In Reel Time Fishing: June 2015

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The dog days?

When I was "into" fishing during my teenage years, I kept reading articles in the fishing magazines about "The Dog Days of Summer." Temperatures heated up, water temps heated up, and the fish were hard to find.


Little Patuxent River running under I-95.

This year has been the most I've fished in ... maybe ever? And now I wonder if I'm in The Dog Days of Summer. It has been hot and humid around here, and my last two trips to the Little Patuxent River haven't netted (ha ha, get it? "netted") me anything except a couple hits. When the weather has been nice, it's always after a rainstrorm, and the river is high and muddy. When the river is down to normal levels, another thunderstorm hits with flash flood warnings.

I've had good luck with the Rapala Shadow Rap and the small Rebel crawfish crankbait on the Little Patuxent, but I think I might have to be more open to switching gears if I'm not getting any action. Tube baits -- which I had good luck on at Antietam Creek in April when the water was cooler -- or plastic worms.

Karen and I also haven't gotten a chance to go camping on the Potomac for a month or so for whatever reason. We were all set to go a few weeks ago, but I needed front brake pads and rotors on the Lightning. We've become dependent on taking our mountain bikes now, so it was a no-go without the pickup truck. No options for the next couple weeks either, maybe not until mid-August.

A "fishy" pool on the Little Patuxent.

Anyway, besides a post with "this is what I caught, this is what lure I used," here are a couple photos on location, location, location on trying to target smallmouth on the Little Patuxent. The first picture is just downriver from I-95. Just beyond that section is a really nice pool that I've caught one smallmouth and had numerous hits. The next picture is further down river. Click the picture to see the big picture. I haven't caught anything here but have had four or five hits. The last time I was there, a smallmouth jumped out of the water shaking off the Shadow Rap even before I felt the fish! These pools are where I target smallmouth. Better if they are just after fast moving water and "rapids." Further up in the rapids seems to be trout/failfish territory, but the tailwaters seem to be more enticing for the smallmouth.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Failfish

Hit a new section of the Little Patuxent River today. The WB&A Trail crosses the river near Odenton, and there's a small parking area off Piney Orchard Parkway. It was about a five to 10 minute walk from the parking area to the river, but the trail is paved. However, the "trail" to get down to the river is pretty dense. I should have brought the machete.

I walked down river for a bit, skipped the first "easy" section because it was clear of trees and I'm sure EVERYBODY fishes this spot. I found a nice spot that had a couple pools bordered by some down trees on the opposite bank. I tied on a silver Shadow Rap and got a hit on the first cast! I started reeling, it didn't feel like a very big fish. And it wasn't fighting that hard. Yup, a failfish. I mean, fallfish.


Treble hooks replaced with single hooks.

I had switched the trailing treble hook to a single hook on all my Shadow Raps and some crankbaits because the "nibblers" and the fallfish always seem to bite there. So all three of the treble hooks were in their tiny mouths. Well the trick worked for this fallfish, just hooked on the single hook, so it was easy to release. It's weird because almost all the smallmouth bass I've caught this year are hooked in the mouth by the front treble hook on whatever topwater or crankbait I've used.

About five casts later, in the exact spot I caught the first fallfish, another fish hit the Shadow Rap. It felt a lot like the first one ... and it was another fallfish. Looked like the exact same fish, too. This one was actually hooked in the mouth by the middle treble hook, so it took some work to get it unhooked.

And then I didn't get a fish the rest of the time, fishing for about two hours. I moved upriver and found a couple nice pools and didn't get a thing. I had gotten a four-pack of soft Sebile Magic Swimmers earlier in the week, so I tried those, too. I really liked the action -- they can be jigged to mimic a dying fish, or they can be reeled in slowly. Just holding the lure steady in the current, the action made it look like a fish swimming against the current.

I think I had one hit on the soft bait, but nothing else. I switched to a Rapala Skitter Pop in a really slow moving pool but didn't get even a single rise. It was a nice "fishy" section, and I was really surprised I couldn't entice any fish to bite!

