Mattawoman Meet & Greet

View Larger Map

On June 8th, I attended the June Meet & Greet for the MKF group.  This time I took my friend JC along to give him some relaxing time on the water after some major changes he went through, including a move with his wife.  The weather for the scheduled M&G did not look promising, but we went anyway - after all, weather forecasters don't have a good track record for predicting the weather correctly. 

JC by the launch area.  
This creek is one of my favorite places, for its scenery.

We arrived at Slavin's ramp early in the morning and saw plenty of other kayakers from the group unloading.  We quickly unloaded and hit the water, eager to get into some nice snakeheads.  Well, the excitement kind of wore off after the first several hours of not catching anything.  I did catch a feisty 13 inch largemouth bass while trolling a white chatterbait, but that was it for most of the morning.

My only bass of the day.

The water was pretty high from the rain a couple days earlier, so there were a lot of submerged areas in the lily pads that I could explore.  I even got so bored I thought I'd try fishing while standing up in my kayak.  I was pleasantly surprised by the stability of my 10 foot Wilderness Systems Tarpon 100.  I did spend a good bit of energy and mental power trying to keep my balance instead of fishing, so it wasn't too effective...but it was nice to get off of the seat for a while.  I am liking my Tarpon 100 more and more each time I go out with it - it's light, it's easy to maneuver, has decent speed, and now I can add its stability to the list of advantages.  Now if I can just figure out how to keep it still in current and wind while fishing it'll be perfect.

It was neat to see drops of water on top of the lily pads.  
They looked like sparkling gems from a distance.

Lunch was schedule for noon at Grinder's Seafood, so I stopped my snakehead hunt around 10AM, and anchored up to do some catfishing.  I got to meet a new MKF'er, Jeremy, as I fished next to him.  He was actually the only one to catch a snakehead in the group that I fished with that morning.  I soaked some cooked shrimp in the water while we chatted some, and pulled in several catfish of various species - channel, blue, and some other catfish with an abnormally large head.  A little while later, I met up with JC and we raced back in to beat the rain that started.  We lost.  The forecasted rain finally came, and we were drenched by the time we got back in.

JC and I didn't catch our targeted fish, but we still caught fish.  I caught a largemouth bass and several catfish, while JC ended the day with a channel catfish and a largemouth bass.  We quickly packed up and went to Grinder's for some good food and fun storytelling with the group. It's always a fun time hanging out with the fishing buddies at MKF.