Spoonbill Opening Weekend

[hoover25]

Hello all,

I have snagged the last several years, but this is going to be my first attempt to go out opening weekend.

I will be down there Saturday. What I am not sure of is....where to start? Do you go right above Cape Fair or should I motor up the river a couple miles?

Any tips appeciated.

[RonS.]

I would put in at Cape fair bridge(Bridgeport) and actually from there up is good but I my self usually go up and start at the mouth of flat and work my way up the James.

[Seth]

RonS has the same plan as us. We usually start out at the bridge and just snag our way up river, but most of the time we don't get into fish until we get up to the mouth of Flat Creek on up.

What do you guys think it will be like for the opening weekend? It's not as warm as last year and the spooners were really thick up above flat creek, but I don't think we will be as lucky this year.

[RonS.]

IF everything goes right I plan on being on the water midnight opening morning So for you all going out on the week end MAYBE Ill have some info .

[Seth]

I'm for sure going to be down opening night this week. My parents and I and my buddy and his dad are going to be fishing from two boats up above Flat Creek up to Walnut Springs like usual.

[Sam]

Like every spring, I'll be crappie and white bass fishing on James amongst the spoonbillers. Nothing wrong with that, people are good and everybody gets along fine.

I tried spoonbilling once and caught one. I found I just don't care anything about it, and it's a lot of work. For those who look forward to spoonbill season, hey, I'm glad to see you having a good time.

It shakes me up when one of those goofy-looking things jumps right beside the boat, and it seems like every year I snag one (briefly) on a crappie rig. That's part of the spring fishing I look forward to - and I'll see you out there!

[Seth]

I'll be getting in my share of crappie fishing while down there also. Those things just taste way to darn good not to try and catch a mess of.

I wish I knew more about white bass because I have been dying to get into a school of those. Every time we go snagging, we see somebody with a stringer full of dandy whites.

Spoonbill snagging works your butt over pretty good, but hey its good for you and there's not much that pulls harder than a 70 pound paddlefish.