The only drawback about this section of the river is that there aren't a whole lot of easy spots to fish from shore. However, the river is really shallow in many spots, and if I come back again, I'll bring my waders.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Double rivers

Time for my first reel-time, same day post! I wish it was a good one, but it's not. Karen and I decided to go camping Saturday on the Potomac all the way up at the Paw Paw Campground, which was even further than Fifteenmile Creek. But we didn't make it there because when I went to fill up the Lightning with gas, I noticed a sound coming from the right-front wheel. I checked it out when I got home and found the rotor was cracked and the pads were down to the backing plates. We could have taken her Camaro but wouldn't have been able to get the bikes in the back with all the camping stuff. Now that I was spoiled with the mountain bike, I didn't feel like going all the way up there not knowing the lay of the land in that area of the Potomac.

I decided to fish the Patapsco River near Daniels Dam on Sunday. I had tried there in March but the river seemed too high and it didn't look like there was much cover (rocks, trees) for the fish. Man, I should have remembered that. Now the water was down and was much clearer. Nearly everywhere the river looked to only be a couple feet deep at best with a flat sandy bottom. I walked at least a mile upriver hoping for something that looked decent, but it was mainly a flat, barren river bottom. I found a couple small pools with no success. The biggest drawback is that are well-worn trails close to the bank of the river, so I have a feeling it sees heavy fishing pressure.

The area below the dam looks good but there wasn't shore access past maybe 100 yards below the dam.

After an hour and a half, I decided to call it quits and head down to the Little Patuxent. Instead of the usual spot downriver from the Guilford Road parking area, I went upriver a little ways. There is lots of vegetation, so the water isn't as accessible as it is below the parking area. But I made my way through and found a few "fishy" spots, but not a lot of fish. I had one fish hooked on a Zara Puppy but didn't land it. It looked like a typical Little Patuxent 10-inch or smaller smallmouth.

Then I finally caught a 10-inch smallmouth on the silver Shadow Rap. And finally got the fish with people watching -- a mom and dad with their three kids were on the other side of the river. It always seems like people ask, "Have you caught anything?" when getting skunked! Too bad the smallmouth didn't make a nice show of it leaping out of the water.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

May 11 to June 3 updates

May 12: Little Patuxent. I decided to bring my bike and ride down the other side of the river. There's a trail that leads all the way down to Savage Mill. However, as I found out, it "ends" at residence, and you actually have to go up a road a little ways before it comes back down to the Little Patuxent. I thought it ended where the Little Patuxent met the Middle Patuxent, but it looks to be just short. Might be easier to find a place near Savage Mill to park and walk down to where the rivers meet.
Anyway, I mainly used a Rebel crawfish crankbait and the smaller Chub's Hub in a minnow pattern. I caught one smallmouth with the crankbait -- hit the lure about 10 feet away and I saw it come out from 2-3 feet of water to get it. Fish jumped once, too! But it was a standard 8-9" fish. I had one good strike on the Chub's Hub and some small hits but couldn't reel anything in.

Water temp was around 70 degrees, so definitely I can see why topwater stuff has been getting some action.

May 22: Potomac River (McCoy's Ferry). Karen and I decided to go camping the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. I got off work "early" and headed out while she was going to meet me later. I was pretty stoked because it would be the first time at McCoy's Ferry where the water levels were down to near where they were late last year when I finally "found" smallmouth.

Small smallmouth.

Well the river was down but it was totally different. The weeds weren't that high so there weren't any small pools built up to keep the river from flowing normally. I caught a 10" smallmouth Friday night near where the stream goes into the river to the right of the boat ramp and then a smaller smallmouth -- both on the smaller Chub's Hub. The first fish popped the lure into the air before he actually got hooked! I also had numerous hits and then all of a sudden everything stopped. Nothing. The fish were really aggressive for about fifteen minutes and then that was it. When I went back Saturday morning after the sun was up, I could see into the water a lot better, and the area I had the action on was really shallow. Maybe 2 to 3 feet?

I also caught another 10-inch smallmouth (and had another hooked) at the spot by the tree, this time on a 2.75-inch tube bait on the Confidence Baits Draggin' Head. I love the feel of the nibble-nibble on the tube bait and then the fish takes it!

