Successquehanna or, "Yeah I need the net!"

Treble hooks, should be nine hooks total ... count them.

First time fishing the Susquehanna River yesterday, and it was everything I had hoped for.  Not monster smallmouth on every cast, but a good collection of fish that were a better class for the most part than anything I've found on the Potomac River.

Catching smallmouth bass on the Susquehanna is something that has been on my to-do list since getting back into fishing last year.  The river is less than two hours from where I live, but it didn't seem to have as many easy access points like the Potomac.  At least for wading or fishing from shore.  And the Susky is much wider than the Potomac in most places.  Everything I've read says the Susquehanna is a much better fishery for smallmouth bass than the Potomac despite the fact they are maybe 75 miles apart at their closest point.

Finally, I pulled the trigger and hired a guide.  Searching on the internet, I kept coming back to Ken Penrod's Live Outdoors Unlimited Guide Service.  Hey, it's a nice web site with pictures of big smallmouth, so it must be good!

After exchanging e-mails, Ken put me in contact with one of his guides, Jason Shay.  He had an opening for April 1, which was a Friday and one of my "light" work days.

There was another spot on the boat, and since Karen was going to be out of town, I went trolling (see what I did there?) on Facebook to see if any of my predominately motorsports friends wanted to go fishing.  After a few pleas, my closest friend in the world (Kirk lives five minutes away from me, so it's true!) said he would join me.

At this point, you're saying, "Just show us the pictures!"

OK, here's one.

Personal best smallmouth ... momentarily.

At this point in my life, it was my biggest smallmouth bass ever, around 18 inches.

Back to the story.  Kirk said he hadn't been fishing in about 20 years.  He didn't have a fishing rod, but I told him he could use one of my vintage Mitchell 300s with whatever rod.   We went to Bass Pro Shops and picked up a few lures.  Then he called a few days later informing me he went back to Bass Pro Shops and got a rod/reel of his own.

Bass Pro Shops should just be renamed to Crack Pro Shops.

Finally the day had arrived!  I showed up at 0'dark thirty at his house so we could trek up to Harrisburg.  An easy drive at that time of the morning making our way through Baltimore traffic.  

You want another fish picture now?  OK.

First cast of the day!

This is the first fish of the day.  On the first cast.  My first time on the Susquehanna.  Which really wasn't the Susquehanna.  Actually on the Juniata (not Juanita) River right near the confluence.

Kirk and I met up with Jason at Riverfront Campground in Duncannon, which is right at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers (it's pronouced JOO-nee-ah-ta ... Jason says most dumbass Marylanders pronounce it like it's a Mexican river).  Jason's boat was what I had expected, kind of small but with a jet-propulsion outboard -- perfect for cruising through a rocky, shallow river.

We loaded our gear on the boat and hit the water.  Jason took the boat to a spot maybe 200 yards from the boat ramp to a bridge that crossed the Juniata.  He instructed us to throw tube jigs at a break in the water below a bridge.  While he was explaining to Kirk how to work the jigs on the bottom, I tossed one out.  First cast.  First fucking cast!  And I had a fish on!

"You got one already!?"

It was a smallmouth around 15 inches.  First cast, a nice smallmouth!  There was something different about this place compared to the Potomac.

Kirk and I caught a few fish in this spot on tube jigs, but Jason wanted to move down to a known hotspot before other guides and fishermen hit the water.  We started just before 7 a.m., but he said others were supposed to be on the water an hour later.

At this new spot, Jason said jerkbaits had been hot the previous days.  Kirk had a Rapala X-Rap, and I had a Rapala Shadow Rap.  Jason pointed out some hot spots to throw at, and we started firing.

Unfortunately, the wind was against us.  The best spots were downriver, and the wind was blowing strongly upriver.  We would let a lure fly, it looked like a good cast, but it would die in the wind and plop down 20 feet from the boat.  At one point, Kirk had a Rapala sail into the top of the train bridge.

We were fishing the jerk baits with a jerk-jerk-pause cadence -- letting the lures sit for a few seconds on the pause.

Kirk has weird friends.

Nothing.  Nada.  No bueno.

Jason moved the boat down river to another hot spot behind a bunch of rocks.  We did the same jerk-jerk-pause with the Rapalas, and still nothing.  Just casting to a large break in the water where fast moving water met a slower pool.

