Potomac smallmouth love getting some tail

Literally standing in the middle of the Potomac ...
in knee deep water.

First fish of the day ... they were INHALING the swimbaits!

Headed back to the Potomac today but this time upriver from where I was last week.  I fished this section once before last November and remember a huge area of riffles/rapids and figured it would be good to try this time of year.

Using a swimbait, I caught six cookie-cutter smallmouth in an hour or so.  Last week, I theorized that the bigger swimbaits enticed bigger fish, but that wasn't the case today.  Just a bunch of dinks hitting the swimbait.

Until landing a 16-inch smallmouth that fought like a tank.

Let's rewind here.

Aggressive smallmouth getting some tail.

Just before this Sherman smallmouth, I launched a lure into a tree.  Kept firing it downriver, and it wouldn't hit the "right" spot.  Then went into the overhanging tree.  Then the fishing line developed a small bird's nest.  I can never understand why this happens on spinning reels -- the line gets tangled for some reason further down on the spool.  Cast, reel, cast, reel, cast and a small bird's nest hinders the cast.

After dicking around with this crap for 20 minutes, cutting line and re-tieing on the swimbait, I cast out again.

Well, crap, it's a snag.

But it wasn't.

16-inch tank of a smallmouth!

It was an actual fish that inhaled the lure, and of course I was hoping it wasn't a catfish.  But it jumped almost immediately, and it was no catfish!  And then there was hoping the fish didn't come unhooked.

This smallmouth was one of the angriest I've encountered -- kept pulling drag and making runs.  Finally got close enough where I could pull the fish out of the water by the lower lip.  Measured it just over 16 inches and let it go.

This was my biggest Potomac smallmouth in more than a year!

That was lucky fish No. 7 in under two hours.  After that, the switched turned off.  I caught two cookie-cutters wading out toward the middle of the river, but then nothing after that even after making a home in between two riffles of water (top picture) that looked great for holding fish.  Not even a nibble.

Heading back toward shore, I threw my last swimbait back in almost the direct area where I was wading when I caught the 16-inch smallmouth ... and caught another cookie-cutter bass.

These plastic swimbaits only last through a few fish/hits, and that was the last one.

LOL, whut?

Time for the Z-Man TRD Finesse Wormz!  By this time, the clouds started dissipating to let the hot sun warm the sticky, humid air.

Earlier in the week, I got 1/20-ounce Shroomz jigheads, lighter than what I tried last week.  I keep trying lighter jigheads hoping they are less prone to snags.  The 1/20-ounce jigs didn't get snagged, but they rolled down the river too quickly, at least in this section.  They might be good for slower-moving water, though.

I tried a Z-Man worm with a heavier Shroomz jighead and caught a 12-inch bass almost immediately.  That made it 11 smallmouth for the day in a hair over three hours.  Not too bad wading and working a long section of riffles.

There doesn't seem to be a magical "honey hole" on rivers for smallmouth.  It's not like lake fish where the bass hold position.  Smallmouth migrate a lot, especially this time of year, so if I find a section of water that looks good, I keep fishing that area.  The 16-inch fish today must have come after 20 to 30 casts around that same area.

It was after 11 a.m., and the sun and humidity started trying to kick my ass like last week, but this time better preparation with water meant not feeling like passing out.  But still, that was it for the day considering the lull in activity by the little brown fish for the last hour or so.

Rifling the riffles

What do you do on the day you get married?  Go fishing, of course!

Hot day, do these riffles hold smallmouth?

Karen and I tried the Antietam Creek area of the Potomac River yesterday.  This was the same section we fished earlier in the year and didn't have much luck.  With temperatures in the 90s, I guessed it would be better fishing this time because of the riffles that stretch nearly the entire length from the Maryland side to the West Virginia side.  The bubbling water oxygenates the river in these stretches, which attracts smallmouth bass while funneling bait (fish, crawdads, plastic worms -- ha ha!) to predator fish.  Like smallmouth bass ... and sunfish ... and ... and ... Mr. Whiskers.

Karen's first smallmouth of the day.

Karen fished mainly above the riffles in the slower section that had a lot of large, hidden rocks below the surface.  She tried the Z-Man TRD Finesse worms for the first time and reportedly had as much success with those as with the Bass Pro Shops Stik-O worms -- seven cookie-cutter smallmouth and a sunfish.

