SEDLEY —Moonpie and I spent the 21st through the 22nd on the Nottoway above the

258 landing this week.

The water was murky, fast and low. From here on, I will not be giving the USGS Sebrell gauge information unless I am on that part of the rive,r as it really is no indication of what the water is like on the lower river. For example, the gauge was 9.55 up on that part of the river, but way downriver where I was, the water was actually low.

Air temperatures ranged from 40 degrees to 60. I picked up a full bag of trash this trip, which is a lot for the Nottoway. This is especially true on this trip, since I was out there only two days and really only worked on trash for one day. Right outside of Round Gut up in that field that borders the river, we found where some idiot has recently dumped a truckload of shingles and tarpaper. I’m going to try to alert the landowner about it and see if he might get the Sheriff’s Office to take a look.

I saw no other water quality problems except for the murky water that smelled really earthy. I will go look upriver this week to see if there is anything unnatural causing this.

The fishing was just OK on this trip. I caught seven catfish up to 6 pounds and

three blackfish that were up to 3 pounds. All were

caught on the Silver Buddy.

I really only got to fish the first day though, so that is one reason fish totals were low.

We saw the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries shock boat team out there the first day, but the weather was so bad they did not stay long. They were looking to see if any shad were in the river yet, but did not get any on this trip.

Why did I only fish one day and why did I only spend two days out there on this trip? Because the weatherman really did a crappy forecasting job, that’s why.

The first day, it rained half the day and that night, there was actually thunder and lightning. Thank goodness there was no rain then. The second day, the wind was so bad I could not fish and with the water running like it was, it was too dangerous to pick up trash. The wind on the second day was so strong, I saw gusts that actually picked spray up off the river several times. I don’t think I have ever seen that before. It was so strong that birds were flying backwards and Moonpie had to get in the live well while we were riding to keep from being blown out of the boat. It was terrible.

Speaking of birds, we saw a bald eagle right there at the Bronco Club that looked like it was a young bird. It too, was having a hard time with the wind.

The river was littered with limbs and debris from the trees and it was dangerous. That’s why on the second day at 4 p.m., after hearing winds were going to increase that night, we decided to pack it up.

The thought of getting impaled by a pine limb in the middle of the night was just too much. So it was a pretty rough trip, but sometimes mother nature is like that on the two rivers we call Nottoway and Blackwater.