Saturday morning, I fished the same area and had one bite on the tube bait, and that was it. I wonder if the fish move into that area near the end of the day when the sun has shaded the area. There are a bunch of rocks but not a lot of cover, which is why I wonder if it gets better once the weeds have grown up. Thinking back to last year, there weren't any noticeable differences as to when I caught fish in this area. I may have to put this area on hold for a month or two until the weed beds have set in. Or maybe try to the left of the boat ramp. Or get a bike and explore a little more.

It's still fun to catch 10-inch smallmouth, but I can catch them in the Little Patuxent! So far, landed 21 smallmouth this year, a handful "legal" 12-inch fish and one 14-incher from Antietam. It would be nice to get one 16-plus soon!

May 29: Little Patuxent River. Went even further down the river, this time in the Crofton area off of Route 3 behind the infamous Walking Fish Pond. There wasn't a clear trail to the river but it was fairly easy after poking around for a bit.

I had just bought two Rapala Shadow Raps after watching one of the Lindner brothers fishing with them on TV over the weekend. Kind of a jerk bait with a little more action that's supposed to mimic a dying fish. I had one silver and one kind of a rainbow trout looking pattern. Hey, maybe the bass eat the stocked rainbows?

A trout ... with whiskers.

I found a pool just off of a fairly fast moving section of water. Made a few casts and saw a couple fish come up to the lure but turn away at the last second. After five or six casts, there was a hit! It felt like a good fish but was about 10 feet out in the murky water so I couldn't see it. I kept reeling and brought it to the surface. Dark on the back silvery on the sides -- it was a trout. Oh wait, it has whiskers -- it was a channel catfish. I was kind of bummed because I was hoping for a smallmouth but then it hit me -- this was my first catfish ever! It was around 12 to 13 inches. I whipped out my phone to take a picture, and it took me a few tries to get a good one because the fish was squirming around so much. I got him off the hook, and he barrel-rolled right down the bank into the water! Pretty funny. It's a catfish, and it could survive worse stuff.

After a little while with no more hits, I move down and found a 30-foot log submerged in the water just around a point. Slow moving water, looked pretty fishy. The first cast with the Shadow Rap, I saw two fish come after the lure but turn away at the last section. They looked like smallmouth. More casts but didn't see anything. I switched to a plastic worm, Texas-rigged with a dropshot and got some nibbles but nothing else. Probably the little nibbler bass or sunfish

Biggest smallmouth of the year -- barely 15 inches.

I moved further down and found an area where half the river was exposed to a sandbar. I walked out and while it was mushy, it wasn't like quicksand or anything. The river was really shallow at the edge but it got fairly deep beyond that. The current wasn't that strong, and there were some logs on the other side of the bank. My first cast with the Shadow Rap and I got I fish on! I started reeling, and it felt like a good fish. I was hoping it wasn't another catfish, but then it jumped, and I saw it was a smallmouth! "Please don't shake the hook," I was thinking. Kept reeling and beached it. Easily over a foot long! I fumbled around in my bag for the tape measure, unrolled it, it was 14.99 inches! Biggest smallmouth of the year so far. I took a picture, unhooked it after a minute or so (stupid treble hooks), and revived it in the shallow water at the end of the sandbar. The dumb fish swam out and did a u-turn and beached itself! I turned it around, it swam out again and turned around and beached itself again. Finally, the third time it got the message the deeper water was the other way.

Then I snagged the Shadow Rap on the next cast. I switched to the other one which was the "rainbow trout" pattern, and caught a failfish ... I mean, fallfish ... after a few casts. Then I snagged that Shadow Rap. I switched to the drop-shot, Texas-rig worm and snagged that, too! Three snags within 15 minutes, it was kind of hot, and I realized I forgot to bring the water I had brought with me in my small cooler, so I headed home.

The 15" smallmouth gives me hope that there are even bigger ones in the Little Patuxent. Maybe not in the Guilford Road area upriver but other areas where there's not much fishing pressure and closer to the Patuxent River.

