Do you ever fish wilhelm? It’s usually a bit more chill than Arthur, but it’s a bit longer drive…

Heck pork, you could have driven halfway to Pymie in the time it took you to write post #571!
 
Glendale is nice if you want to travel out east for something different and if you want a couple spots to try with a yak or your boat (electric only), lemme know.   Couple small sized lakes out that way that can be worth your time....
 
Hopefully I'll have a couple salty pics to share next week....leaving Sat. for Emerald Isle but only staying until Wednesday.  Hopefully the weather/wind cooperate and we can get some toothy critters on the beach.  My son REALLY wants to catch a shark from the beach.  

Porktown
Not from a boat. My thought of Wilhelm has always been, might as well go to Pymie if going that far. I’m sure a decent lake, but too far for me to do a day trip and deal with trailering my boat. I am pretty sure most inland lakes right now are dealing with very similar mid summer fishing patterns. I’m sure 1/4 of the boating/angling crowd as Arthur though.

I don’t hit wilhelm often enough to get consistent results, but I usually do ok up there. There isn’t as much off shore structure as Arthur. The upper end stump field is pretty cool. Electric only, so fewer boats and no wake. It’s a bit of a haul tho and I’ve got way better at pulling fish out of the yough.

I’m really having a hard time talking myself into taking the boat out in July and August. Dealing with crowded lakes, getting bounced around by wake, and not catching all that much is not nearly as much fun as creeks and rivers this time of year.

This rain is looking like it might not be too bad. Rivers might be totally fishable this weekend.

Not looking good for fishing weather tomorrow or Saturday around here.
 
https://www.accuweather.c...ose-flood-risk/1227478

I’m not sure about this weather. The local forecasts don’t look that bad but that accuweather story makes it sound like I need to build an ark. I think we’re gonna get some rain but Im not convinced that we’re gonna get pounded. I guess we’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours. The river gauges all look great right now.

eyesandgillz
Hopefully I'll have a couple salty pics to share next week....leaving Sat. for Emerald Isle but only staying until Wednesday.  Hopefully the weather/wind cooperate and we can get some toothy critters on the beach.  My son REALLY wants to catch a shark from the beach.  

Best of luck! Post up a report when you get back if you could. I hope you guys get into the sharks. Not sure if I mentioned in the other post on HPA but we did pretty well at the Radio Island public access on small flounder and lizard fish on power grubs. That would be a great to take a kid fishing as you don't have the waves to deal with. 

CTKsnowman
I'm thinking about going to Kinzua next weekend, anyone have any pointers or boat launch recommendations ? 

I’ve camped up there a bunch and I’ve pulled some walleye, smallmouth and pike out of the bays.

Willow Bay gets alot of traffic but there is a nice launch there.

I’ve had better luck fishing when we put in at roper hollow and camped at Handsome Lake, although the roper hollow launch is super primitive. I like to hit the bays in that part of the lake - sugar bay, cornplanter run… I’m pretty sure that there is a launch at sugar bay.

I’ve never been to the lower kinzua creek section. I believe there are more access points and more structure in generally shallower water in that part of the lake. As you go further north, the main lake is pretty deep and featureless. If I was going to kinzua just to fish, I might start down in that kinzua creek arm. I believe there is a nice launch at Elijah run and maybe kiasutha as well.

I’d like to check out the campground at Morrison run one of these days. I’m trying to get up there in September.

Yea it could just be wishful thinking on my part. Although I feel like the forecast for today is already way off. Like it was supposed to be cooler with more rain.

I finally ditched The Weather Channel app because it was so loaded with ads and bloatware. So this new Dark Sky app I’m trying out is pretty cool. It’s got detailed hourly forecasts with rain probability by the hour and expected precipitation amounts. Right now for Pgh it says about a 30% chance of rain between 3-7pm with like maybe .10 of an inch total for the rest of the day and not a whole lot more tomorrow. The app loads super fast too. The forecast north of I-80 doesn’t look much different.

I’m sure we’ll get rain at some point but hopefully not enough to blow the river out.

Welp… Forecast looks good through tomorrow morning at least. Just had a storm roll through with a lot of thunder but not much rain. Looking like scattered pockets at least this evening. On the radar it looks like more rain to the south and to the east.

We might get dumped on tomorrow afternoon but I’ll be happy as long as I get on the water for a bit tomorrow morning. If I do Sunday too I’ll consider that a bonus.

We got hammered here in Irwin.   Ill be on the road 430 am.  Hoping the rain isn't too bad out east and south.   Hate driving to the beach in the rain....

Sitting on my back deck, that faces East. Clear skies above, but watching a great lightning show towards the “horizon”. With the hills, seeing an actual horizon isn’t happening. The lightning at times looks like it could only be 10 miles. I look on the radar and the closest “green” is at least 20-30 miles away as the crow flies…. Which is pretty Interesting to know, but then I realized the thing took a clear path over the Yough, which appeared to be going back down... Looks like tomorrow will be possibly afternoon if anything now at best. I did get a bunch of odds and end things done today between rain showers. My son and I built a plyo box from some scrap wood that I was planning to burn, so that was a pretty fun father/son project. I guess if it rains tomorrow, hopefully his interest in labor transfers to some not so rewarding projects that need done. Yeah right! I’m not starting any until the lumber yards start pricing wood where it should be. Commodity price has cut by 80%, to prepandemic prices, but they are trying to keep selling like there are no trees left on the planet. Corporate greed = inflation. Can someone please usher in this recession to stop this madness?

