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.

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