May 30: Potomac River near Antietam Creek. Karen and I decided to go to Antietam campground for camping. We hadn't been there since the water in the river had gone down, so I wanted to see if it was any better than McCoy's Ferry and Fifteenmile Creek.

Upriver a couple miles.

The first thing I noticed was that the water was really shallow. I brought my knee waders so I figured I could wade out to a good spot. I also brought my new-to-me Gary Fisher mountain bike that we picked up from Karen's brother on the way out. It's a no-brainer -- bring a bike and extend the range on the canal trail.

I went upriver and found a feeder stream (more like a trickle of water) with a trail that led easily to the river. It had a fairly big area of exposed rocks and grass and looked like it got a little deeper. I decided to try the Shadow Rap and after a couple casts got a hit! Reeled in and it was about a 12-inch channel catfish. So after going my whole life without catching a catfish, I now had two in two days. I didn't feel like cleaning one little catfish so I threw it back.

A few more casts later, I snagged this Shadow Rap, too! I was pissed. Three new $9 lures gone in two days. I had another Shadow Rap but didn't want to risk losing that one, too. I figured the water wasn't as deep as I thought further out, so I switched to a Rapala floating minnow hoping to mimic the Shadow Rap action. It didn't, and I started to wonder why I have so many various sizes of the floating minnows.

I tried a tube bait with the Draggin' Head for awhile and didn't get a thing. It was about 3 p.m., and I decided to come back a little later and try topwaters (reels had fluorocarbon and the monofilament and braided spools were back at the camp site).

I rode up the trail some more and tried to find a decent spot, but everything looked the same -- really shallow far out into the river.

Around 7 p.m. I headed back to the area where I caught the catfish earlier. I tried the smaller Chub's Hub for a bit and didn't get anything. I switched to a Rebel Pop-R -- which I had never fished with before -- and got a strike on the second cast. I set the hook, and the fish went airborne jumping three or four times before I got it all the way in. It was about a 10-inch smallmouth. Not big but a smallmouth on a topwater lure is still pretty cool. A couple casts later, I got another hit! This fish felt a little better, and it put on an aerial display, too. Reeled it in and let him "play" when he got about five feet away from me. It looked like a 12 incher, and he went swimming close to my left ... then came free. Oh well, it wasn't like the nice 16 incher I lost at McCoy's Ferry last year.

I had a couple more hits but didn't land anything. I moved about 20 feet downriver where I could cast to where there was a bulge of rocks where water was flowing over. I switched back to the Chub's Hub and got some hits. I had one smallmouth hooked, and it jumped one way out of the water while the lure went flying the other way. Then I had another one hooked and it jumped, too, and got itself unhooked. It looked like the nicest of the bunch, maybe 13 to 14 inches. Had some more hits and finally got one to stay on the hook. A couple jumps later and I had landed about a nine-inch smallmouth. I switched back to the Pop-R and got a couple more hits then hooked into a lunker eight-inch smallmouth.

Even though they were small, it was great having all the action on the topwater lures.

The next morning, I went out to the same area and didn't get anything with the topwaters. Not a rise or a strike or anything. It was like at McCoy's Ferry the week before where I caught three fish in one area at night then got nothing the next morning using the same lures

I biked the trail down river after that, not with fishing rods but just to maybe find something that looked a little better. Just past mile marker 69 were two trails that lead down to a dam of rocks, and after the dam it looked like deeper water, i.e. you couldn't see the bottom two or three out from shore. Only problem is that this is likely where EVERYBODY fishes from shore, like some of the trails I found upriver the day before where there were hippie communes bathing in the river or someone letting his dog splash around and scare away fish.

Just past mile marker 68, I found another trail that led down to where there were a few exposed rocks just out from shore. Next time I will go here and maybe try and catch a walleye as the sun is going down!

Total fish caught through May: 46 (27 smallmouth -- two at 15", one 14" and four 12", 6 bluegill, 5 rainbows, 3 failfish, 2 largemouth, 2 channel cats, 1 crappie).

June 3: Little Patuxent River (Guilford Road). It rained hard two days before, and it had been raining light but steady ever since. Driving over the river the day before, it was really high but checking americanwhitewater.org today, the water had gone way down. I drove over the river once and it did look like it was almost back to normal albeit very muddy.