I didn’t even try this weekend. I was looking to get out all week with work getting busy. Got a ton of work done around the house instead, sweating like a champ. I was debating to hit some small lakes/ponds about 5 miles away, but got into the groove with the work and took advantage.

I spent the weekend replacing my switch panel, and changing the oil and gear lube. I jumped into the woods early Saturday to check the trail cameras, saw a few deer. Unfortunately, most of my camera roll is some guy in a side by side ripping past the cams at all hours of the night.  

Well, went 2 for 10 on shark hits.   Will try to post a couple pics in a day or two.  Today, my son had one that was over 5', probably pushing 6'....jumped full out of the water at the sand bar then snapped my 80# power pro.  Son had a good 30 seconds of screaming drag before that happened.   He did land a 4' or so fine tooth shark so a decent one for his first one from the sand.

Got in Saturday and took awhile to get situated.   Wind was onshore and stiff the entire time we were there but decently fishable unless the weed rolled in (which it did at times).  Water was sandy to murky.  Never "green" clear to the beach.  Got my son fixed up for bait fishing on Sunday but weed was bad and he only caught a palm size pompano and missed a few hits. We hit Neuse River sport shop (loved that place...lots of everything hunting and fishing) on Sunday afternoon and I got my tourist license and bought some frozen mullet and boston mackerel.  
 
Went out for some night fishing Sun. night and never got a bite from 8:30 to 10:45 pm.  Crabbed out on the frozen baits.   Called it quits to hit it hard Monday.  
 
My son caught lots of whiting (up to 18") and a few more palm size pompano and a couple big pin fish that were all put to good use on the bigger rods.  Two of the whiting would have been worthy of the pan but we used them for bait instead. 
 
We went 2 for 10 on shark bites on Monday and Tuesday.  He was hooked up on my big spinning rod with 80# braid on something def. over 5'....maybe pushing 6', that full jumped completely out of the water at the first bar 150 yds off the beach.  It screamed drag for 30 seconds before that and after it hit the water after the jump, my 80# braid snapped.  Personally, it looked like a tarpon to me but my son said he thought it looked like a shark.  I really wasn't sure if tarpon were in NC waters this time of year but apparently, they are, and they are big.  We will never know for sure.  He had his mind made up on catching his first shark from the beach so I am sure that was what was on his mind. (did catch that 4' one later so all is good).  Lost a full 6' - 800# test cast leader on that one.  Son got to feel the power and saw the jump so that got him amped up.  My 10' Tsunami rod was doubled over and screaming drag.

The shark he caught, it was at low tide and I swam a live 12" whiting out to the first bar then casted it as best I could on my 12' Oceanmaster with a 4/0 hlw.  Got it far enough I suppose.  Bar was only knee deep at low but was over my head for a little bit trying to get out there and I am sure much deeper on the oceanside of it.  Waves out there were solid 4 to 5 footers breaking hard.  With 15-20 mph steady onshore breeze, made that swim out and back a little sporty.  The kicker here is, when the shark hit, there were 6 or 7 teens body boarding in the break at the first bar, directly in line with my line.  Not 5 min. before the shark hit, I was messing with the rod and getting ready to pull it in since they were there but didn't want to rip my line/hook back in at their feet.  When the shark hit, it pulled down my 12' rod hard and almost pulled my rod into the water...my pvc holder started to fall fwd.  The shark also must of breached or jumped a little by that group of teens or, they felt the line ripping by them as they all pointed at the same time and then skedaddled upcurrent 50 or so yards on the bar.  It literally hit the bait right out in front of their feet.....I handed the rod off to my son and he fought it back to the beach but after that initial run, was mainly a few head shakes and the fish swimming up and down the gut.  That rod was way too big for a small shark like that.  Can say, the water around us cleared of swimmers for the next 2 hours after we beached that little shark.  Can't imagine what the tourists would have done if we brought in a thick 5' to 6' one.  

Should have been using smaller hooks/chunks but I only brought my premade leaders with mostly 16/0 and 20/0 circles.  Had several great hits/runs or full slack rods that we brought back with empty hooks.  Had two bite offs on a the two 3.5' premade redfish cast leaders I did have with 12/0 thinner wire circle hooks.  They were only 200# mono leaders and didn't have twisted/doubled bite sections.  I didn't put any steel leaders out.  Crabs were bad but always had skin/bones left on those baits.  Weed was bad at times too where we couldn't even fish for bait.  My weights and line were heavy enough on my big rods to deal with the weed if I set the lines right but, was pretty tough fishing with all the people in that section of the beach.


Pork, water was too dirty to bring the smacks within casting range, I think.  Didn't even walk to the Bogue Inlest pier nor did we try to get out on the beach down by the point.  I was outvoted on the condo up on Indian Beach that would have been a closer walk to the beach, had a sound view and would have had a WAY LESS crowded beach.  Wife will go with my choice next time, I think.  We could have fished soundside and beachside at the other condo but, we would have had to book for a week (I wanted to, she didn't want to) and this other place was available for just 2 nights.  Hopefully a couple of these pics will post.