A Little Patuxent trophy smallmouth

Sandy bottom but no big rocks.  Flowing water cutting into
the bank with fallen timber.  Will this hold smallmouth bass?

Last year, I started fishing the Little Patuxent River for the first time.  My first trip was more to catch (stocked) trout, and I hooked into three rainbows.  But the last fish I caught that day was a small smallmouth bass.  Researching the river online, it appeared the waters held smallmouth bass, so maybe that little smallie was just the tip of the iceberg.  So them ol' brown fish is what I targeted for the next few months.

From the last week of April last year to the first week in June, I caught at least one smallmouth on every trip to the Little Patuxent.  This included two 15-inch fish, one around 14 and a handful in the 12-inch range.  Mostly they were the same size as what I found on the Potomac but in more compressed sections of water.

But from that first week in June through today, I caught one smallmouth.  One.  That was it.  No action or bites or nothing really hinting that there were smallmouth bass in the river.  They just [poof] disappeared.

My theory was that they used the Little Patuxent for spawning and migrated downstream after poplulating the waters with lil' smallies.  Or maybe they found better hiding places that weren't as accessible to wading or fishing from shore.  Or maybe they were too smart for me and didn't bite on any lure I threw.

15-inch smallmouth!

Whatever the case may be, fishing the river occasionally from the end of last year to start this year had the same results.  Still nothing.  No bites.  No sign of smallmouth.  Late April last year was when I first "found" them, but maybe it would happen again.

Today I went downstream past Columbia and a couple miles from the confluence of the Little Patuxent and the Patuxent.  This is the general area where I caught a 15" smallmouth as well as a catfish and failfish on a Rapala Shadow Rap last year.  It's right off a major highway but not easily accessible.

The plan was to fish tubes and Shadow Raps.  The water was slightly stained but visible down to at least two feet.  Bouncing a tube off the bottom got some nibbles, but it felt like sunfish.  Like they were nibbling at the end of the tube but couldn't get their mouths around the hook.  Nibble-nibble ... and then nothing.  This must have went on for 45 minutes casting to pockets of slow water around downed trees.

Finally a fish hit, and it felt like a good one.  Please no catfish. Or failfish.  Or carp.

It was a smallmouth, and a nice one at that, at least for this river!  Measured it right at 15 inches, which I think is trophy size on the Little Patuxent.

Let it go, let it goooooooo!

A couple casts later, another fish was on.  This time it was 10-inch smallmouth.  Small but better than catching a failfish!

Right after this fish, I snagged the tube I was using.  Which was my last one, so I switched over to a Confidence Baits Little Tube and had similar nibble-nibble action.  Had one fish hooked but it got off.  Then I lost that tube and tied on a three-inch Stik-O work in a minnow pattern.  Again, more nibble-nibble action but couldn't hook anything.

The sun started disappearing behind the trees, and the temps went down as well.  In about two hours of fishing, it felt satisfying to finally catch some smallmouth on the Little Patuxent after such a long dry spell.  Maybe this is the beginning of a narrow two- to three-month window to catch them on the best smallmouth-friendly body of water closest to my house.

My dream house?