First Potomac walleye

I just started taking up fishing again late last year after doing it sporadically for the past 20 years. The last time I was semi-serious, I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I was in the Air Force. One of my favorite fish along with smallmouth bass is walleye but I have only caught a handful of them and none since at least 1994, my last year in the U.P. I know the Upper Potomac has walleye, but I had yet to catch one since first hitting McCoy's Ferry last October -- and then quite a few more trips on the Upper Potomac between then and now. Granted, I've been fishing primarily for smallmouth, but I figured I would have accidentally caught one.

That finally changed today!

I dropped Karen off so she could do some Kritmas shopping at the little shops in Harpers Ferry and headed up to Dam 4. When I got there, a couple guys were in a boat right below the dam, so I meandered down a little ways to a small pool of still water just off some faster water. I've never caught anything in this spot even though it looks really "fishy." I've always seen some panfish and small largemouth bass in this section but never hooked anything.

I started off using a Berkley minnow underneath a bobber, but really didn't like the action. The fake minnow was just on a hook (didn't have any small jigheads), and it really didn't sink too fast. I was hoping to slowly reel it in but the minnow still trailed close to the surface when doing so. I switched to my "secret weapon" -- a Berkley Gulp! Killer Crawler on a Charlie Brewer Spider Jighead.

Finally, a Potomac River walleye!

First cast, started working the jig s-l-o-w-l-y on the bottom.  Reeled it in maybe 10 feet and felt a tap-tap-tap on the other end.  The "nibbler" panfish like to nip at the tails of the worms and jigs, but this felt ... different.  A couple taps then a bigger tap and I set the hook -- fish on!  I could feel the fish shaking its head as I reeled it in.  Not the behavior of a smallmouth, which seem to just tug back with all their might.  "Not a sunfish, but probably a catfish," I thought.

I reeled some more and finally got a glimpse of it a few feet away from shore.

"A walleye!!"

Looked to be close to 12 inches (keeper size on the Potomac is 15 inches).  I got it out of the water and took a quick picture.  The hook was in the corner of its mouth, so it was easy to remove -- didn't need the pliers to reach past the fish's toothy grin.

And that was it for the day.  Fished for close to two hours and that was the only fish.  I had a couple hits -- one felt pretty good -- but couldn't hook anything else.