How boatable is the James?

[hoover25]

I have not been to the James this year yet. I am thinking about going in a few days and want to bring a small jon-boat with 18hp motor. Can I put in at McCord Bend or Blunks or is it too shallow? Can I motor up to Galena (I am willing to walk the boat up a riffle...its very light)?

Any navigation/fishing reports would be great.

Also, where are the spoonies at? I have only been going to Warsaw and haven't snagged the James this year.

Thanks in advance!!

[Steve Smith]

Forget Galena as it is way too shallow unless you got a canoe. The water is so shallow in the riffles, I doubt there would be any sows there anyway. McCords would be your best bet.

[Seth]

Me and 3 other fellers snagged the James from 10:30 Friday night till 5:30 Saturday morning. We ended up catching 12 paddlefish. We had 4 of them that we had three that were short and put them back. All but one of the fish we had was over 50 pounds.

I caught one that was 67lbs and my buddy had one that was 69lbs, but that was after they had been out of teh water for almost 6 hours before being weighed so I wonder how much weight they had lost drying out???

We hit the first one trolling by the mouth of flat creek. Then we got into a most of them around asher cane bottom on a flat that was about 12 foot deep.

I picked up one about 40 by the white boat house at the upper end of ashercane bottoms.

It was definetly the best snagging trip I have ever had.

At one point one of the guys hit 5 fish in less than 10 casts I guess, although nobody else in the boat was hitting anything. He is always lucky like that though