Battered bass

13.5 inches of smallmouth bass fury.

It was definitely not ideal conditions for fishing on the Upper Potomac, but Karen has begged to go camping and threatened to go without me anyway, so I tagged along.

I fish with a few Mitchell 300 reels older than me.
The "4-70" mark on the spool indicates that the line was
changed sometime in April 1970. One of my eBay specials,
I've changed the line since then.

The river had been going down to normal levels, but then rain on Thursday changed all that.  The gauge at Williamsport rose from about three feet to seven feet.

When we arrived at the campground, the river didn't look very good.  Not terrible after winter snow melt, but the river was higher than when we were here last month.

The only spot I could think of that might be fishable was right below Antietam Creek.  Usually, this water is really shallow and featureless, but my guess (still learning this stuff) was fish might be holding in this area.

Sure enough, the water was higher than usual but not dangerously high at the Antietam Creek confluence.  I tried topwaters and a Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm and wasn't getting any interest.  Except a couple nibbles on the Z-Man worm, which I think were from sunfish.  Peck-peck-peck.

Finally I was rewarded with a smallmouth bass clamping on.  After a brief but furious fight, I landed the fish.  Upon closer examination, it looked like the bass had a run-in with ... something.  Right below the dorsal fins on one side was a puncture, like it was stabbed:

Like a hockey player, this smallmouth didn't let on that
it was injured.

On the other side was another mark below the dorsal fins.  And then I noticed a portion of the fish's tail fin missing.

Something got a piece of tail.

Otherwise, the fish seemed healthy enough.  It fought hard and was reluctant to get its picture taken.

After letting that smallmouth go, I didn't get even a nibble.  Not the rest of the night nor this morning.  The river had gone down a tiny bit, but it didn't make much of a difference.  The only highlight was seeing a bald eagle land in a tree on the West Virginia side this morning.  It remained there until I left, so the world's greatest fisherman wasn't catching any fish either.

The angriest smallmouth

First smallmouth of the day was really hungry.

Hit the Middle Patuxent again today, and it marked the third straight trip here catching a legal-size smallmouth bass, which is always good to find in a little skinny river that doesn't have much fishing pressure.  And that barely legal smallmouth thought it was much bigger!

I decided to try the same spot as Tuesday but ventured downriver past the bridge where I parked.  There are a few nice pools within the first 50 yards but after that it runs straight and feature-less -- a lot like what makes the Patapsco River above Daniels Dam so unappealing.

We had a cold front move in, and temps were in the low 70s.  Plus the sky was overcast, so it was a little different than Tuesday.

My game plan was to try the reliable Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm but -- to change things up a bit -- a white spinnerbait on my other rod.  If you remember my post from last month's trip to the Susquehanna, I've never had much luck with spinnerbaits.  But that day, I caught a handful when we ended the trip on the Juniata River.

The first fish of the day was a small failfish that put up a fight like a wet sock.  Actually, a wet sock might put up a better fight.  Ugh, hate catching these things.

First smallmouth of the day, on a spinnerbait.

While that fish was caught on a Z-Man worm, I was actually getting some attention with the spinnerbait.  Lots of little fish giving chase and taking swipes at it -- probably sunfish.  Finally, I got a smallmouth to clamp on -- a decent fish  about 11.5 inches.  It must have been hungry because there was a small fish in its mouth already (picture at top).

This was caught below the bridge as I had started to make my way back upriver.  Past the bridge, the fishing was more of the same with lots of little fish (probably not smallmouth) interested in the spinnerbait but nothing clamping on.  Then finally got one that was around 10 inches.

A little while later I caught another smallmouth in the funniest way.  I cast a Z-Man worm upriver, but it sailed through an overhanging tree branch -- but the fishing line stayed hung up in the tree.  The worm was suspended in midair about two feet above the water, so I let out some line, and the lure slowly descended to the surface.  And just as it entered the water, a fish took it!  It was like topwater worm fishing, if there is a thing.  I yanked the rod back, and the line came out of the tree, but the fish was still hooked.  It wasn't a big fish, but at least it was a smallmouth.

I fished this area for 20 minutes -- shaking my head and laughing the whole time at the fish that took the "topwater worm" -- and kept getting hits and misses but couldn't land a thing.

I explored upriver further than I went on Tuesday.  Lots of fast water but not many areas that looked like they held fish.  The bottom was really shallow and sandy -- but I'm thinking these areas might be better suited for the summer when it seems like the bass are looking for more turbulent water since the temperatures are higher.

I had been out for a couple hours at this point and started heading back to my point of entry. You know, low on water, not wanting to catch dysentery.

