Floating James This Weekend

[Calvin G]

Going to float from Delaware to shelvin this weekend. Any advice on Lures to use thru that area?

[Nolan_Whaley]

I did this float last sunday afternoon. Lots of moss, lots of carp & gar. Lots of long still pools full of carp and gar that i paddled thru. Bandit 100 pearl red eye caught some decent smallies though. Most came from the top of pools with water running into them. Small watermelon/red tube and a watermelon candy baby brushhog caught a few fish as well.

I actually caught my first gar on the crankbait, and had several other gar strikes on it. That was a first. The best fishing was the upper end. I caught a nice largemouth in the log jams at the 14 bridge, and my best smallie came at the top of ?blue hole?.

If you could find some running clean water, the fish were there. There is just not a lot of that.

I tied on a pop-r for a little while, and got a lot of small strikes, and caught 1 or 2 little smallies. I think a walk the dog in the right hands might be a ton of fun.

We got on the water late. I think we got started at 3pm. Paddled the last mile or so pretty steady without fishing, and got to the truck about 8:45. River needs rain badly. Lots of smelly stretches, and there's a warning posted at Shelvin access about high coliform bacteria levels. Plenty of cows along that stretch.

Goodluck.

[Calvin G]

We're gonna hit it pretty early, hoping to get on the water about daylight. That way were done around lunch and before all the swimmers hit Delaware.

I knew there was alot of gar in the james, I was actually thinking of making up some nylon rope lures in case it was slow.

Thanks for the baits I'll definitely pick some up before we head out. How low is it thru there? We're taking a aluminum V-bottom out, did you have to drag much?

[Nolan_Whaley]

We were in kayaks, and had quite a few places to drag. There's also some real skinny water just below blue hole where the river splits. I'd think v-bottom would be big drag fest. Although there are a lot of long still pools that it would be nice to have a trolling motor....

Ledge above the pool at shelvin is also just barely running water.

[yaknar]

Calvin G, before you get the boat out you might want to check the James RIver Basin Partnership Facebook Page. In the left hand column it has a picture of the Delaware access as of July 29th. I went last weekend and its low. Let us know how the rope lure works. I made one last year but haven't had much luck. And I know I posted these pictures on the General Angling Forum page but in case you haven't seen them, this is my solution to floating the river.

[RSBreth]

The river looks as low as it was during the drought in the late 90's. I'd float further downstream, like from Kerr to Galena.

[Wayne SW/MO]

As a rule a V bottom will draft more than any other hull. If you have any options you might want to consider them.

[vonreed]

I can't imagine floating that stretch in a V bottom aluminum boat. That's gonna be a long day of work, I pity you,lol.

[Calvin G]

We changed the plan and are just gonna paddle a ways past the14 bridge, stay pretty local, fish a few hours and paddle back up. This is our first trip out with the boat, don't wanna get a mile down and have something go wrong

[Calvin G]

Lure looks good, I've only used mine just down from Springfield lake. The are a few Pools that the gar patrol, the biggest problem I've found with gar is that they have horrible vision. You'd have tO wait for one to surface and try to get him to strike within a couple feet. But they work! My little brother landed 1 prolly 4 foot long