Sunday, February 17, 2008
A quest for geese and elusive walleye
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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It can be a challenge when two guys in the boat have different priorities.
There was Chuck Hagedorn in the front seat, hands on his trusty Browning Citori over-and-under shotgun, his eyes scanning the river ahead for Canada geese.
There I was in the back, gripping a spinning rod and casting a jerkbait in hopes of catching a walleye for the first time.
And there was our friend and professional guide Tom "Perch" Maynard in the middle, balancing the tasks of making us both happy while also accomplishing his personal mission of scouting for the looming fishing season.
We had set out on the New River in Perch's big raft on this last-gasp cast-and-blast adventure about 8 a.m., with a boatload of fishing rods, shotguns and high hopes.
First, we took up our walleye-fishing station below Fosters Falls.
This is not a secret spot.
Before the park facility opened, four rigs were queued behind the locked gate, and we were first in line only because we arrived nearly an hour-and-a-half early.
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has established an aggressive management program for the river's walleyes. Each winter biologists use electroshock gear to borrow some fish before the spawn, collecting eggs and milt in a hatchery, then later stocking the river with the resulting tiny walleyes.
While the river has been producing lots of fish under 20 inches the past few years, keeper fish over 20 inches are relatively rare.
A tagging element has been added to the program this year. Each returned tag will net the lucky angler a $20 reward.
It was nice to hope for a tag, but Perch mostly just wanted to get a feel for the fishery before he starts taking clients of his New River Angler guide business on the stretch.
As Chuck, a professor of environmental biology at Virginia Tech, longingly eyed a pair of geese on the shoreline, Perch and I pitched small jigs.
The anglers in other boats used their preferred methods, including the popular technique of dunking live minnows.
Nothing was working so we didn't stay long, heading off in search of geese and more fishing spots.
Friday was the final day of the Canada goose season and Perch and Chuck were hoping to fare better than they had on opening day in September, when they floated two stretches of the New and saw few birds.
They would do a lot better.
Not far down the river we rounded a bend and surprised a good bunch of Canadas on the water.
Chuck and I had at them and managed to knock down four, a good start.
Then it was back to fishing.
In a fairly slow run, I felt a tap on my jig and I set the hook into something big and strong.
"Maybe it's a 10-pound walleye," Perch said, excitedly.
My guess was a big flathead catfish. We were both wrong.
When I finally got the fish close to the boat we could see that it was a large carp, which had been foul-hooked behind the dorsal fin.
It wasn't like we were in a hurry so I asked Perch if I could try to land the thing. Eventually I did, and it weighed 18.1 pounds. That's a lifetime best, albeit one with a big asterisk because of the foul hooking.
Soon Perch landed the day's first walleye, a 16-incher.
A while later something bumped my jerkbait and I saw the golden flash of a walleye in the current. It was undersized, but I couldn't have been happier to finally get that monkey off my back after several previous failures.
The geese kept us busy, too.
Spooked after months of hunting pressure, most would fly before we got within range, but we got enough shots to come close to filling our limit.
As temperatures climbed, Perch said he wouldn't be surprised if we hooked a smallmouth, and not much later we both saw a nice one nip at his plug without getting hooked.
I got luckier when something tapped my jerkbait in a bouldery run.
When the strong fish got close to the raft it flashed broadside in the current and I could see that I was fast to what was possibly the biggest smallmouth of my life.
Unfortunately the big bass was hooked precariously to the last treble on the plug.
"Get the net!" I pleaded to Perch.
He complied, but it didn't matter, as the hook finally pulled.
"Oh, Mark," Perch moaned. "But I always tell people it's the ones that get away that keep you coming back."
I felt ill, but only for a bit. It probably would have been asking too much to land that fish.
Plus, there was little time to sulk.
"Are those geese ahead on the left?" Chuck asked, looking downriver.
Our great day was far from over.
