2002 Virginia Fish-In

the first one..

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North American Carp Angler

The 2002 Virginia Fishin held at Lake Orange managed to miss the storms that had plagued other east coast fishins this year.. Everybody who came caught at least one 20lb + fish and the lake's largest known grass carp to date, put in a welcome appearance... First off the mark was Roman, from Newport News VA, via Germany, who got things underway with this nice 33lb Grass carp.

This fish proved to be his biggest of the several he caught during the weekend. Stewart "I never catch a fish in the night", from Round Hill VA, via somewhere north of Watford England, started his string of 20lb+ commons at 00:45 and topped out with a nice 27lber.

Several grass carp had visited my net during the night but the 6am one, turned out to be a bit special, well worth waking Stewart up to return the earlier favors with the camera... Stewart recognized the fish, all 38lb 8onz, as the grass carp taken by John a month or so earlier.. the tail is a bit of a giveaway. We were all glad to see it still alive following reports that a large fish had died ....

Things got even more hectic at daybreak... breakfast was postponed.....

Alex, from DC via Serbia, had decided in the morning that the fishing would be better at the dam so off he went in a Jon boat.. walkie talkie in hand to let us know how things were going...

Lunchtime saw Jack Randolph and his wife arrive to meet "the mad Brits" who wanted to catch carp.... Jack writes the weekly fishing report for the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries... we obliged and caught 3 whilst he stood chatting ...

How was Alex getting on ?? Yes the fish were there too and during a slack period on the point I slipped anchor and went down to take a picture or two. His 28lb common had gone back , along with several grass carp but we had managed to convince him to sack up this nice 27-8 common.

The ducks had quickly worked out that this nice red boat was a huge feeding station.... even the odd few gains of corn thrown in would result in a pack of hungry ducks diving for the wonderful food..... scoop after scoop from 5 gallon buckets resulted in this ...

Thankfully the geese were on the nearby fields all day long so the fish got some bait... Having baited the point enroute to the dam, Roman and myself returned to find the fish biting again ... 2 rods out, 2 takes .. huge smile..

Pat, from DC , Via New York.. ;-)... was keeping up the pace and the commons seemed to prefer that part of the point more....

Having caught this nice 2 tone 23lber ....

Stewart called it quits on Saturday evening. His place was quickly filled by a late arriving Marc Snr, from Charlottesville, VA, who had a feeble excuse of spending the morning in casualty, Marc Jnr had discovered football was not as safe as fishing, hopefully the plaster cast will be off before the fish decide to take their Christmas vacation.... we all wish him a speedy recovery... Marc cast his first rod in, having given a few local cat fishermen the low down on his tackle and immediately had a crowd descend upon him to find out what the noise was coming from his pod... result !! on the bank 30 mins.... and posing for the camera's .....

The frantic pace began to tell on those who had started Friday evening even seasoned veterans succumbed......

Last to show up was Christian, from Chesapeake Beach, MD, I'm guessing, via France.. ;-) .. arrived early Sunday morning, by this time the fishing had slowed to a more normal pace. Breakfast was cooking, Frisbee throwing and the odd rod bass fishing, had set in... Christian was quickly asleep under his brolly but thankfully the fish obliged and he caught both a grass carp, "oh dear, another landing net bites the dust" and a nice 20+ common before heading back to Maryland..

All in all things went really well, 7 happy anglers, 4 had stayed the distance, 50 plus carp on the bank in 48 hrs and very few under 20lbs... Sorry for those of you who couldn't make it, hopefully it will be repeated next year.... Trust we will get a few more faces next time.....

Phil, VA Chair, Annandale VA , via Essex England.