She was pretty happy, though, because she had been skunked the last few times fishing.

My first fish, a tick over 12 inches.

I started off with a swimbait and, like last week, had several fish hooked but they shook the lure before I could land them.  I did catch three smallmouth around 12 inches ... and then had a hard hit after casting the swimbait downriver and reeling directly upriver against the current.  To describe the hit, it seemed like the fish sucked the lure in while following behind it. The fish was strong, though, but I figured it was a catfish.

Played the fish some more and it finally got close enough to see what it was -- not a catfish but a nice smallmouth probably around 16 inches!  It was fighting like a cinder block like the 16-inch smallmouth I caught at the same time last year.  Didn't rip off line on the drag, just didn't want to come in.

And then the smallmouth bass turned into Keyzer Soze and -- POOF! -- it was gone.  Just somehow got unhooked.

Goddamnmutherfuckingsoneofabitch!  It sucks losing a nice smallmouth bass especially when you see the fish and are almost ready to land it.

Oh, hai there Mr. Whiskers!

I only had two of those swimbaits with me rigged on jigheads and eventually lost both of them.  So I decided to try the Z-Man worms, too.  Two fish on the first three casts with them, then two more a little later.  But they were all cookie-cutter fish.  And Mr. Whiskers made an appearance again.  I saw a long, slender body under the water with gold coloring and thought (hoped) it was a walleye.  Nope, it was a catfish.  They still fight well and are way more fun to catch than a failfish.

Also, it's funny to see the bank strewn with empty chicken liver containers and thinking of all these people targeting catfish while I catch them on accident.  I bet nobody catches a smallmouth with a chicken liver!

By that time it was a little after 7 p.m., and I wanted to start throwing topwater lures.  But I didn't feel good.  Stomach cramps and a little light-headed, probably dehydrated.  I hadn't had much water that day.  I drank one bottle of water as we walked down the C&O Canal Trail and another bottle a little while later.  But the heat and humidity had started kicking my ass.  Maybe next time.

It was interesting that the four fish I caught on the Z-Man worm were smaller than the ones on the swimbait, but I caught them in about 20 to 30 minutes.  The three fish on the swimbait -- plus the one that got away -- were hooked in about 90 minutes.  My quick take is the swimbait attracts bigger fish but not as easy/numerous as the smaller Z-Man worm.

Still, seven fish (plus Mr. Whiskers), not to mention numerous other hits.  And Karen caught the same number of smallmouth, too.  Definitely going to hit this area again.

Variations

In the last installment, I wrote about how easy it seemed to catch fish with the "Ned Rig" Z-Man TRD Finesse worms, and the next trip to the Potomac wouldn't involve them.

That didn't happen.  On the riversmallies.com forum, one of the posters there seems to use nothing but the Z-Man worms but rigs them on 1/32-ounce mushroom jigheads.  His reasoning is that the lighter weight jigheads lessens the chance for snags.  Sure, you will still lose lures but they won't get snagged as often, and they are easier to free.

Yesterday, Karen and I went to the Arundel Mills Bass Pro Shops and, lo and behold, they now stock the Z-Man worms and Shroomz jigheads.  Z-Man doesn't offer 1/32-ounce jigs but their lightest is 1/10-ounce.  I normally use 1/4-ounce and some 3/16th-ounce jigs, so I bought a five-pack of the 1/10th heads.

Fish-holding riffles.

This morning, I started off at the Lander Road boat ramp on the Potomac and biked up the C&O Canal Trail.  It took awhile to find a place that had easy access to the river.  Put on the chest waders and hit the water.  This area had a few good spots with riffles not too far from shore.  Tied on a Z-man worm with the lighter jighead and started firing it below the riffles.

Nothing for 20 to 30 minutes.  Then finally had a fish on -- a typical Potomac cookie-cutter smallmouth bass.  A little while later, another fish but a bit smaller.  While it wasn't noteworthy in size or appearance, it was my 100th smallmouth of the year!  Last year, I didn't catch the 100th smallmouth until September, so maybe I'm getting better at tricking them little brown fish?

First fish of the day and smallmouth
number 99 for the year.

Wading upriver to another riffle, I caught three more smallmouth and a sunfish.  I also had numerous hookups where the fish got off while reeling them in.  Usually I don't miss many fish that way -- if they're on the hook, I land them.  My quick take is that while the smaller jighead didn't get snagged as often (I only lost two), they enticed lighter strikes.

