Tommy Bracy and Bill Blackwell have an angle on shad and the impending rockfish season.

They intend to build a small community where people can socialize, buy bait and talk fishing.

The idea first spawned last year when Blackwell, in an empty portion of his Rivertown Tire business in Weldon, opened Muddy Banks Fishing Supply.

This season Blackwell has expanded upon the business and brought in Bracy.

Bracy, who also works with a trucking company located in Rivertown Tire, is bringing a wider scope of fishing knowledge to the bait store to begin what Blackwell refers to as Rockfish Junction.

Blackwell and Bracy hold the junction sign.

This morning the talk is still of shad and the question of when the rockfish will make their appearance. “The shad are running good,” said Bracy, a Bertie County native and former Chowan River bait storeowner. “They’re some of the biggest white shad we’ve seen in a couple of years. We’ve had some weigh three to three-and-a-half pounds.”

The chronology, Bracy said, is the shad come first, then the white perch and then rockfish, all for the purpose laying eggs along the rocks of the rough and tumble Roanoke River.

While an unusually cool March spring has slowed the shad run, people are still catching them.

The rockfish run should be heavy by the third week in April, Bracy said, and people are catching a few now in Hamilton. “When the rockfish come to spawn they come. The third week should be wide open.”

Bracy shows one of his rigs.

Bracy has stocked Muddy Banks with shad, live herring, night crawlers, worms, minnows, catfish bait and crickets. He also ties his own rigs for sale at the store. “I’ve sold a pile of them.”

For Blackwell, the goal for Muddy Banks is simple. “My goal is to make this place the community can come to buy bait and socialize.”

The formula seems to be working, Blackwell said. “It’s a matter of finding the right fit. Bait and tackle has worked here in the past. With Tommy’s involvement we can grow something slowly. We’re trying to make an emporium and trying to determine the opportunities that might be here.”