Back to normal

First smallmouth, measured at 12 inches.

Went out for a couple hours this morning on the Little Patuxent River.  I wasn't expecting anything like Monday on the Susquehanna River, but it was nice not to get skunked.

First fish of the day was a small failfish, maybe five inches long.  Peck, peck, peck -- typical failfish bite.  I got it on a ... who cares?  It's a failfish.

I moved upriver to an area I had never been before and had a few bites, but I think they were failfish or sunfish.

After an hour or so, I moved downriver to a slow section that was below a ripple of rocks.  I spotted some large submerged rocks so figured it might be a good area.  After a couple casts, I had a smallmouth hooked.  Definitely wasn't fighting like a failfish or sunfish.  I reeled the fish in closer and it was a smallmouth bass, about 12 inches.  It jumped within a few feet of me and freed itself.  Oh well.

Spot where I got the first smallmouth.
Notice the large submerged rocks.

That fish was on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, and I switched later to a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm.  Working the worm slowly on the bottom -- hop, pause for five seconds, hop, pause for five seconds -- I felt resistance when trying to hop the lure.  Definitely not a snag and definitely not a failfish.

This time I landed the fish, and it was a 12-inch smallmouth (pictured at top).  It looked almost identical to the one that jumped off previously in the same location.  Hmmmm.

I had a few more bites but nothing could clamp on.

Last fish of the day, an angry 11-inch smallmouth.

Moseying downriver, I stood on the bank -- about a two foot drop down to the water -- and tossed the Little Dipper across the river on the opposite bank.  After a few casts, a fish clamped on -- another smallmouth, about 10 inches.  But there was a large branch in the water, and when I tried lifting the fish over the branch, the smallmouth freed itself.  The fish landed in about an inch of water, kicked up some mud and silt, and sped away through through the water.

Moving downriver some more, I hit a few spots and couldn't get anything in some "fishy" areas.  I was about to call it quits when I cast parallel to the shore and had something hit within five feet of where I was standing.  Another angry smallmouth!  Gills flaring like an angry bull trying to shake the hook.  I successfully landed this one and measured it right at 11 inches, albeit fairly chunky.

So two smallmouth landed, two almost landed, and a dumb failfish.

Video from Monday

Short video Karen took of Jason netting one of my fish on Monday.  This was at the first hotspot between the riverbank and an island.  You can see how the smallmouth bass was using the current to put on a fight.

Potomac swimbait surprise

Potomac river toothy fish.

First fish on Friday.

Since Karen was on spring break from teaching last week and I usually get done with work early on Fridays, we decided to go camping on the C&O Canal last Friday.  We got to Antietam Creek Campground and realized that they do online "reservations" instead of just paying at the campground for your site.  Karen figured out there were a few sites that hadn't been reserved, and we set up camp at one of the open sites.

I went fishing at one of the spots I normally go to.  Should come up with a nickname for it since I usually hit this spot in the area.  Maybe "The Plateau" -- the rocky terrain under the water forms kind of a plateau for 50 yards that drops off a couple feet on the downriver side.  You can't see it for the most part unless you wade out in the river.

Anyway, I caught a couple smallmouth bass in about an hour, one dink and this chunky one that was about 12 inches.  Both were on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.  During the summer, the water is usually too low for crank/jerk baits, but it was running a couple feet higher than normal.  Since I felt confident that I wouldn't snag it, I tried a Rapala Shadow Rap for a little while ... and had zero interest from the fish.

Chunky 12-inch smallmouth

Because The Plateau forms a point out from the bank, it creates a pool downriver against the bank.  I had never caught anything from that pool -- always in the faster moving water.  Figuring "what the heck," I ambled down the muddy bank and tossed a swimbait into the pool.  Water was really murky, and because of the river depth, I wasn't sure how deep the pool was.

Well on that first cast, I had a fish hit.  Reeled it in and to my surprise it was a walleye!  It measured right at 15 inches (fish pictured at top of page).  A couple casts later, another fish -- this time a smallmouth, but it freed itself right at the bank.  A few casts later, another fish -- another smallmouth, but this stayed on the hook.  This one was 12 inches but not as chunky as the one earlier.

And after that, nothing.  It was like a switch turned off, and the fish stopped biting.

After that, I tried a Whopper Plopper and again the fish weren't interested.  In fact, I have yet to even get a bite on topwater lures yet this year.  But I'll keep trying them until the fish want them.

I saw this turtle on the bank near "The Plateau" on Friday. 
When I went back on Saturday, it was there again!