In about two hours, I caught five smallmouth and the sunfish.  Around 11 a.m., the switch turned off.  Nothing.  No bites or nibbles.

I waded back down to where the bike was and switched to my other rod and tied on a swimbait.  What kind of swimbait?  That's a secret.  Jason Shay introduced it to me when he guided me and Karen on the Susquehanna earlier month.  It's about the same size as a Berkley Havoc but the action is a whole lot better.  Reeling in just straight with no variation on the speed or action using the rod, the swimbait rolls and darts slightly from side-to-side.

A decent sunfish.

After about 10 minutes using the swimbait, there was a hard hit on the other end of the line.  I thought it was snagged but whatever was on the other end was pulling back -- certainly not a rock!  The fish jumped once, and it looked like a decent smallmouth.  The fish got within a few feet from me, and I saw it was at least a 12-inch bass.  Then it jumped and freed itself from the hook.  Right in front of me!

I cast out to the same general area and got another hard hit in the same area as the first fish.  Started reeling, fish was close, a little smaller ... and that fish jumped, too, and got off.  Right in front of me!

A few casts later wading upriver, I had another hit.  This time I kept the rod tip low to prevent the fish from jumping and actually landed it -- a sub-10-inch smallmouth.

High noon was rolling around, and I only had one hit after that.  Maybe next time I will just fish with the swimbait and leave the Z-Man worms at home.

Maybe.

And now I will leave you with something creepy:

Smallmouth, catfish and The White House

Below Dam 4 on the Potomac River.

Hit the Potomac River below Dam 4 last night and caught nine fish in about three hours.  Eight smallmouth and one specimen of Mr. Whiskers.

This might be one of my favorite sections on the Potomac because it has quite a few different types of water in such an easy accessible section of the river.  The water just below the dam is slow moving, and that leads into a fast section of rapids.  Then there's a very large point 50 yards below the dam that protrudes into the fast breaks to create a couple pools (one of the pools only seems to hold decent fish when water temps are in the 30s).  After the breaks, there's a slower section with a hidden rocky bottom.  A bit further down, a small point that's barely noticeable leads out into deeper (three to four feet) water.

First fish of the day.

I was in the water around 5 p.m., nice humid day with mostly a blue sky.  I started off with a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm and caught six cookie-cutter smallmouth targeting areas just in front of or behind shallow, rocky water.  Of note, the same worm caught all six fish.  The Z-Man stuff is made from "elaztech" which is definitely more durable than most plastic baits.  Any other plastic would have been torn up after a few hits.

While the Z-Man worms have been great, it has almost been too easy to catch fish with them. Next trip to the Potomac, I may leave them home.  On the Little Patuxent or more challenging waters, they will probably stay in the arsenal.

That being said, I switched to a BPS Teaser Tube in a red/blood color and had a nice strike on the first or second cast.  The fish was hooked briefly but Houdini'ed its' way free.  And that was it -- no action at all for 10 to 15 minutes.

Since the water was fairly deep at this point and snags shouldn't be a problem, I tied on a Rapala Shadow Rap.  These have also been really good at hooking fish, but I haven't used them much because the water has been low on my last several outings to the Potomac and Little Patuxent.

Smallmouth in the 12+ range.

First cast with the Rapala and there was a fish at the end of the line, and it felt better than a cookie-cutter.  It fought hard for about a minute, and it was a nice smallmouth measuring 12+ inches!  It's always nice to land a legal-size smallmouth on a Maryland river.

No action after that with the Shadow Rap and went to the surface with a topwater Arbogast Jitterbug in black.  This is one I haven't used much but caught a few largemouths with them as a kid fishing an Iowa sand pit.  No such luck this time, not even a strike.  Usually I get some action on topwaters, especially this time of day with the sun going down.

Like the Rapala Shadow Rap, I went back to another lure I have had success with in the past but haven't used recently.  Some say it's made with bits of other fish and sea-going creatures.  Others say it's sprinkled with the dust of 1,000 dead snakeheads.  To me, it's just called The Secret Weapon.

The Secret Weapon wasn't going so hot either until I moved upriver right below the dam.  After a few casts, there was a hit before a fast rocky section, and it was a cookie-cutter smallmouth.  This was fish number eight.

