Finessing the smallmouth bite

Karen only had one fish, but it was a big 'un!

The weather became seasonably warm, so Karen and I went camping on the Upper Potomac.

Monitoring the river gauges, it looked like the Potomac had gone way down but still flowed about two to three feet above normal summer levels.  It was also fairly stained, maybe max three feet of visibility.

First fish and biggest
of the weekend
for me.

We got to our camp site around 3 p.m. yesterday, and I went to a couple of my usual spots.  At the first one, the water was definitely higher than normal as there were no exposed rocks visible.  Starting off with what was successful on Wednesday on the Little Patuxent, I tied on a Z-Man Finesse TRD Worm on a medium-light rod with a 1964 Mitchell 300 reel, and Rebel Wee R on a medium-heavy St. Croix rod with a Pflueger Patriarch.

The TRD worm got the first fish of the day, a smallmouth bass about 15 inches.  Very subtle bite -- just a tap and then it felt like nothing on the other end.  But instinctively set the hook, and the fight was on.  The fish fought harder than the ones on Wednesday (water temp was about seven degrees higher than the Little Patuxent, so maybe the fish were more energized).

The Wee R wasn't hooking anything except dead foliage from the bottom of the river.

With nothing but that one fish for an hour plus, I moved to another "hotspot" in the area, a place I call The Plateau.  Still slow, but after awhile, another tap on the end of the line on the Z-Man worm, and another smallmouth, this one 14 inches.

The presentation was reeeaaallllyyy slow. Cast, let the lure sink to the bottom, slowly pull back on the rod tip to hop the lure across the bottom a foot or two, wait about five seconds, pull back again, wait five seconds, repeat.

A little bit later, Mr. Whiskers decided he wanted to snack on the Z-Man worm.  You never find Mr. Whiskers -- Mr. Whiskers finds you!

This smallmouth wanted a sample from The Jerk Store.

That was it for awhile, and I switched to a Rapala Shadow Rap on my other rod, ditching the Wee R.  The Rapala peaked the interest of a 12-inch smallmouth very close to the shore.  This fish actually hit pretty hard making me initially think it was something bigger.

That was it for the day.  I headed back to the campsite, where Karen had also returned but said she didn't catch anything.

This morning, I headed off to another spot hoping to catch a walleye, but nothing was even sniffing at the TRD Worm or Shadow Rap.  Shuffling to another spot, I caught a chunky 10-inch smallmouth on a TRD Worm, then a 12-inch smallmouth on the next cast.  Each fish just barely nipped at the lure but fought like a typical smallmouth thinking they were actually bigger than they were.

Back-to-back casts got a 10-inch smallmouth then this
one around 12 inches.

There was still some interest on the bottom-bouncing lure, and I had a few fish hooked but they came off. 

Then a fish hit the worm hard and started pulling the other way -- oh this felt like a good one!

Well it wasn't a smallmouth.  It was, again, Mr. Whiskers.  This one a bit bigger than the one yesterday.

Awhile later, I saw it was 8:40 a.m. and decided to go back to the camp site.  Just as I got on the trail, my phone buzzed with a notification.  Karen texted a picture of a 17-inch smallmouth she had just caught!  I found her a couple minutes later fishing an area I had skipped by.  She said she caught the big smallmouth on a Z-Man worm, too.  So definitely those were the ticket for the weekend.

We fished for a bit longer but without any luck, then headed back to our campsite for breakfast of scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon.

The weather looks "iffy" for the early part of the week with rain right now and extending into Monday.  After that, highs in the mid-50s.  But on Friday we are heading to the Susquehanna!

C&O Canal Trail.