Just another slow day in the year 2018

I'm glad I started fishing again three years ago instead of this year.  Because if I started to fish again this year, I would probably quit after today.

Karen and I went to the Monocacy/Potomac confluence today.  Last year, I fished this area twice and caught 15 smallmouth.  Ideal wading conditions each time.  Today was my second trip to the area this year, and it was less-than-ideal.  The water was too high, and the clarity looked like chocolate milk.

I tried the new Whopper Plopper 75, a spinnerbait, a Z-Man worm and a Reaction Innovations swimbait ... and had zero luck.  Not even a bite or a hint of a fish below the surface.

I was about ready to call it quits and wandered upriver and found Karen in a spot just below the confluence.  With a swimbait still tied on, I made a cast and had a hit but the fish didn't get hooked.  I made another cast to the same spot, and this time the fish stayed on -- a smallmouth in the 12- to 13-inch range.  Better than nothing, I guess.

A little later, I had another fish hooked on the swimbait, but it got off almost as fast as it got on.  Just a splash on the surface, and it was gone.

Seriously, this weather has sucked BIG TIME this year.  We only had one afternoon of monsoon-like thunderstorms this week, but it was enough to create havoc on the Potomac.

It was interesting to see four or five fishing boats buzzing the area.  Usually I might see one or two, but it was like everyone else had the same idea and said, "Eff it!  This is the best the river has been in weeks, so might as well go fishing!"

Back to normal but not back to normal

Finally, water back down to
normal.

Finally a day where the river levels were close to normal and it wasn't supposed to be 95 degrees.  Well actually it is supposed to be 95 degrees, but it wasn't that warm this morning.

It has been an unusual year for fishing.  The rains haves been unseasonably fierce leaving the rivers too high for fishing.  The flows will get down close to normal, and then a thunderstorm will roll through one evening and blow things out for the next several days.

Monitoring the river levels this week, it looked like everything would be safe this morning.  I hit an area on the Middle Patuxent where I've only been once this year, which was back in February.  The temps were already 80-plus by the time I had wading boots on the ground, and it was nice and humid.  And there were mosquitoes -- it was a good thing I had packed bug spray in my "go" bag earlier in the week.

In February in this area, I caught nothing.  This time was a little better if catching one smallmouth and one redbreast sunfish is better. Lots of sunfish had interest in stuff I tried -- no-name spinnerbait, Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, Hubs Chub, and even the new Whopper Plopper 75.  But no smallmouth other than one around 12 inches and a tiny one that came off near my feet.

Almost a year ago to the day in the same area, I caught five smallmouth and four sunfish.  So either the hot, humid weather has put a damper on things, or the rain has forced the fish into new hiding areas.

The new Whopper Plopper 75 (bottom) is a little
shorter than the 110 (top), but it has a fatter body.

The Whopper Plopper I think is too big for the Middle Patuxent anyway, although it probably keeps the sunfish away.  It's heavy and lands with a huge splash -- the fish seem more skitterish on this small, quiet river that has almost zero fishing pressure.  Exactly two hits on the Whopper Plopper today.

After switching to the smaller Hubs Chub (another topwater lure), I started to get way more interest.

The new Plopper 75 seems to create more of a disturbance in the water than the 110 model.  It has a wider profile and a bigger tail that churns the water.  Definitely will catch some fish even if the inhabitants of the Middle Patuxent didn't think much of it today.

Today's arsenal (clockwise from top left): Hubs Chub, Reaction
Innovations Little Dipper, no-name spinnerbait and Whopper Plopper 75.