A few minutes later, there was another hit on the end of the line.  This felt different -- it wasn't a big fish, but it didn't feel like a smallmouth either.

It ...

... was ...

Mr. Whiskers!

... Mr. Whiskers!!  Mr. Whiskers likes jerkbaits as well as The Secret Weapon.

That was it for the day.

Today I went here:

The White House Green Room.

It was actually my second visit, the first time being almost 34 years ago to the day.  I have more pictures on Flickr. How many people get to see The Statue of Liberty and tour The White House within a week?

Smallmouth days, here we come

Today I hit my fourth river in five days.  This time it was the Little Patuxent about 15 minutes from my house.  Driving back from the Potomac last night, I thought it would be cool to try and catch smallmouth bass on a different river making it four different rivers (Susquehanna, Juniata, Potomac, Little Patuxent) in five days.

Don't get Lost while fishing the Little Patuxent.

The Little Patuxent is challenging especially this time of year.  The water is shallow and fairly clear, so you really have to pick and choose spots.  There are quite a few sections of slow water with featureless bottoms, so my plan is usually trying to find deeper pools or cast ahead of breaks of water or just down from those breaks.  And all that, the smallmouth population isn't very big anyway.  I have been skunked several times this year and last year didn't catch a thing from mid-July to October.

I decided to try the Z-Man Finesse TRD worm (hey, it seems to work) and something new, a Berkley Gulp! Alive! Shrimp.  One of my customers who works at a body shop found a tub of these in the back of a car and gave them to me last week.  Although they are shrimp they have a crayfish look to them, so I figured they might work rigged on a Spider Classic Slider Jighead.  They were green with a white belly and were about the same length as a couple crayfish I saw scurrying along the river floor when I was wading.

The first hour or so, it wasn't looking good.  Only a few nibbles from what I was guessing were redbreast sunfish.  Switching back and forth between each lure, nothing was getting much interest.

Fish number two.  The rocks in
the background to the right
of the fish's eye is the general
area where they were hiding.

Finally I got to a spot where I've been to twice before and caught smallmouth each time.  It was a break of rocks that spanned the river, and I cast downriver just above the break.  This was with the Z-Man worm, and I felt a hit and had a fish hooked briefly but it got off.  Cast to the same section again and worked the worm back.  I didn't feel anything but the fishing line was heading to my left towards the bank.  Set the hook and had a fish on.  Nothing big but it was pulling back ... and it was ... an eight-inch smallmouth.  He was camera shy and squirmed out of my hand as I was reaching for my phone.

On the other rod was the Berkley shrimp, so I switched to that.  Cast the shrimp to around the same area and again the fishing line headed left.  Set the hook and had another fish on, but this felt a little better.  A feisty 11-inch smallie was on the other end, and he wasn't camera shy.

For the next 10 minutes I cast to every spot in that section but couldn't get any more interest.

That was it as the next mile or so of river is really tough going especially this time of year.  Nothing noteworthy on fish size for this trip but I was still happy to have achieved my goal on catching smallmouth bass on four different rivers.  On Thursday it was 19 on the Susquehanna; Friday was four on the Juniata; yesterday was six on the Upper Potomac; and then two more today on the Little Patuxent River for 31 total smallmouth.

A Potomac first

Karen and I hit the Potomac River at Taylor's Landing boat ramp for a few hours today.  I wanted to go later in the day to try topwater lures as the sun was going down.  Unfortunately, one strike with a Zara Spook Jr. was the only action on top.

We hit this area last September with only one fish between us.  However, we started upriver from the boat ramp, which wasn't a good idea as the area only had weedbeds for cover in the river.  Later that day we moved downriver from the boat ramp, and it was like a whole different river!  Lots of rocks and the river had long trench-like rock structures that blanketed the bottom in several areas.

First fish on the
Berkley Havoc swimbait.

This time, I went downriver from the boat ramp immediately.  Yesterday, I went to Bass Pro Shops and bought a pack of Berkley Havoc Grass Pig swimbaits with Owner UltraHead jigheads.  Paired together, they were really similar to the swimbaits we used on Thursday with success on the Susquehanna.  I tied a swimbait on one rod and a Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm on the other.