Karen said she caught one cookie-cutter smallmouth bass fishing downriver from me during this time.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and headed downriver to an area that has large exposed rocky formations.  Usually.  Most of the rocks were submerged, and the river was flowing fast.  I couldn't get the fish to bite so I moved up to where Antietam Creek flows into the Potomac.  Usually this area is really shallow, but I figured with the higher water would hold some fish.  I managed to catch one cookie-cutter smallmouth on an orange/black Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm.

After Karen made breakfast, I went back to The Plateau and caught one cookie-cutter smallmoth.  So that made the tally five smallmouth and a walleye on this trip.  Not too shabby, but it pales in comparison with what happened the next time we went fishing.

Antietam Creek Aqueduct.

Tubin' down the Susquehanna

Karen with her biggest smallmouth and me with mine.

Love seeing the different color patterns on these fish.

Karen and I were supposed to fish the Susquehanna River on April 7 with Jason Shay of Ken Penrod's Life Outdoors Unlimited.  At that time, the river was running high, and to top it off, rain pelted the area the day before.  Jason called and reported the river was close to flood level -- he said we might catch some fish, but he recommended to push the date back.

This is my smallmouth bass.
There are many like it but
this one is mine.

We rescheduled to Monday, and what a difference the wait made!  The river then was close to 10 feet that Friday, but it had dropped to about 5-1/2 feet by the time we showed up Monday morning.  By the end of the day, we managed put 117 smallmouth bass into the boat.  I tried keeping track of the fish I caught but lost count after 12 or so.  Which is good.  I'm guessing my personal tally was 40-plus, and Karen had that many fish, too.

Karen with maybe the first fish
of the day. I don't remember.

The frenzy started at our first spot on the river when Jason parked the boat behind a natural dam of rocks, and we tossed campground tubes into a pool of water off a strong current.  The tubes were the hot ticket for most of the day.  I tried a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm for a bit but kept going back to the tubes.

Anyway, Karen got the first fish and it was crazy for the next few hours.  A lot of cookie-cutter fish but also a lot of nice bass 14 inches and bigger.  Most of my blog posts are how I caught a few fish and remembered how each one was hooked, but this time, things blurred together.  I got a couple, Karen got a couple, like shooting fish in a barrel.

This dam of rocks had a pool of water on one side against an island, and there was a similar pool on the opposite side against the bank. When there was a lull, Jason would say, "OK if we go 10 minutes without a fish, we will move to the other pool."  The shot clock clicked down but one of us would catch another fish to reset the clock.  Finally we moved to the other side of the river, and it was another feeding frenzy!  I caught three fish on my first three casts -- just crazy.  The only downside was this pool was more prone to snagging the bottom-bouncing tubes.

A double early on.

At some point, Karen and I realized Jason had a fish counter.

"That makes 53."

"What?  You're keeping track?  We caught that many fish?!"

He kept tallying the fish, and at 11 a.m. we had more than 70!

Finally, things died down (I don't think the shot clock ever expired), and the crew voted to move to another spot.  Jason took us to a weed bed practically in the middle of the river.  The weeds protruded a few feet above the surface and created two fast sections of water on either side with slack water in between.  He said a lot of people try fishing this area and move on after only catching a couple fish.  Thankfully, those people weren't around to watch us, because that weed bed had some lunkers!  He instructed us to throw the tubes into the channel on one side and let the lures bounce along the bottom with the current doing the work.  Initially it was slow, but we kept at it and discovered that the tubes need to be fished REALLY SLOW.

Did I say crazy?  Caught this smallmouth, and it had
a tube (not ours) down it's throat plus a live crayfish.

Dragging the tubes across the bottom, Jason figured the bass weren't really feeding, just angry something was invading their spawning beds.  You could feel the fish tap-tap on the other end, set the hook, and it was fish on!

It wasn't quite the frenzy we encountered at the previous spot, but the smallmouth bass were an overall better size.  The cookie-cutters under 14 inches weren't roaming this hotspot -- fifteen incher here, 17 incher there, a few around 16.

Then I hooked into a fish that felt like an absolute beast on my medium-light St. Croix Avid-X rod with six-pound P-Line fluorocarbon.  I kept trying to pull the fish to the awaiting net Jason had in the water, and the fish would dive down below the boat trying to escape.  With my rod tip in the water keeping the smallmouth from jumping, the fish finally reached the net -- she was a fat female (microaggression!) measuring around 18.5 inches.

