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Spirit of Moonpie and I spent Nov. 24-26 on the Nottoway below Delaware. The water was clear and had dropped to 49 degrees. Air temps ranged from 33 to 68 degrees. I did not see much trash, and I saw no water quality issues other than stagnant yuk from lack of rain.

The fishing on this trip was… slack, at least for me. I talked to some folks that said they caught lots of bass (largemouth and smallmouth) and chain pickerel downriver. I guess I should have gone downriver also. I fished the entire first day for smallmouth — jigging deep, suspended, in structure, off of flats and everywhere in between, but to no avail. I caught one little bass, a jack and two nice raccoon perch. I hope that means they will be hitting good soon. On day two JR came out, and I swore I was not going to jig. So, we hit the banks and cast and cast… and then cast some more… it just wasn’t working. So, we ended up jigging that last hour of the day. That’s when I caught the jack, and JR caught a nice 8.1 blue catfish… both jigging the blade bait. We still had fun, though. I mean what’s not fun about fishing with a buddy on the river?

I actually didn’t see that much wildlife either this trip. The coyotes were too far away this time to hear really good… which I actually kind of missed. I did see either two mink, or one mink twice. The first time I just felt something and looked around; there it was on a log, just staring at me. The second time I was idling along, and it was swimming across the river. I stopped and shut the boat down to try to get a pic. Soon as it hit the shore, it did the minky thing, which it too immediately turned around and stared. They are very inquisitive little critters. Alas, this one didn’t hang around long enough for me to get the camera booted up. Moonpie always thinks they are one of her, or she is one of them — not sure which one, really. Hhaaaa!

There were right many people on the river the first day. It’s been such nice weather, I’m glad folks are out having fun on the river while they can. Had a couple issues with folks ’bout swamping my boat when I was tied up to shore. It’s not the bass boats that are the problem. When they are on the plane, there is no boat in the water and very little wake is thrown. It’s a couple of people in 16-foot Bass Trackers with 9.9 hp motors that run them wide open, pushing these boats like a barge that throws a huge wake. These folks need to learn how to slow down to no wake, especially when they pass a boat that is pulled up on shore. I guess they figure because they are not going fast they are not throwing a wake… which just shows the lack of knowledge about driving the boat they own and should understand.

I guess there will always be those that just don’t use common sense when driving a boat. I try to tell these things in my reports so the word will get around, but sometimes that teaching method just doesn’t work. The next step is to demonstrate to these people what a boat wake can be like when a boat plows by while they are fishing. I’d love to do that, but I know that I cannot, and really, if they are so stupid about their boat wake, more than likely the “wake back at you” method would not register anyway. Instead I guess it will take having a conversation with the boater and trying to explain in a nice, friendly way the errors of their boating prowess… on the two rivers we call the Nottoway and Blackwater.

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. Search for “Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard” on Facebook.