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.