Like I said earlier, the timeline was blurring.  Karen was getting nice smallmouth bass in the back of the boat, and then a big fish clamped on the other end of her line.  After a fierce struggle, she managed to get this one into the boat, and it measured 18.75 inches!  The guide service has a "20-inch club" but women get entered for catching a fish 18 inches or larger.  It's kind of like ladies classes in autocrossing.  Karen got a sweet medallion and a gift certificate from Under Armour for 40 percent off apparel from their web site.

Meh. It's only 16 inches.

At this point we began laughing at bass under 16 inches.  "Should I take a picture?"  "Nah, let it go." If most of these runt Susquehanna smallmouth were caught on the Upper Potomac, I would have taken a picture of every one of them and posting to Facebook.  But on the Susquehanna, they were just average. Not to discredit them brown fish, they were still a blast to catch.  Because of the fight they put on, you really didn't know what size fish was on the other end.  Fish that felt like monsters weren't that big but were smart and worked against the current trying to escape.  Some of the smaller females were still chunky because they were full of eggs and ready to spawn.

Our steed for the day.  Jet-prop boat with large talons.

When the fish counter clicked above 90, we kept asking Jason for updates.  Fish number 91 here, 92 there ... finally reaching 99.  Who would get number 100?  Karen.  She got the first fish of the day, the biggest and the 100th.

When the bite on the grass bed died down, we moved down and floated off shore from an island for a little while.  Lots of snags here and only a few smallmouth.  It was around 2 p.m., and Jason asked if we wanted to try a couple more spots.  One of them was on the Juniata (not Juanita) River where we would try spinnerbaits.

I hate spinnerbaits.

Watching all those fishing shows since the mid 1980s where they were slaying bass after bass on spinnerbaits, I had never caught a single fish on a real spinnerbait.  But this is one of the reasons I go out with guides -- to try different lures and techniques.

Fish counter read 117.

We jetted up to the Juniata past the Susquehanna confluence and began firing spinnerbaits at the bank while floating downriver. There is absolutely nothing to fishing with a spinnerbait -- cast, retrieve slowly.  The blade(s) give resistance through the water so they can be fished at almost any depth.

Surprisingly to me anyway, everybody caught a handful of smallmouth -- nothing big, just about every one was 12 inches or smaller.  But it was still fun to get confidence in spinnerbaits.  Jason figured in a week or so, they would be the go-to lure.  When I go to Bass Pro Shops the next time, I will probably buy 10 of them.  Oh wait, I already have 10.

Pizza Boy victory beer.  Pizza Boy is my new favorite
name for a brewery.

It was a fantastic day and well worth the expense of a guide.  Unfortunately, the Susquehanna and its tributaries are off limits for smallmouth bass fishing from May 1 to mid-June, so another trip will have to wait.  Going to have to make due with cookie-cutters on the Potomac and Little Patuxent rivers for awhile.

After parting ways with Jason, we stopped at Pizza Boy Brewing for a couple slices and sampling of beer, plus a six-pack and crowler to take home.

Wild animals seen: smallmouth bass, bald eagle, mink, turtle, duck, duck, goose.

Two Mondays

Twelve inches of Little Patuxent fury from today.

Fished the Little Patuxent last Monday and managed to catch one dink smallmouth and two failfish.  I switched gears a little bit and tried my original secret weapon, which I really hadn't used much since discovering the Z-Man TRD Finesse Wormz.

Downriver from the secret spot in a new (to me) stretch of water.

Cookie-cutter (being generous) smallmouth from last Monday.

I fished the secret spot but tried a new flow just downriver.  I had some action on the Gulp! worms and finally hooked into a fish -- the first failfish.  A little while later, I hooked another failfish.  Finally, I managed this dink smallmouth to the left (ain't he cute!) on the Gulp! worm.

Catching the failfish was weird because they haven't shown much interest on bottom-bouncing jigs.  Usually I catch them on swim/crank baits.

Water temp was just shy of 60 degrees, and the river depth was down to normal after the heavy rain the previous Friday.

Today and exactly one week later was a trip to the Little Patuxent, but this time was further upriver to a spot that has easy access and plenty of different fishy areas.  Since last week, the area was hit with another good rain storm, and the river swelled to at least five feet higher than normal but had calmed down over the weekend.  Today it was flowing normally with around three feet of clarity in most areas.

It was a bluebird sky with air temps in the low 80s -- somewhat different than last week.  But water temp was only a couple degrees higher.

