Spirit of Moonpie and I spent the 5th through the 7th on the Blackwater below Franklin. The water was clear and 40 degrees, air temps ranged from 30 to 65 degrees. It was perfect weather.

The fishing on this trip was not so great for me. I only caught one rockfish and one raccoon perch. I had hoped of finding the Blackfish schooled up in Georges Bend so I could get my dad out on the river and into them, but I never had a hit. Looks like I missed that this year. Ohhh, well.

I did talk to some very nice guys that were catching some small bass on a little plastic worm rig. I think they had caught eight or nine and I saw them catch some of those. When they left they even offered me one of those lures, but I didn’t have a rod/reel combo to fish such a rig. Now that’s nice folks!

One of my main missions on this trip was to go to Cherry Grove and check to see if the eagles were there at that nesting site. I made the trip downriver, but did not see either of the pair. The nest, however, looked in good shape and I believe has been added to, so I assume they are there. I plan on using the drone to get a better look at some point.

Trash was not terrible on this trip, but bad enough. I collected nearly a full bag, about 35 pounds worth. One type of trash I’m seeing more and more of is balloons. Not the rubber type, which degrade pretty fast, but the foil type that practically never disintegrates. I wish people would not let these things fly away, and I wish the industry would just do away with foil-type balloons.

The wildlife out there is already inundated with water-borne trash. God knows they don’t need to be bombed by trash from the air on the two rivers we call the Blackwater and Nottoway.

JEFF TURNER is the Blackwater/Nottoway Riverkeeper. He can be reached at blknotkpr@earthlink.net.