Suddenly, Jason had a fish on, and it was a nice smallmouth.  He was retrieving the lure faster than normal when the fish hit, so that's what we started doing with the Rapala jerk baits.  Instead of jerk-jerk-pause, it was a faster retrieve with not much pausing.

And did it work!

Kirk caught four fish in that spot including an 18-incher, and I caught a few in the 15-16 range.  Water temps were around 55 degrees, which should call for a slower presentation.  But, hey, that's fishing.  What should work maybe sometimes doesn't.

After that spot dried up, we moved to another spot right next to Highway 22.  The road ran above the river on a man-made bank of rocks, which created a lot of pools and pockets in the flow of the river.  We went back to tubes, and Kirk was first to get a fish in this area.  We floated down and a little bit later I saw a tree creating a small point on the bank.  I fired the tube to the small pocket after the point, and a fish clamped on just as the lure hit the water.  And the fish felt strong!

Right behind the small point is where my 18" fish was hiding.

I had been a little jealous of Kirk's 18-inch fish, but now I had one that matched his. The first picture posted above is that 18-incher. Amazing that a 2.5" tube bait can catch such a wide range of fish.

Twinty!

After this, we moved down to a spot above an island that had a lot of exposed rocks.  Jason basically said, "Fish anywhere," and we went back to the Rapalas.

We were in the area maybe 15 minutes when I cast a Shadow Rap downriver in front of a group of bigger rocks.  Still using the faster retrieve we "discovered" earlier, I had a hit.  It felt like a decent fish, and I started reeling in.  The fish flashed just below the surface about 10 feet behind the boat, and Jason asked if I needed the net.

"Nah, it's not that big."

Reeled the fish in closer, and I got a better look.

"Uh, yeah I need the net."

Jason grabbed the net and scrambled to the back of the boat.  He netted the fish without much drama and brought it aboard.  It certainly looked big!  After freeing the fish from the treble hooks, Jason brought out a metal ruler to measure the fish.  Doing everything "by the book" (closing the fish's mouth, flattening the tail), it was right at 20 inches on the dot!

First time on the Susquehanna, and I had a 20-incher!

Measuring the fish.

We took a couple pictures, and I let it go.  Then Jason told us how people have been fishing with Ken on the Susquehanna for the last 10 years and had yet to land a 20-inch smallmouth.  Unfortunately, I got to thinking that this river had spoiled me, and I may never go back to the Potomac or the Little Patuxent.  (Just kidding!  I will.  But not this weekend.  It would feel like a big letdown.)

My 1958 Mitchell 300, serial# 2165625, had a workout!

We fished for couple more hours and floated down between an island and the bank.  Kirk expertly honed his "torpedo bomb" casting technique.  We found lots of big rocks and good hiding spots, but this was where the "Potomac sized" fish were hiding.  A few in the 15-16 range but mostly the 12-inchers that would leave us fist pumping if we were on the Potomac.

It was pretty cool, though, to catch two fish that I saw hit the lure.  One of the fish was nipping at the Rapala like a cat with a toy, maybe three feet below the surface just behind the boat.  I kept jerking the lure, and the fish finally clamped on.

A chunky smallie.

We moved to the other side of the island and caught a few more fish.  I had one that Jason called "an 18-inch fish on a 16-inch frame."  It was very fat and wide.

Around 2:30, we headed back upriver trying to beat a rain storm.  The rain never materialized, so we fished the same spot we started at in the morning right where the Juniata hit the Susquehanna.  No fish this time, so we called it a day.

I ended up with around 20 fish while Kirk caught 12.  I would say 75 percent of the fish were above 14 inches.  Nothing really smaller than that until later in the day.  Not bad for a couple of Susquehanna rookies!  And before the day began, I would have been satisfied with Kirk's haul of fish.  Jason was keeping in touch with the other guides throughout the day, and nobody else seemed to be doing as well.  The other guides didn't believe we were having so much success with the Rapalas.

Because of the 20-inch fish, I received a gift certificate to Under Armour for 40-percent off up to a $500 purchase.  Also, Riverfront Campground gave me a medallion to recognize my achievement.  First fishing trophy, I guess, to go along with all the autocross stuff.