Loving the fishing reports, great work to all.

Had some buddies in from out of town over the weekend and went on a little catfishing trip on the James. We fished around Hopewell and the Dutch Gap area and caught a handfull of small blues. The first fish we caught was a 37" (FL) stirper with a 22" girth. I have heard there are some resident stripers but thought they were smaller fish. I have caught some small fish in the cast net throwing for shad that were pretty ruff looking but this fish looked great.

Was wondering about their migration up the James and if it is normal for fish to be up that far this time of year.

Have you targeted stripers that far up in the James before? I'd like to learn more about it.

Thanks for sharing anything you know about it.

Shep

It sounds to me like they are right about on time, but I figured all this warm weather and rainfall would keep them out in the salt a while longer. They migrate up all the major tributaries of the bay to spawn this time of year. They hang around for a good long while but they usually aren't doing much feeding which makes it tougher to catch them. Big plugs cast into the first sets of rapids at the fall line - just up from I-95 in Richmond, has done the trick for us. I haven't done any rock hopping this year because of all the flooding.

Here is a good link with some info on them.

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/Info/striped_bass.cfm