North Landing River and West Neck Creek

Headed out with the family on July 31 for a few hours on the North Landing River and caught around 15 crappie including this yellow one.



Second one of these I have ever caught. My stepdaughter had fun reeling in this green carp.



It's funny that she enjoys fishing more than my stepson does and was even yelling at her mom and brother to keep the noise down so that they would not scare the fish away.

I headed back this past Saturday by myself and caught 40 but nothing over 10". I did catch perhaps my smallest crappie ever.



On the previous trip my stepson randomly picked a new jig color I had never tried on this river for his sister and it turned out to be my go to color, I give you Watermelon Wine along with Monkey Milk which does well for me on Chick Lake and this river. I probably caught 25-30 of the 40 on Watermelon Wine.



I spoke with another fisherman who mentioned that he caught a 13" crappie in deep water near the Pungo Bridge. I may have to focus on the main river to try to find some larger crappie. The boat ramp at West Neck is only 7 miles from my house which sure beats driving 40 miles to the Suffolk Lakes, 70 miles to Chick Lake, or 150 miles to Kerr Reservoir but it sure is a tough nut to crack for larger crappie. I don't expect to catch any 2lber's there but have caught them around 1lb 3oz, just not many of them.

This creek arm is pretty shallow with a lot of 5' to 6' water and most of the time I would just let the jig sink a foot or two.