Im headin down to my place in Pea Hill this weekend for the 4th and am lookin to find some of the bigger catfish. Has anyone had any luck with blues there? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Johnny

Got old Bass Mags out to reread for info and came on an article (may 1979) on using a baby bottle nipple as a popping bait on a long pole. This got me to thinking and I have a long stiff carp pole (16 feet long and the same feel as a flippin stick) a friend gave me in England. I went to Walmart and bought a pack of nipples and some #5 treble hooks. Was wondering if anyone else or any "old timers" out there have used this method to fish?

I have rigged this up and practiced at my pier and with a slight jerk as the nipple is on the water makes a nice popping sound, am now getting where I can dance the nipple so it makes 3 or 4 good pops in a row. I havent got to go out and try this yet.

Had a friend down for the week and did a bunch of fishing this week. Week of July 22-27

Monday- 22nd, He fishes the upper Cheaspeake alot so he wanted to fish grass. Hit a bunch of the small coves on the main lake on the VA side north of the Stonehouse creeks. Him throwing a tamdem flute rig( to rig: tie swivel and hook on 2 foot separate leader, slip that up line, tie another swivel 3 foot above another hook on tag end of line. Top swivel will slide up and down the line above the main line swivel. Can use flukes, floating worms, ect. Fish rig like jerk bait but with light twiches.) to grass along the shorelines, we were looking for standing grass with 3 foot of water on deepest part. I was throwing shallow running cranks in shad color. His first 3 casts were doubles with fish between 2-4 lbs. Since its so hard to boat 2 fish on one line I let him fish and helped lip fish. He totaled 27 fish out of 3 coves.

Started fishing piers just before dark using 10" mag worms. Fish were on outside pilings in 6 foot of water. Rotating between 7 piers in Big Stonehouse we caught 5, fish were between 3-5 lbs.

Tuesday-23rd, Started early doing piers with topwaters. Friend throwing pop-r, me throwing Zara in ghost. Ran piers in mid creek area Big stonehouse catching 9 fish, fish were between 2 -4 lbs. Pop-r catches were in 3'-5' area, Zara 7'-9'. Ran into all main lake coves fishing Tandem rig flukes in the grass from about 10am till about 3pm. Caught approximately 30 fish from 1lb up to 3 lbs. Patern seemed to be, me throwing shallow cranks till we saw followers then he would throw fluke rig.

Wednesday-24th, Trolled 20+ running cranks around Eatons ferry bridge and drop offs at mouth of Stonehouse creeks. Caught 9 stripers, most 14-19 inch range. Looked for 10 foot of water with drop steep drop offs into 20'.

Thursday-25th, Ran the coves on NC side up to Hubquarter creek fishing grass and falldowns. Tandem rig caught 7 fish. Me throwing Zara and shallow crank around piers in coves caught 4. Sizes 2-4 lbs. Fished mouth and first half of Hubquarter. Flipped piers with 10" mag worms in redshad. Caught fish off of pilings in 3-5' range. Narrowing pattern showed fish needed to be near wooden ladders, single piling didnt produce. Total fish caught 19 with largest being 6-3.

Friday-26th Friend started to fish my pier and hooked and lost nice fish off pier. Looked for piers with laydowns or wood near the piers, throwing magworms and pig&jigs. Total for morning, 9 fish with him getting 5lber off laydowns at mouth of Big Stonehouse on shad colored jig/white split tail spinnerbait trailer. Would throw to shallow and slow jump jig then start swimming the jig in deeper water.

Saturday-27th Friend caught same fish off my pier! still had bait hooked in lower jaw. Fished weighed 3-12. Ran down to Jimmies and fished points at mouth with deep running cranks hoping to get feeding stripers. 2 stripers caught 16 and 22 inches. 19 bass caught with cranks and carolina rigged jerk baits, sizes 3-4lb. Ran to points west of Sledge creek. surface level temp was 86degrees,dropped temp gauge found temp at 14' to be 79. started throwing cranks and carolina rigged jerk baits no luck. Changed to carolina rigged lizards and centipedes, caught 6 fish on first pass. Changed from using watermelon to white zoom lizard and white super fluke and caught 11 on next pass. Friend caught huge catfish on lizard(Fish scale wasnt big enough).

This was his first time on Gaston and was impressed enought to wanting to smack me in head for not telling him to come fish sooner!

I just returned from our 2009 family vacation where we had rented a place back in Pretty Creek for the week. We all had a great time, boating, swimming and fishing. The majority of the fishing was done off the dock so everyone was able to catch fish and be together. We caught lots of small fish through the week with a few larger ones mixed in.

I was able to make it out for two mornings of striper fishing taking my son and his girlfriend. Lake Gaston has always been a challenge for me to catch stripers during our summer vacations in the past. We started off Tues night rigging a submersible light off the dock hoping to draw bait in for the morning. To our surprise we found loads of white bass around the light instead of bait so I never threw the net. We caught a few herring in front of Pea Hill Bridge but the boat traffic sent the schools deep. We ended up catching real nice 4- 6-" herring right in front of the dam. The bait schools were on top and with one throw of the net we filled the bait tank. We decided to fish that area since the bait was so abundant.

I pulled freelines through the area and downlines. No hits at all on freelines but we consistently caught fish on the downlines at mixed depths. We caught fish at 40 ft and 12 ft. Most of the fish came inside the weir. We lost about as many as we caught and I tied many lost hooks in the process. The largest striper caught was only 23”, which was released since I had brought fish with me to eat so I really did not want to be cleaning fish. We caught catfish, LM bass, white bass and stripers. We stopped fishing about 10:00 am.

The next morning we duplicated the Wed trip but just fished with downlines working the edge of the weir on both sides. Same results, we caught lots of different fish of all sizes.

It was a great week of family, fishing and fun on Lake Gaston. It is truly a big change from the Raleigh rat race during the rest of the year. I hope this fishing report can help anyone else heading up that way. Good luck and good fishing.

I have fished Gaston off and now on for years and last night got surprised! I was in the very back of Big Stonehouse and fishing a small curl tail worm when I started getting very light hits. The third time, after missing the first 2, I caught it and was surprised to find a 5" striper! I ended up catching 7 of them. I thought stripers didn't spawn in Gaston. Is this a case of hitting spawn or stocked?