I decided to hit the regular Guilford Road area and use a Rapala Shadow Rap and the Rebel Pop-R that had the smallmouth in a frenzy Saturday night. I didn't know what to expect since I had never fished the river in these conditions.

First stop was the "hot spot" which looks really fishy and have numerous rises at lures but never actually caught anything. Both lures didn't get any action. No bites, no rises that I could see, no nothing.

12.5-inch smallmouth.

I moved down to another spot and after several casts with the Shadow Rap with no luck, I was wondering if the conditions weren't right for fishing. And then I got a hit! Started reeling, and the fish felt nice. It came to the surface, and it was a smallmouth. A couple jumps, and I finally got it to the edge of the shore and lifted it on the bank. Measured it at 12.5 inches!

Smallmouth measuring just over 15 inches.

With no more luck, I moved down river to another section. Very similar, just below some "rapids" and cast the Shadow Rap around where the faster water met with slower water. After a few casts, I got a hit. Another nice fish, and it came to the surface and jumped -- another smallmouth, and this one looked a little bigger! I reeled in the old Mitchell 300, and I was standing on the bank about two feet above the water. For a moment I wondered how to land this thing, but then I just hoisted it out of the water and on to the bank. Measured it at a tick over 15 iches! So that's three legal smallmouth in a row on the Little Patuxent going back to the 15-incher from Friday. I got to thinking, I have caught two 12-inch smallmouth and two 15-inchers on the Little Patuxent yet nothing of legal size on the big, bad Potomac River.

Anyway, I caught four more smallmouth but nothing over eight inches. Still fun to catch the little ones, like the one that as soon as it was hooked went firing out of the water like a missile from a submarine.

I caught eight smallmouth fishing Antietam Creek in April, but that was over two days. This might be my best day catching fish since ... I don't know when.

Obviously, I'm liking the Shadow Raps. Ten fish in less than a week with seven being smallmouth, and two were my biggest smallmouth of the year. I'm hoping that there's something bigger (and not a snakehead) lurking in the Little Patuxent.

And speaking of snakeheads, there have been reports on the Maryland DNR Angler's Log of people catching the invasive fish on the Little Patuxent. I'm surprised I haven't run into any.

Friday, June 5, 2015

What's with the old reels?

If you notice in some of the pictures I've posted, the reels I use look kind of ... old. Before this year, I had a Mitchell 300A spinning reel that I bought new maybe 20 or 25 years ago. When I was a kid, my buddy Jason Weyerman always talked about Mitchell 300 reels as being good reels, and I finally bought one I think when I was stationed in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

However, doing some research over the winter, I found out this was an "inferior" Mitchell reel made in Taiwan. The most collectible, Mitchell reels were produced in France from 1939 to 1989. Ideally, they are the ones with "Mitchell" and other markings etched or cast into the reel rather than a plastic plate glued onto the side (Garcia was the American company that distributed the reels in the states).

The most important thing is that the reels were virtually identical through all those years. You could take the main gear from a reel produced in 1982, and it would be interchangeable with a reel from 1960. Need a new bail spring? Just about any one for that model could be used. And all the spools were interchangeable for each particular model, even the ones made outside of France. This is what I was aiming for, using 300 models and lighter 308 models, and everything being interchangeable. Need to switch from six-pound fluorocarbon to 10-pound mono? No problem. Just slap on an extra spool that has it. Handle breaks? Switch from another reel (or have extras).

The collection grows.

So I went on an eBay binge and began buying Mitchell reels. The best deals were buying them in lots, targeting what may look like a good French-made reel in with other reels that could be flipped. I went after the 300 models as well as the smaller 308 models and kept the "good" ones. I probably had 15 reels at some point. Mostly "good" ones and some other Mitchell models. I also had really cool D.A.M. Quick spinning reel that was manufactured in Germany. West Germany.

I found Youtube videos on servicing the reels and took apart every one of them and cleaned and re-lubed the internal gears -- even the ones I knew I was going to flip back on eBay. For the most part, the reels didn't need any replacement parts. I think one 300 needed a new main gear, and another needed a new internal mechanism for the anti-reverse. The 308 reels were the most problematic with weak bail springs, or they needed some tweaking. But most were still solid.

