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.
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.
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.
 |
| Don't get Lost while fishing the Little Patuxent. |
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. |
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment