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Spirit of Moonpie and I spent March 7-9 on the Nottoway below the Bronco Club. The water was high, muddy and 49 degrees. Air temps ranged from 32 to 62 degrees. It was pretty windy but tolerable, only saw a couple of skeeters, frogs were singing at night.

The fishing was not too great. I tried really hard for the striped bass. I jigged and jigged but don’t think I even had a hit. I caught three catfish, though, while doing all that jigging. All three were small blues. I also caught two shad but had to travel all the way upriver to the Narrows to do that. It definitely was not worth the gas. 

I was stunned at the amount of crap in the river this trip from the very high floodwaters we recently had. Toys, yard stuff, parts of piers? Buckets and chairs that I could not get to because it was back in the swamp. Looks like people would move their belongings to higher ground during these events. I even removed a floating shaker box, used I think to find sharks’ teeth, etc. I had brought it to the Round Gut Landing the day before I left but could not get it in the truck the last day because of my back. Maybe someone will go remove that. I saw eagles around the new nest near the Bronco Club, so I believe they are sitting on eggs right now. I look forward to keeping check on their progress the rest of the year… if I get to go out there again. 

I say that because once again, my back is out. Unfortunately on Day Three, I was packing up to come home and I ruptured a disk… again. It’s kind of funny — earlier that morning a friend of mine had offered to come help me get the boat out of the river, but I told him I was fine. Two hours later I was on the ground. This was a hard evac, the hardest I believe I’ve ever done. Luckily all my gear was packed down, so that helped. I still had to get it to the boat and then get it in the boat. I would not wish what I had to do to accomplish that feat on any good person. Then I had to get the boat out of the river, which was horrendous. I did it but in doing so probably made things worse. By the time I got home, I pretty much could not walk at all and, in fact, fell into my trash cans trying to get some stuff out of the boat. So, I had to crawl into the house… literally. 

So, once again I am grounded. I blame this on the fact I have been sitting on the couch more this year because of bad weather and not going to the river and staying active. I didn’t even make it out there in February. Since the first of the year I have only been twice.  Every time I go a long spell of not going to the river, I seem to have this problem. I guess I need to come up with some plan to stay more active at home so my back muscles don’t atrophy. I’ve also got to decide whether to keep going like I am or get the Transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion back surgery I looked into last year. A lot of risks there also. Anyway, maybe I will get better and be back before the shad run is over on the two rivers we call the Nottoway and Blackwater.

Jeff Turner is the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard. To contact him about river issues, send him an email at blknotkpr@earthlink.net. He can also be followed on the Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard Facebook page. Search for “Blackwater Nottoway RiverGuard” on Facebook.