Fishing Report From Cape Fair Marina~James River Arm

[Outdoor Girl]

Alright, the Labor Day Holiday is over and the fish are ready to bite. Only a few fish were struck by props and most have gone on nerve pills to overcome the noise and wave action that drove them to hide on the bottom of the lake.

Crappie: Let’s start with some big crappie showing up. Not in large numbers yet but big enough to make a real meal out of 4 or 5 good ones. Road runners and rooster tails fished down around brush and lay down trees in 15 to 18 foot of water will get you bit if you don’t hang up a lot. Crappie jigs tipped with a small minnow and fished straight down over them trees will catch them too. As the water cools even more now that we are heading into the fall, the crappie will start moving toward the banks and start feeding hard for the coming winter, don’t forget to ever so often fish shallow banks and see if they are there.

White bass: These guys are getting ready to start their fall run and if we ever get a rain, I bet they will fill the rivers a long ways upstream. Some of the schools of whites that are chasing shad on top are big covering an acre at times. Problem is that they are hard to sneak up on without putting them down. The white’s are also working over the shad as the wind blows the schools over the better gravel points. Use small to medium size top waters for those schooling white’s and crank baits that run will run 6 to 8 feet deep on the gravel points.

Black Bass: We had some nice blacks turned end on a small tournament Sunday. Not monster bass, but good solid 2 ½ pounders. The moon is coming full, so it’s a given that the good bass will be tearing up spinners baits thrown near the banks in the bigger coves. Dragging Carolina rigs over any good point will catch a mixed size of bass in the day time. Also crank baits further up the James and Flat creek will net you a bunch of short bass. Not many keepers but a ton of fun. Just play with these short fish because about the end of this month you will get your rod bent double.

Water color and temperature: Right now the water in the upper James and Flat creek is kind of a dirty brown/green. Further down the James the color is a much nicer green but the fish don’t seem to be biting as good. Water temperature is dropping down near the 80 degree mark and if this cool weather hangs in we might see 70 degree water pretty quick.

[Larry Eby]

Thank you for that update.

[CaptainJoe]

Good report. Thanks for the information.