Back to the Little Patuxent

I've had one trip to the Patapsco River and another to the Juniata River in the past month and didn't catch a thing.  Nothing.  Lots of action from "nibblers," my word for small sunfish.  On worms and jigs, they grab the end of the lure but not the hook and take off with it.  And then drop it or it comes out of their mouth when I set the hook.

On Wednesday I decided to hit the Little Patuxent River behind Walking Fish Pond in Crofton.  This is the same area I went to at the end of May and caught a 15-inch smallmouth, catfish and failfish on a Rapala Shadow Rap, but it's the first time I had been back.  The river looked pretty much the same although a couple of downed trees -- where I had a few strikes from ambushing smallmouth -- had been washed away.

After going to Bass Pro Shops and listening to a guy talk about smallmouth at the usual 11 a.m. feeding time in their tank, I picked up a pack of pumpkin pepper chartreuse tubes and decided to try them.  Lots of action on them, but again, mostly from nibblers.  I had one nibbler chase it all the way as I reeled it in, grab it right at my feet (wading in about two feet of water) and try to take off with it.  Too funny.

Down river from "rip rap."

After a couple hours in various spots and not catching anything -- nothing on the tube, and nothing on various straight worms -- I went back upriver to where I started and waded out to a sandbar.  Made some casts and got nibblers.  I decided to switch to the Berkley Gulp! worms I had good success with last month on the Potomac below Dam 4. 

This section of the river definitely feels "fishy."  Fast flowing water over rip-rap, a nice pool of water after that and into downed trees.  I'm really surprised I didn't light things up.  But anyway ...

After a couple casts, I was surprised by an actual hit that didn't feel like a nibbler.  Set the hook and started reeling the fish in, and it jumped!  The sun was in my eyes and I couldn't tell what it was.  Probably a smallmouth?  Another jump!  And when I finally got the fish at my feet ... it was a smallmouth!  Albeit the high end of an "8-10" fish.  But, hey, it was my first fish in three weeks.

A smallmouth on the high end of the "8-10" scale.

I fished a little while longer but didn't get anything else.

I don't want to jinx anything and have bad weather roll in, but Karen and I are going some place next weekend outside of Maryland that has big smallmouth but is perhaps known more for walleye.  Hopefully bad/marginal weather stays away!