Sunday, November 15, 2015

Who's your crawdaddy?

Last week I predicted my last smallmouth.  Today I tried to prove that wrong and failed at proving that wrong.  I fished on the Potomac area between Brunswick and Harpers Ferry and didn't catch a thing.  No bites.  No nibbles No thing.

An old structure along the C&O Canal.
The first thing noticeable when wading into the water was that it was colder than last week.  I threw my thermometer into the water for a couple minutes, and it read 50 degrees!  Eight degrees lower than last week.

Last time I was here, I caught one smallmouth and a catfish.  This time I started further downriver, and I think the river was just too fast this time of year.  At least for smallmouth.  Cold, fast flowing water over rapids.  Lots of small pockets of slow water, but I think with the temperature swing in the water, the fish are tough to come by.  Next year, though, this might be my "go to" spot on the Potomac.  The river is really wide here, and there are a ton of different, challenging areas with big rocks and slow pools.

When I decided to call it quits, wading back upriver, I stumbled (almost literally) on this crayfish:

potomac river crayfish crawfish crawdad smallmouth
Potomac crayfish

I thought it was dead and poked it with the end of my rod, but it maneuvered away slightly -- didn't run away.  Chill-laxing in the shallow water looking for little bits of stuff to eat, safely away from any predatory smallmouth. This thing was 4- to 5-inches long, so most of the smallmouth probably wouldn't attempt to eat it!

The most noticeable thing was the coloration.  Brown with some orange, a lot like some of the tube baits I used earlier in the day.  Also, the color was very camouflaged to the color of the rocks on the bottom.

Note: Come back here next year, throw tube baits similar in color to the rocky bottom.

Stay tuned for my year in review!

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