chase fish

Guide Lines with Chase Gibson: West Virginia

Fishing has been pretty consistent even with the fluctuation in weather. My clients are averaging 1-2 fish a trip with a couple big ones! Here is a 45.25” caught on a small glide bait. I’ve been getting fish doing some casting and some jigging.  The water temps are 65-62 degrees which has triggered the shad spawn to start and the muskies are taking advantage of it. The fish I am contacting are on medium sloping banks with a lot of surface brush, standing timber and main lake points near big creek arms.

On a different note, recently I was out fishing with a good friend of mine, Frank Porupski and landed West Virginia’s New State record musky for length by a half inch! She was a 54”(closed mouth due to record rules) and 54.75” with an open mouth!  She was still holding some eggs but lost most of them I believe, but was still enough to weigh 39.6lbs. This size of fish in our state is an absolute freak. We have decent amount of 50-52” caught every year but above that is rare. She smoked a Dyin’ Dawg by Musky innovations in some standing timber.  The great thing was the fish was released to swim away!

Gregg Thomas

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