By: Chris Shaffer Not too long ago we headed to Kerr Lake to film Pautzke Outdoors with Wes Jordan of Redbeard Cats. The forecast was for no chance of rain. Naturally we left the raingear at the hotel. Sure enough, an hour into fishing it started pouring. The radar showed a heavy band of rain […]
By: Chris Shaffer Maria’s winds churned up seas in Eastern North Carolina last week and altered our fishing schedule. Set to film Pautzke Outdoors on the coast Tuesday and Wednesday we opted to stay in the Triangle where conditions were more favorable. Having filmed a catfish episode on Lake Norman Monday we ended up making […]
By: Chris Shaffer Wes Jordan was adamant. He wanted all the rods out of the holders and resting on the deck. No rod tips were to be exposed, he said. At the time we were fishing in the Staunton River Channel on the upper end of Kerr Lake and surrounded by open space. The catfish […]
By: Wes Jordan We’ve had a tremendous amount of rain over the Kerr Lake watershed this week. In less than 72 hours the lake level has climbed nearly 11 feet. And we’re talking about a lake with 850 miles of shoreline, so that’s a lot of water. Tiny feeder creeks that are normally only three feet wide […]
By: Chris Bullock Largely in part to not having cold weather to extended periods of time it’s been a better than average year for crappie fishing on Kerr Lake. This year, there haven’t been many days where you couldn’t catch a big mess of crappie. While I don’t think the bite will last as long […]
By: Chris Shaffer First timers are intimidated by the Tuckasegee River. Roughly and hour from Asheville and steps from Cullowhee, “The Tuck,” as locals refer to it, is one of the better known trout systems in Western North Carolina. Intimidation stems from its size. This isn’t a small stream, rather a medium size river that […]
By: Chris Shaffer The Davidson River’s hatchery supported section is one of the most heavily fished two miles of river in Western North Carolina. A favorite of day users, campers, hikers and locals, this popular section of river that rests below the fly only water gets hammered by anglers. Depending on when you arrive fishing […]
By: Chris Shaffer It’s the heart of trout season in Western North Carolina and while the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission works overtime to stock as many creeks, lakes and rivers as they can during the spring there’s only so many fish to go around. Even under heavy fishing pressure some spots, like Shelton Laurel […]
By: Chris Shaffer Virginia and North Carolina’s Kerr Lake has produced the largest blue catfish ever – a 143-pound blue catfish – and while we flew cross country to film an episode of Pautzke Outdoors here if we were locals we would have cancelled yesterday’s session. There’s been no stability in the weather the past […]
By: Chris Shaffer Following a summer marked by low and warm water levels this weekend’s cold snap in the Southeast spurred an incredible trout bite in Cherokee, North Carolina. While Monday and Tuesday saw nominal pressure, those who were fishing saw 10-fish limits in fewer than 30 minutes in some instances. “It’s the warmest summer […]