The Mitchell Reel Museum web site had tons of information on dating the reels. The French-made ones were stamped in the heel with serial numbers, so narrowing down the year of production was really easy, especially for the 300-series reels. The site also has an active forum

Craigslist find, 1960s Mitchell 300!

The best find I had was not a reel I found on eBay but one I found for sale on the Baltimore Craigslist. It was a Mitchell 300 that was advertised as "used a few times" with the original box. Going by the picture, it looked in fantastic shape. I contacted the guy and got his phone number on a Saturday in November and arranged to meet up with him in Ellicott City Sunday morning. We met up, and the reel was as advertised. He said his dad, who recently passed away, bought it and only used it a few times. He had the original receipt which was dated 1967. All he wanted for it was $30. It's all I could do to calmly fork over the money and say goodbye as quickly as possible.

The only issue with it was a bent handle. I tried bending it back in a vice but it broke, so I had to buy a new-old-stock (NOS) handle on eBay for about $10. The guy asked me what I was going to do with the reel, probably wondering if I was just going to flip it. I told him I was going to fish with it, which, honestly, at the time, that's what I was planning on. But with the box and the original receipt, I decided to just keep it and not use it ... but definitely not selling it any time soon. A search of eBay for completed listings showed reels in similar condition with box/manual easily went for $100. But I would rather hold on to it as the showpiece of my collection.

So there you have it. I'm down to four Mitchell 300s in regular rotation of use, the 300 from Craigslist and two 308s. All made in France. I do have two French-made 300s that look kind of beat but work flawlessly that I may sell. Or maybe designate one for catfish duty. I also have a Garcia 3000 made in Japan that works fine, and a Mitchell 1040 made in Hong Kong that needs a part I haven't been able to track down. The Taiwan-made 300A that I had since new that started all this? I sold it on eBay for, surprisingly, $20.

A Mitchell 300 with a serial number that puts it at a 1962 manufacturing, used to land this nice 15-inch Little Patuxent smallmouth.

It has been reelly (see what I did there?) fun using the old Mitchell reels to catch fish. I've mated them with modern rods except for an older Shakespeare Ugly Stick, and two older lightweight rods -- one Berkley Performa IM6 and a Rapala Xtreme Ultralight, both with cork handles. The latter two with the 308 Mitchells are a hoot because it feels like you're reeling in five pound fish!

May 1 to 10 recaps

I started this blog in June but had been keeping sort of a journal on my fishing expeditions since the early part of the year. These are my fishing experiences from May 1 through 10.

May 1: South/North Branch of the Patapsco River. I went here a few weeks ago looking for smallmouth, and all I saw were trout. All I had were tube baits so this time I brought a few Rooster Tails. I walked from the parking area on Marriottsville Road all the way down to where the South Branch met up with the main Patapasco River. Expecting an untouched fishing frenzy, I saw pretty much the same thing the whole way down -- some fast moving water, shallow pools. I was hoping for smallmouth but all this looked like was trout waters.

There was a pool right where the two branches met that was really slow moving with some big rocks under the water, and I cast the yellow Rooster Tail out. I had a couple hits and follows by small panfish. I also had a follow from what looked like it might have been a yellow perch. The water was fairly murky so I couldn't tell for sure.

I moved up the South Branch and found a nice "trout" section. Fast moving water past a big rock protruding from the surface that created a small pocket of slow water. My first cast, I landed a nice 12" rainbow trout!

I'm talking about rainbows. I hate those friggin' things. You'll just be sitting there, minding your own business, and they'll come marching in, and crawl up your leg, and start biting the inside of your ass, and you'll be all like, "Hey. Get out of my ass you stupid rainbows."

But that was pretty much it. The rest of the way back up river, I stopped and would get some hits but didn't land anything. I did catch a smallmouth, around 8", so at least they are here. But are there bigger ones?

