Cloudy with a chance of flatheads

George driving with Kirk on his phone searching
Harrisburg Craigslist for used jet-prop fishing boats.

Karen and I were planning on fishing the Susquehanna River last Friday, but rain earlier in the week raised the water level too high, and the trip was postponed until today.

Except Karen couldn't get away from work today, so my friend Kirk took the seat.  You might remember him from my first time fishing on the Susquehanna.  He has barely dipped his toe into the smallmouth waters but threatens to give up our other mutual hobby -- autocrossing -- and buy a jet-prop boat for river fishing.  I'm doing all I can to discourage him.

The guide we have gone out with before, Jason Shay, was booked up for all of April when Karen checked availability back in February, so I went searching for another guide.  Someone on a fishing forum mentioned Joe Raymond with Susquehanna Smallmouth Guides, and I contacted him.  He was booked, too, but put me in touch with one of his "overflow" guides, George DeFrehn.  We set a date for April 20 since it was my birthday, and I anxiously awaited the day.

And then Mother Nature had other ideas, and the trip got pushed back.  There was a slight sense of urgency because the river closes for smallmouth bass fishing in this section from May 1 to June 15, so if we couldn't get a date in, there wouldn't be any opportunity for awhile because I'm sure it would be really difficult to find an available guide at such short notice.

Luckily the river had gone down from almost 10 feet to below six.  Weather today called for some rain, but not nearly as much as from the previous week when the water level ballooned up.  Talking with George on Tuesday, he said we would be using tubes and -- surprise! -- Z-Man Finesse TRD Worms.

Just your run-of-the-mill 16-inch Susquehanna smallmouth.

Kirk and I got to the boat ramp, and lo and behold our old buddy Jason Shay was there with his boat in the water awaiting his client for the day.  He must have had a quick moment of panic thinking he mistakenly scheduled us for the day, too.

George showed up a few minutes later, put his boat in the water, and we were off.

The first stop, Kirk and and I each caught four or five fish -- the usual Susquehanna smallmouth in the 14-17 range. But after that it was really slow going.  Places George said he had success just a few days before weren't yielding much.  It was like a switch had turned the fish off.

The TRD worms hugging the bottom of the river were getting the most interest, and Kirk caught a few on some jerk baits.  George was throwing all kinds of lures trying to find something else that worked.

Roly-poly flathead.

I decided to change things up and tie on my Rebel Wee R, the same one I used two weeks ago to catch my personal best Little Patuxent smallmouth.  About five minutes later, a fish slammed the little crankbait.  I knew it was something good, but then I started to realize it probably wasn't a smallmouth.

It felt bigger than a smallmouth.

My hopes for a muskie peaked.

Then I caught a glimpse of the back half of the fish, it was no smallmouth!  It looked like a muskie!

Then George, who had come to the back of the boat with the net peered over the side, and said, "It's a catfish."  Then I saw the fish's head.

Yup, a catfish.  Mr. Whiskers had appeared again.  But this was no ordinary cat -- it was a flathead catfish.

George netted the fish, and it was quite big.  While it was no ordinary catfish, it was an ordinary size for a flathead -- 30 inches long and roughly 12 pounds.  Forty pounders have been caught in the Susquehanna!

Still, the fish was a beast to try and pull in, and it was probably my biggest fish of any kind ever.  It was also the first type of fish other than a smallmouth that I've caught on the Susquehanna.

Kirk with a smallmouth.

I did catch a couple smallmouth after that on the Wee R, but then I went through a dry spell of almost two hours without hooking anything.  I had 10 fish, and Kirk started yanking smallmouth in the boat and was up to about 17.  Fishing the same lures and in the same location.

We moved around quite a bit trying to find eager fish ... somewhere ... but couldn't narrow down a pattern.  Finally, I caught a smallmouth here and another there on a TRD worm, and another on a Reaction Innovations swimbait.

Then we moved to another section and floated down the river.  For the last hour of the day, even as it started pouring rain, the bite was on.  Like a switch had been flipped.

We were fishing an area that looked like four or five other sections George had taken us earlier in the day, but now the fish were showing some interest.  I started to have really good luck just dragging the TRD Worm slowly on the bottom and waiting.  Then dragging again.  I used the same orange worm from last Sunday on the Potomac to land almost 10 smallmouth.

I ended up with 22 smallmouth for the day while Kirk held on with the advantage by just two fish.  We caught the same number of flathead catfish -- one apiece -- but his was a whole lot smaller.

Most of the smallmouth were 14-plus inches.  Kirk got one that was almost 19 inches, and my best was about 17.  No matter the size, though, all the fish were chunky and had the typical smallmouth bass attitude and anger for getting tricked.  We jokingly speculated that maybe the fish weren't biting because they were full from gorging themselves.

Kirk and I ended the day at the new tradition for a Susquehanna fishing trip, Al's of Hampden.