On my first cast with the swimbait, I snagged it on a rock.  This would happen a lot, and I ended up losing three swimbaits during the day.  But this time I freed the lure and cast it out again and had a fish on.  It freed himself but not before seeing it -- a cookie-cutter smallmouth bass.

A little while later, I cast the swimbait out and had it reeled back to within 10 feet from me when a smallmouth came out of nowhere and slammed the lure!  It wasn't a big fish but still was exciting to see.  And this time the fish stayed on the hook.

Switching back and forth between the swimbait and the Z-Man worm, the worm had the most interest.  Wading downriver and fishing several spots, I ended up with five more smallmouth all on some flavor of Z-Man worm.  The swimbait didn't get any bites until ...

Rocky wasn't much of a fighter.

I cast downriver to the left of a rock that was barely protruding from the surface.  Reeled in the swimbait and felt a hit and set the hook.  Only the fish wasn't pulling back.  I continued to reel in fast and there was something on the line.  Maybe a clump of weeds?  A stick?  An old sock?  There was actually a fish on the other end, a small rock bass!  What's so special about a rock bass?  This was my first non-smallmouth bass caught on the Potomac River.  They don't grow to be as big as smallmouth but have a similar color.

Around 7:15, I tied on a Zara Spook Jr. hoping for some topwater action.  As I mentioned before, I only had one fish boil the surface using this.  Even tried a larger Hub's Chub but with no response from anything under water.

Unfortunately, Karen didn't catch anything today but has vowed to try again on the Potomac before going to see her mom tomorrow.

For me, it was six smallmouth and my first Potomac rock bass.  That makes fishing three rivers in four days and landing 29 smallmouth and one little rocky.

Lady Liberty was happy to see us freeing a lot of fish on this July 4 weekend

The Statue of Liberty replica stands on the Susquehanna River.

I went out again Friday with Jason Shay of Ken Penrod's Life Outdoor Unlimited on the Susquehanna River.  If you remember,my friend Kirk and I went out with Jason in April and had a blast.  This trip would be a little different.

Always get a picture of your
first fish of the day.

First, Karen had the day off so she joined me instead of Kirk.  Second, we were going on an evening trip from 4:30 to dusk.  The cost of an evening trip was a little less expensive than a day trip, but Jason reasoned that we would catch just as many fish.  Lastly, we launched from a different area of the river.

Karen and I were going to camp at the Riverfront Campground in Duncannon, so we dropped off all our stuff, set up the tent and headed to the alternate boat ramp to meet up with Jason.  The first thing I noticed when we were at the campground -- the place we launched from in April -- was that the river was way lower than before.  Lots of exposed rocks where they didn't appear before.  I wondered if this was one of the reasons we were going to be fishing in a different area.

We reached the boat ramp a little early and I set up the rods for me and Karen.  She has her own fishing rod now but I sacrificed my old Shimano reel with an Ugly Stik so she could have two rods with two different lures tied on and ready to go.

Last time Rapala Shadow Raps and tube baits were the hot ticket.  Prior to this, Jason had called this trip a "spinnerbait trip."  I was pretty excited because I have never had much success with spinnerbaits, and I was hoping to refine the technique.  As it turned out, we didn't use spinnerbaits (water temps were too high) but we used two lures I had never used before.

Karen's first Susquehanna smallmouth.

The first one was a swimbait -- a rubber shad on a jighead.  I've used plenty of rubbery lures the past couple years, mainly bouncing them off the bottom.  But with the swimbaits, we would be swimming them through the water (That's why they're called swimbaits!!!) with a steady retrieve.  He said earlier in the week, his clients with swimbaits were out-fishing him with spinnerbaits.

The other lure we would be using was a Whopper Plopper -- a topwater plug with a rotating prop on the back.  This thing looked ... interesting.

The plan was to start with the swimbaits and try topwaters until "the topwater bite" was on.  I'm not sure if I've expressed it here but catching fish on topwaters is my absolute favorite technique.  It's usually not the best way to catch a lot of fish but there is nothing like seeing the swirls and explosions -- or a lure getting punted through the air -- from an attacking fish.  Even if the fish doesn't hook up, it's still exciting!

Jason pulled into the boat ramp, we loaded up our gear and hit the water.  He has a boat with a jet prop, and the underside of the boat has some kind of rubber matting.  This setup makes it easier to navigate through the rocky shallow waters.  He said this time of year there aren't as many boats out because of the water level.