I stopped at the place I caught the third smallmouth and threw a Hubs Chub topwater lure.  No bass but I did catch a decent-sized redbreast sunfish.  It actually hit the Hubs Chub pretty hard, unlike most sunfish which timidly strike topwater stuff.

The angriest 12-inch smallmouth EVAR!

Finally I stopped at the pool where I caught the first smallmouth -- that was 12 inches -- on Tuesday.  Some interest in the Hubs Chub but nothing clamping on.  And then I snagged the Z-Man worm (orange color, I think it's "green pumpkin orange") on the bottom.  But it wasn't a snag, it was a fish.  It came to the surface pretty quickly -- it was a smallmouth bass, but it wasn't very big.

But this fish didn't know it wasn't very big.

After a brief battle where the fish managed to get into current and work against me, I landed it -- measured right at 12 inches.  It has to be the hardest-fighting 12-inch smallmouth I've ever caught.  If I didn't see the fish right after hooking into it, I would have thought a bigger fish was fighting on the other end of the line.

That made it six fish for the afternoon with four of them being smallmouth bass.  

Hockey sucks. Fishing is better.

First fish and legal size.  But they got smaller and smaller.

With the rain we've been having, it's been difficult to find some time to go fishing.  Even as I type this, the Upper Potomac is basically unfishable.

The smaller rivers near me swell in water levels, too, but they settle back to normal within a few days.  Over the weekend, I monitored the river gauges and decided to fish the Little Patuxent on Sunday ... but didn't catch a thing.  The river was slightly higher than normal but was really muddy.

What really made fishing difficult on Sunday was that I decided to visit the Savage Mill area, which I've told myself not to do.  But I did it anyway.  I can hit most areas of the Little Patuxent and not see a single person fishing, but not at Savage Mill.  Nearly every stretch of water I've caught fish before was occupied.  It's like this almost all the time.  And people don't just fish for a little while and move on, they stay in one spot the whole time.

Because my work laptop doesn't react well with water, I had today off (and probably one or two more days) and ventured out to the Middle Patuxent River.  There are a few more access points to the river besides the one I went to two weeks ago, and I went to one of those places -- really easy to get to, just pull off the road before a bridge spanning the river.  There are even a couple trails from the parking area, so getting to the water is a breeze.

Right by the bridge I found a pool that looked really fishy.  I tried a Heddon Zara Puppy but couldn't get any rises.  I switched over to a Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm and had a hit on the first cast.  Reeled in the fish, and it was a smallmouth bass that was right at 12 inches.  A few casts later, a redbreast sunfish clamped on.

A lot of sections like this -- while not really
"fishy" -- make wading between pools on the
Middle Patuxent pretty easy.  And wading is a better
option than hiking the bank.

After awhile, I waded up river and paused to fish nearly every pool.  Lots of good places for a half mile stretch (looking at Google Earth, I should have continued further because it there is another nice stretch beyond where I stopped).  After that 12-inch smallmouth, the bass comically went down in size.  The next one was about 10 inches, the next one eight inches, and then two more even smaller than that.  Five total smallmouth and a "bonus" failfish.  I also saw what looked like a brown trout in one pool, but it wasn't interested in anything I was throwing.

Except for one smallmouth on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, all the fish were caught on one TRD worm (TRD stands for "The Real Deal").  Literally the same worm -- because they are made from a fancy material called elaztech, they are more durable than most plastic/rubber baits.  Even the Little Dippers get to a point after catching a few fish and getting hook-ups, the rubber baits won't stay on the jigheads, but that's not the case with the elaztech worms.  I usually snag a worm before switching out for wear and tear.  In fact, I changed the jighead today because it was mangled from snags and using pliers to free fish.

That white square is a car hood.  

Funny story, I caught one of the fish standing on rocks along the bank.  I saw a pool with several fish -- including one smallmouth that was easily 12 inches, maybe 14 -- and didn't want to climb down to spook the fish.  Of course I caught a dink smallmouth among those fish.  As I was trying to grab the fish, it freed itself and fell down into mud along the water.  The fish was rolling and caked itself in mud while trying to get to the water.  I nudged the fish with the end of my rod until it finally could cleanse itself in the water.

Hopefully, most of the big rains are behind us.  And since Karen and I don't have to go see these choke artists for quite awhile, I should have more frequent blog entries in the future.

Extended weekend: Fishing on a Monday

Old bridge that crossed the Middle Patuxent.

After Karen and I got back on Sunday from spending the night in D.C. after the Washington Capitals Fail I went fishing on the Little Patuxent while Karen opted to stay home and get some work done. I got on the river around noon, and the sky was overcast.

