some Anglers (from 4/22)
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