I tried another patch of slow moving water just before the small waterfall where I saw a bunch of trout my last time here. Again I saw a bunch of trout just lurking near the bottom, but nothing was really interested in the Rooster Tail or even the Confidence Baits Mini Tube. Some follows from small panfish, a couple trout eye-balled the lures, but nothing bit.

I'm not sure what to think of this area. There are fish but there's ample parking nearby so I think it might be over-fished or at least the fish have a high IQ and don't bite on everything.

May 2: Little Patuxent River. Same section I went to last week but not as much luck. I caught two smallmouth -- 8- and 10-inches -- and two small panfish, everything on a yellow, 1/8-inch Rooster Tail. I tried a dark Confidence Bait "Little Tube" for a bit and didn't get anything, not even a nibble. So then I tied on a small Rebel crankbait in a crayfish pattern and hooked one fish but he got off, then had two more strikes that I could see. Looked to be bass but nothing big.

So there ARE smallmouth in this area but nothing appears to be big. Maybe there are some nice ones ... somewhere.

A fallfish? More like a failfish.

May 3: Antietam Creek. I tried Antietam Creek from the Route 34 bridge down to the famous Burnside Bridge. A lot of steep banks and not many places to cast from the bank. I tried tube baits and a Zara Puppy with nothing. After walking down on one side and walking back up the other side, I tied on a yellow 1/8-ounce Rooster Tail in one fast section by the bridge. On my second cast, I hooked something that felt pretty sizable! A trout? A smallmouth? Nope. A carp-like fallfish, probably 14". I took a picture, unhooked it and tossed it back in the creek.

After 45-minute ordeal trying to find gas, I decided to try the hot spot from a couple weeks ago on Antietam Creek. The water was 6 to 8 inches higher and I didn't even get a nibble. Weird how a small change in water level changes things entirely.

May 8: Little Patuxent River. Just hit this area for about 45 minutes and caught a 12-inch smallmouth and a 6-inch beast of a smallmouth. Both on about 2.5-inch Rebel crankbait in a crawfish pattern.

There is a little pool with very slow moving water and a bunch of big rocks -- maybe four feet deep -- that I got some near misses the last time I was here. I tried it again and had two near misses on one cast. Nothing big but still gives me hope there are some bigger smallmouth lurking below.

May 9: Patapsco River. Tried a section by Woodstock Road. I hiked up river about a half mile (probably less ... it always seems like you travel further when you're climbing over rocks) and found a section that really looked promising. Fast section of exposed rocks that led into some slow pools. And I didn't catch anything. I probably fished there for 45 minutes to an hour moving down 10 to 15 feet at a time. Still nothing. I did catch a little sub-8-inch smallmouth a little later, but so far I'm not impressed at all by any branch of the Patapsco.

May 10: Little Patuxent River. Fished the usual section but decided to try some topwater, a Rapala Skitter Pop in a frog pattern. First cast in a small pool and got a rise from something. Probably just a nibbler. I didn't catch anything, though, in this section that always looks promising, and I've always seen fish. Just none have actually clamped down on a lure.

I did end up catching a 10-inch smallmouth on the Skitter Pop, then a bluegill, a small smallmouth and finally a failfish (on a Rooster Tail after I snagged the Skitter Pop on the other side of the river). So this little river in the heart of Columbia where the section I fish goes through an industrial park, has been the best fishing I've had this year. Well, after the first weekend on Antietam.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

April recaps

I started this blog in June but had been keeping sort of a journal on my fishing expeditions since the early part of the year. These are the ones from April.

April 18-19: Antietam Creek. I had fished this particular section of the Antietam once before, last year, and I only caught a small smallmouth on a beetle spin. Karen and I were camping, and the Potomac was too high and fast for much of anything, so I decided to try the creek again.

I walked down to the aqueduct just before the mouth of the Potomac and spotted a fish right along the bank sunning itself. It looked brown ... could it be a smallmouth? I stealthily walked down and made a few casts until I got a tube bait right in front of the fish's nose. Nothing. Hmm, maybe that isn't a smallmouth after all. I inched closer down the bank and got a better look. It was a dumb carp. You can't spell carp without C-R-A-P. Of course, maybe it wasn't so dumb because it didn't bite my lure, but a bunch of smallmouth later did!

