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Whispering Bear and I spent July the 22nd through the 23rd on the Blackwater below Franklin. We had to cut the three-day tour down to two days again because of storms. The water was 83 degrees and did not look too bad. Trash was light, and we did not see any dead catfish, thank goodness. I did not see any water quality issues, but did notice a lot of that shade mudflower looking like it was dying. I don’t know why, but I hope a lot of it does not die all at one time or that could cause more fish kills as the decaying process uses up oxygen.

The fishing on this trip was pretty bad. I didn’t even catch very many bass this trip. The ones I did catch I caught on deeper diving crank baits, except for one bass caught on the AC Shiner. I caught a couple big bream also on a white tail Mepps. We did, however, finally catch a blue catfish that one night. A catfish a day keeps the skunk away! Haaaaa! It was only 7 pounds, but I was glad to see some survived the blue catfish kill. I also caught one little gar and a blackfish. I hung a really nice gar, but it got off when it jumped out of the water like a freshwater Marlin. I sure saw some big ones laid up sunning that first day. Some in the 15-pound-plus class. Going to have to go back to that place again and try for a state record!

I hate going through all that preparation just to go out and only spend one night. Wheww, that’s a lot of work. But that’s the way it is this time of year with afternoon and evening thunderstorms a possibility almost every day. Thankfully it was a tiny bit cooler this short trip. I know the fish and I will be happy when lower temps come back around on the two rivers we call the Blackwater and Nottoway. 

Jeff Turner is the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard. To contact him about river issues, send him an email at blknotkpr@earthlink.net. He can also be followed on the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard Facebook page. Just type in “Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard” in the search field on Facebook.