The Potomac River kicked my ass this weekend

At the end of the branch with no leaves in the lower
half of the picture is a bald eagle.  He didn't catch
anything either.

Not a good weekend of fishing.  Saturday night, I went to Dam 4 and sweated my ass off for a few hours and didn't catch anything.  A 11- to 12-inch smallmouth clamped onto a swimbait for a few seconds, jumped then freed itself about eight feet away from me. No other bites before that, and only one other bite after that.

Five-plus hours of fishing this weekend, and this was my trophy.

This morning, I went to Taylor's Landing bright and early and only sweated half my ass off.  After the first hour, I finally caught one smallmouth that was around 10 inches.  And that was it for actually landing fish.  A couple more hits, even a follow on a swimbait from a fish that I am pretty sure was a small walleye.  Around 9:30 a.m., the sun started peaking over the trees and bathing the entire river in its warm glow which did wonders for the humidity, so I called it quits.

Swimbaits, Z-Man TRD Finesse worms, Bass Pro Shops Stik-O worms, some topwater (topwater bite has been almost nonexistent for me this year, yet still I try), a Rapala Shadow Rap (which I lost, exact same lure that a 20-inch Susquehanna smallmouth liked so much in April) ... nothing seemed to work.

Did I mention it was hot as balls?  I fished mainly in areas right below riffles and could only manage to land that one smallmouth.