I made some casts in that area with a 2.75" tube bait with a Confidence Baits Draggin' Head and didn't get anything. Tried a yellow 1/8oz Rooster Tail on my other rod and got nothing. So I walked up the creek some more until I got just before the bridge that crosses the creek. The water was shallow and fast moving, over rocks -- nowhere really for any fish to hide -- so I walked back the other way until I got to a large tree where the water got a bit deeper. I made some casts again with the tube bait then the Rooster Tail and didn't get anything.

There were two split trees that extended out over the water about 40 feet downstream (or is that "down creek"?), so I walked down to them. The lower part of the trunks ran horizontally out over the water for a couple feet and it was easy to walk out until the trees started extending up.

An 11" Antietam smallmouth.

And this was a honey hole. The water ran fast just in front of the trees but it slowed down in break to create a small pool by the shore. I fished here for an hour or so and caught three smallmouth, all in the 10" to 12" range. One was on the yellow Rooster Tail (second cast, fish hit just after the lure hit the water) and two on the tube bait. But was getting way more action on the tube bait but just not much success on hooking fish. I actually modified the setup later so instead of a weedless rig, the tip of the hook just barely protruded out of the bait.

The 14-inch smallmouth.

I fished this area until I stopped getting bites, moved along and came back later to catch some more fish. The next morning, I made a beeline to the spot and caught three smallmouth, again in the 10" to 12" range. I moved along with no luck and came back later to catch two more smallmouth, one measuring 14".

For the weekend, I caught seven fish in this spot and had several misses, mainly with the tube bait. I caught one other smallmouth in another section and had one miss on a Rooster Tail (fish followed it and bit just as I was pulling the lure out of the water), then I lost one right by the aqueduct on the Rooster Tail.

The fish weren't very big but smallmouth are awesome to catch. They are the Roy Jones Jr. of the fish world because they are probably the best pound-for-pound fighters out there!

April 24: Little Patuxent River (Guilford Road). I scouted this area a couple days before between stops in the tool truck. It looked "fishy" but I wasn't sure of the what/if on what kind of fish could be found. Looking on the Maryland DNR's angler's log on the web site, there had been reported catches of trout, bass, catfish, shad ... well, you name it. But no idea if they were caught in that section.

Three Little Patuxent rainbows!

I decided to hit the section like I did last week on Antietam Creek -- one medium rod with a Mitchell 300 and a 2.75" tube bait on a Draggin' Head and a lighter rod with a Mitchell 308 and a 1/8-ounce Rooster Tail. I walked down a little more than a half mile until I was within sight of two tall overpasses for I-95. I found a fairly fast section that looked like it had some nice ambush spots for fish behind rocks. Made a few casts with the tube bait and got a couple small nibbles. Like the fish was just trying to bite the tail section, but they wouldn't really take it. I switched to the Rooster Tail on the lighter rod and hooked a silvery fish after a few casts. It came off just as it got near the surface ... was that a ... trout? Whatever it was, it was decent size. Two casts later, I hooked and landed what looked like the same fish! A rainbow trout measuring 14 inches! Not huge but the biggest trout I ever caught. The Maryland DNR has a fairly aggressive stocking program this time of year, so with that in mind, I decided to keep it (and make Karen happy since she always wonders why I don't keep fish to eat).

I ended up with two more rainbows in different sections upstream, and also a sub-10" smallmouth that I caught in the same section I caught a rainbow. Everything was caught on the Rooster Tail, although I switched from yellow to white after getting my first one snagged. But I kept getting nibbles on the tube bait. When I filleted the trout when I got home, it looked like they had been feasting on hellgrammites, so if I go back, I might try the darkest colored Little Tubes from Confidence Baits with their 1/8oz Draggin' Heads.

I was pretty stoked thinking about the past week -- 12 fish total, nine smallmouth and three trout! I'm pretty sure I haven't had those types of numbers since fishing for bluegill and crappie at Hanscom Park 30 years ago! And, unlike fishing at Hanscom, all were caught with lures and not just throwing a bobber out with a worm or minnow.