Mother Nature should stop sucking

Karen holds on to her Washington Capitals (2018
Stanley Cup Champions!  Wooo!) hat as we head
upriver in the morning.

Another slow day on The Big River Up North, this time with a heat wave putting the damper on the smallmouth frenzy.

Karen and I went out with Jason Shay of Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions today.  The river was really stained, and with the heat, Jason said the fishing was really slow the previous day when he guided for a Wounded Warriors event.

Good morning Susquehanna!

It ended up really similar to a couple weeks ago when another SSS guide, Pete Holmes, took me and my friend Kirk on a trip.  Lots of usual go-to spots that looked like prime smallmouth ambush spots didn't have much action.

We got to the ramp at 5:30 a.m. with the hope of beating the heat.  It actually was really nice at that time, and a picturesque low fog hung around the river.

We moved up the river.  Then back down.  Then back up.  Just no pattern emerged.  A fish here, another fish a half hour later.  No bites for an hour.

Our best luck was in a big section of faster water just above a natural, submerged dam of rocks.  We threw swimbaits and kind of let them drift in the current while slowly reeling them in.  We got maybe 10 fish between us that way.

Just after noon after trying another spot for maybe 45 minutes with ZERO bites, we called it quits.

I ended up with eight fish, and Karen had five.  Biggest one was maybe 15 inches, although Jason got one around 19.5.

The Potomac River appears to finally be on its way to normal levels, so we'll see how the crazy spring rainfalls has affected fishing there.