Piedmont's Little River

[boykinsbuddy]

Look like you had a hard day of just pulling and hardly any paddling. I seen that you caught a F##$&*^ Pickerel, my question is why is this fish called by that name. I have caught 6Lb to 7 Lb Pickerel in NJ & NY. I rather catch pickerel then a Blue gill or sunny( punkinseed,green ear,long ear and so on. Pickerel really gives a very good fight, it's just that some people that catches them hate that they tare up bait and line and the slim on the fish also the teeth. If I can't catch any bass that is large or Small mouth bass, I'll fish for Pickerel. I know that I'll get plenty of heat from this posting or reply but it's just me Love catching Chain and Bass.

I grew up catching them. Hamilton Lake in GSO was full of them back in the 70s. We moved right up the road from that lake in '67 and I moved down to Albemarle in '87. Fished for them for 20 years. My pop caught the state record in that lake and turned it into chowder before it could get certified. I would think they are up there in Reidsville Lake...lots of weeds in there. I've seen redfin pickerel in the Sandhills but never caught one. I thought that Little River fish was going to be a redfin but was a chain. My go to lure for them was a Beetle Spin with a Mr. Twister chartreuse twister grub on the jig.

[Dennis1022]

I have only caught 1 Red Fin since I started fishing. Thanks for the info. about Reidsville Lake, never fished that lake. I have fished Lake Hunt and was told they have plenty of Chain in this lake, never caught one plenty of bass. Now since Reidsville took over this lake again and now open to the public, no one has caught a bass over 7 #'s plenty of dinks. Couple years ago you could catch 10 pounders even 11 pounds. But a friend seen a person caught fish from Lake Hunt and was on the corner selling them and they were 9/10/11 pounders. For me I love using swim baits and worms and spoons for chains.

[bronzeback]

the only good access points on the rocky are the ones marked "park here and we'll tow your a--" for 200 yards either side of the river. Man if we had public access there, the water is beautiful-- rock gardens, ripples, etc. everywhere else, a silty mess.

[River Otter]

If you have not already you may want to try the section just downstream of the last dam/lake. There is about 1.5 miles of rocky structure and steep gradient below the last dam. The gradient here tops out about 30-40 ft./mi. so floating would not be a practical approach to cover this territory. I had hoped to have fished this stretch but have scratched this one off my bucket list. I would enjoy reading a report in lieu of fishing it.