About 10 minutes later we arrived at a spot with lots of protruding rocks.  Oh and The Statue of Liberty was there.  If you travel on 22/322 north of Harrisburg, you might have seen her before.  It's a replica (not actual size) of The Statue of Liberty standing atop an old bridge structure in the middle of the river.  It's an interesting story and worth an internet search.

My biggest of the day, about 15 inches.

The water was really clear and we could easily see the bottom.  We started tossing the swimbaits and didn't have much luck for about 20 minutes.  Jason caught a couple, then I finally got one and then Karen got her first, too.  Unfortunately, these weren't the same size smallmouth as the trip from early April.  Most were "Potomac sized" fish but were more plentiful than the Potomac population.  Most were in the 8-12 range with a couple over that.  My biggest was around 15 inches, and I think Karen had one that was 12-13.

I mentioned how clear the water was.  We would often see swarms of small smallmouth trailing or attacking the swimbaits when they got close to the boat.  At first it was kind of fun to slow the retrieve to entice some of the fish, but then we kind of got bored with it and would pull the lures away from the smaller fish.

We also saw a lot of carp roaming by and a few catfish.  One catfish that must have been 20+ inches even followed my swimbait back to the boat.

Casualties of war -- swimbaits that got too torn up
from enticing the smallmouth.

Later on, Karen started throwing the Whopper Plopper without much success while Jason and I continued catching small fish on the swimbaits.  Then she threw the topwater lure between two rocks and we all heard the explosion of water.  That's what's great about a big fish on a topwater lure -- everybody hears it.

The fish was hooked and was causing a ruckus on top of the water.  It made a couple jumps and we could see it was a nice smallmouth, probably in the 18-inch range.  Jason grabbed the net (first time we needed it today) as Karen fought the fish.  Finally she got the fish to the boat but it swam underneath the front and the fishing line looked to get caught in the trolling motor.  Jason grabbed the line and was pulling and like Keyzer Soze the fish was ... gone.  I saw it swim away back downriver.  That would have been a nice fish for Karen to have on her first trip to the Susquehanna.  Jason said, "Don't worry, there are more like that here."

Cooking sausage at the campground.

After that, Jason and I were like lemmings and started throwing Whopper Ploppers, too.  What's the best fishing lure to use?  Whatever someone else was using to catch a big fish!

We all caught some more fish but nothing like the one that got away from Karen.  I tied on a black/silver Hub's Chub just to be different and caught a couple fish.

Finally the sun had gone down behind a hill, and we headed back to the boat ramp.  It was still light but Jason had to navigate the river through the minefield of barely submerged rocks.  Idling downriver, he pointed out a couple areas that always claim boats each year from people going too fast or not knowing the underwater terrain.  At one point we were coasting through fairly smooth water but it was only about a foot deep!

I think I ended up with 19 smallmouth -- 15 on the swimbait and four on topwaters.  Karen probably had 15 fish and of course a great story about The One That Got Away.  While we didn't hook into a lot of nicer fish like in April, it wasn't a bad tally for just under four hours of fishing.  Plus they were smallmouth bass with the typical attitude!

Z-Man worm tricks a Juniata smallmouth.

Karen and I camped overnight at the campground at the Juniata/Susquehanna confluence, and we did some fishing the next morning on the Juniata.

Having no swimbaits or Whopper Poppers in my arsenal, I tried the Z-Man Finesse worms hopping them across the bottom.  After a couple hours, I landed four "cookie cutter" smallmouth on Z-Man Finesse worms hopping across the bottom.  I had one that felt a little better but it got away.

Karen also got a "cookie cutter" on a Bass Pro Shops Stik-O worm.

Jason was telling us that the smallmouth bass population reportedly isn't considered very good because there aren't a lot of smaller fish, which is why the river is closed for smallmouth fishing from May 1 to mid-June so the fish can spawn without intrusion.  But I guess the people who have made that decision have never really fished the river.

Both of us were on the lookout for
smallmouth bass but for different reasons.

The water near the campground is really shallow with not a lot of structure other than right at the mouth of the Juniata.  It looks like wearing hip waders could get you pretty far out in the Susquehanna section but it is more than a quarter mile across!  I was hoping that would be an alternate campsite instead of going to the Potomac all the time, but there's not a lot of fishing opportunities from shore in that area when the water is so low.