In the first half hour, I hooked another wet sock (AKA, failfish).  But I was still getting interest in the Little Dipper swimbaits but nothing would clamp on.  Smallmouth, redbreast sunfish, failfish, even the stocked "golden" rainbow trout were following the lure.

Finally after moving downriver to another section, I felt that tug -- THAT SMALLMOUTH TUG -- when casting a Little Dipper swimbait.  At the other end was the 12-inch smallmouth pictured at the beginning of this post.  I just knew it was a smallmouth this time and was a decent size.

The water here was fairly calm but was a 50-yard section between two dams of rocks and riff-raff.  It made a nice little reservoir, plus it had plenty of rocky cover.  I had a couple more hits after that 12-inch smallmouth but didn't hook anything.

Nothing for the next hour or so moving downriver but had more strikes and nibbles. I even tried a topwater Hubs Chub with a few rises from what I think were sunfish.  The topwater bite will be on soon. I can feel the hate starting to build in them ol' brown fish.  Everything is picking up for that April-September window of smallmouth frenzy.

I mentioned before that Karen and I were going fishing on the Susquehanna River last Friday, but with the heavy rain on Thursday-Friday, the river was near flood stage.  So we decided to push the trip back to next Monday.  Hopefully Mother F'ing Nature stays away this weekend.

The confluence

The confluence from Google Earth.  Man I love Google Earth.
I also like saying confluence.

I got a book last Christmas (2015) about fishing for smallmouth (and trout) on the Rapidan River in Virginia.  One of the first chapters details fishing at the confluence of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock rivers just west of Fredericksburg.  The author raved about the smallmouth fishing, and I had always wanted to give it a try but just couldn't work it out last year.

Karen was out of town this weekend, so I figured I could scout it out and see if it was a worthy place.  I headed down yesterday afternoon and got to the Fredericksburg area around 5 p.m.  Instead of checking into my hotel, I decided to try and find this fishing spot.  Sit around a hotel room or fish?  Easy decision.

Rappahannock on the left, Rapidan on the right.

The book's author gives directions on how to get to a parking spot near the confluence.  It was basically drive west on Route 3, turn down some road, and turn down some other road.  When the last road ended, that was where to park.  From there, there's a well-defined trail that leads to a small campground right at the confluence.  After following the directions and making the 20-minute walk down, I was there!

Unfortunately, because of rain from Friday, the river looked a little high and flowing fast, and the water looked like chocolate milk.  This is what the same view should look like:

This morning at the confluence.  Not much difference
from yesterday.

My number one rule when wading is to know the underwater terrain.  Since I hadn't fished here before, there was no way I was going to venture out.  Even if I know the terrain, if the water has no visibility, I'm probably not going to venture out either.

I fished from shore for about a half hour and decided to give it another try this morning.  The Potomac usually takes a few days to thin out after a day of rain, but I didn't know if the Rapidan/Rappahannock was the same way.

Rocky section reminded me of
the Upper Potomac.

This morning, I headed out from my sweet $47 room at a Motel 6, followed the backroads to the parking spot, and hiked down to the confluence.  The river looked to be a little lower but the water had the same visibility -- none!  Before leaving the hotel, I checked americanwhitewater.org, and both of the rivers had gone down some but not a lot.

From the campground, there's a small trail that leads upriver on the Rapidan side.  I followed that maybe 50 yards until reaching several large rock formations in the river.  It certainly looked "fishy" minus the chocolate brown water.  A few nice pools, some "slicks" behind rocks, fast water bordering slow water that are good spots for smallmouth to hang out looking for food.

However ...

Two hours later, I had nothing to show for my efforts, not even a nibble.  Tried almost everything I had with me except for topwater lures ... and nothing.  Water temp was just above 50 degrees, so maybe combined with the big rain, the smallmouth still haven't started to move to the usual spots.

Not to be discouraged, I would still like to try this area again when the weather has stabilized.

One interesting thing I saw yesterday:

What's in the pocket?

In that pocket is a booklet:

Title page of the book.

And people have been filling in reports since late 2015:

Kayakers, fishers and hunters have written down their experiences.

It's like a web blog without the Internet!  I remembered to bring a pen with me today and entered a trip report.  If you want to know what I wrote, you're going to have to go down and read it yourself!

"You are here" -- yellow line on the map.

This area is also rich in Civil War history.  The first turn off of Route 3 is where the primary action of the Battle of Chancellorsville took place.  I'm pretty sure I motored by this marker this morning, too.  The Wilderness is just up the road, too, plus other battlefields are in the area like Spotsylvania and of course Fredericksburg.