I tried several lures with moderate success;

1. Swimbait: A few bites, no fish
2. Bass Pro Shops Stik-O worm: The one and only fish of the day
3. Campground Tubes: Nothing.  They killed it on the Susquehanna, though.
4. Hubs Chub: No fish but a few bites.

Dink smallmouth on the Little Patuxent.

With the Hubs Chub, or in fact any topwater lure, a bird in the bush is worth  one in hand ... that's how that saying goes, right?

Two fish took a swipe at the Hubs Chub and then another I thought for sure clamped on.  I didn't hook anything, but the adrenaline rush of fish attacking a topwater lure is good substitute for catching nothing.

Something that triggered the first big bite on the Hubs Chub came after casting close to the other side of the river -- a cut bank with a few downed trees and limbs.  Letting the lure float down, I twitched it intermittently but didn't reel in much of the slack line.  That seemed to keep the lure more in preferable areas rather than pulling it back straight across the river.

Today I hit the Middle Patuxent River after work and before storms were expected to roll through.  If you remember from last year, I fished the Middle Patuxent right at its confluence with the Little Patuxent.  That was my first time fishing the river in several years,  Before that, I fished the river for trout, and I had been scanning Google Earth trying to figure out where that was.  All I remember was that there was an area to pull off the side of a main road, and there was a dirt trail that led down to the river.

I thought I had found the spot and went there today.

It wasn't the same spot.

The area I went to today, there's a road that ends about an eighth mile uphill from the river.  But where the road ends, a paved path continues past barriers down to the river.  There are the remains of an old bridge, so the road must have gone all the way across the river at one time.

Even though it wasn't the spot I was looking for, it didn't discourage me from fishing.  The water was running fairly clear, and I decided to try the Hubs Chub since it was getting interest yesterday on the Little Patuxent.  And it had similar "success" early on today -- lots of failed attacks from what I assumed were sunfish.

The river was a lot shallower and easier to wade than the Little Patuxent, and I waded downstream stopping at a few pools and rocky areas.  Still the same hesitant strikes on the topwater lure.  I also had a Z-Man TRD Finesse Worm on another rod, but that lure wasn't getting any interest.

Twelve inches on top.

Finally I came to a spot that just screamed smallmouth -- circling water in a pool just below a rocky section, and a huge -- at least 10 feet long -- rock protruding from the opposite bank.

I fired the Hubs Chub at the rock, and it hit squarely on the flat surface and plopped down on the water.  I twitched the black lure a couple times and had a not-a-sunfish strike.  Waited a second to make sure the fish actually got the lure, and when I couldn't see it on the surface, I set the hook.  Yup, a smallmouth bass was on the other end, and I successfully landed it.  Measured around 12.5 inches.  My first fish on top this year, so no doubt I will exhaust my efforts with topwater stuff on every trip until October or so.

I fished that pool for a little bit longer but couldn't get any more interest from the fish.  At this point, it seemed like the wind was picking up, and I wanted to get back to my truck before the rain started.  I waded upriver and stopped at a downed tree that was partially submerged in the water.  It looked like the tree had been there awhile as there weren't any branches on it.  This area featured slow flowing water without much cover except for the tree, and I usually don't find smallmouth in sections like this.

Big fish of the day, measuring right at 14 inches.
If you look closely at its ... ass ... it looks like a string.
But I think it's milting, which means this is a male.

But I cast out the Hubs Chub anyway, right on top of the tree.  And a smallmouth came up from the depths to investigate ... and then two more appeared.  They seemed to shrug off interest from the topwater lure, so I switched to the rod with the Z-Man worm.  I cast beyond the tree and hopped it over to where I saw the fish.  And a fish came out and hit the worm.  Set the hook, and could see it fighting below the surface.  It was an angry one -- gills flaring as it shook its head below the surface trying to get free.  I landed it and it measured at 14 inches -- my biggest non-Susquehanna smallmouth of the year so far.

Thankfully there was a red circle indicating where
the fish were hiding.

I let the brown fish go and cast the worm back to the same spot.  Hey, I saw two other smallmouth, and I wanted all of them! 

After a couple casts, I caught a redbreast sunfish, albeit one of a decent size.  Probably a keeper but it seems pointless to keep one sunfish to make two fish-nugget filets.

I moved upriver and started fishing at the base of the downed tree and managed to catch a dink smallmouth.  That was it for the day as I made it back to the Lightning before the lightning.

Still not bad in a new area -- four fish with two being legal-size smallmouth.  The Middle Patuxent is the same width in most parts as the Little Patuxent -- it's really easy to stand on one side and pepper spots casting lures to the opposite bank.