Soft and subtle smackdown

Good morning Susquehanna River!

Maybe for the last hurrah of the year on the water, Karen and I fished the Susquehanna River on Sunday with Jason Shay of Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.

Rumble on the River.

But there was a catch.  Our friends Kirk and Mike also booked a trip the same day with Pete Holmes, one of the other guides with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  Kirk thought it would be funny to post this on Facebook as a "Rumble on the River" showdown between the two teams.  The only thing, he didn't account for Pete not doing much fishing because he would be:

• Taking fish off the hook for Kirk, because he doesn't like touching fish
• Getting lures out of trees because Mike hasn't fished for 50 years
• Getting lures out of trees because Kirk can't cast
• Kirk and Mike being old and showing up late to the boat ramp (even with Daylight Savings Time where they got an extra hour of sleep)

When Karen and I got to the ramp, Jason already had his boat in the water.  Of course, his boat is a brand-new River Ryder 1866MV-SJ jet boat, so he might have been excited to hit the river (we would be on his second guided trip in the new ride).  We got our gear and hopped in just as Pete was unloading his boat.

Pete had his boat in the water, but his clients were nowhere to be seen.

No Kirk and Mike.

Jason started the motor to let it idle, and Pete parked his truck and trailer.  No weird people at the boat ramp this time.

No Kirk and Mike.

Pete started to worry a bit, and I mentioned that Kirk posted something on Facebook an hour or so before that, "It's time!"

Finally they showed up just as we were about ready to push from shore.  We motored across to the opposite side of the river from the boat ramp, and Kirk-Mike-Pete headed downriver somewhere.

Temps were in the low 40s, but it really wasn't uncomfortable other than when the boat was moving full throttle.  When we stopped to fish, the sun was out, and the wind was calm other than a short period later in the day.

The plan was to use tubes and jerkbaits -- Jason said they both worked when he was out with a client on Friday.  However, a cold front moved through on Saturday, and that dictated our presentation and pace throughout the day.

Karen with one of her fish, and Lady Liberty in the background.

Basically, jerkbaits did not work AT ALL, but tubes were really effective.  I started off working a tube by casting out and popping it off the bottom every few seconds.  After a number of casts over 15 minutes, I had no fish but Jason had hooked a couple.  He was barely moving the lure on the bottom -- just leaving the tube and letting the current do the work.

This was the most effective tactic throughout the day for the three of us, especially targeting small eddies and pockets of slow/static current.  Sometimes we could feel the fish bite, sometimes we couldn't.  When in doubt, set the hook.

I must have caught at least five fish where I started reeling just because the line stopped moving in the current.  It was like the smallmouth grabbed the tube and just sat there with it.

Me with a chunky smallmouth.

If the fish did strike, it was just a soft, subtle tap.  Despite the lethargic hits, the fish did their "smallmouth things" (as Karen said) when hooked -- pulling hard, using current to their advantage, getting airborne.

We were doing pretty well after a few hours, and we coaxed Jason to text Pete to see how his boys were doing.  It was not going well for Team No River For Old Men.  It took them a couple hours to even get a fish on the board.  We weren't exactly killing it, but I thought we were doing pretty well despite the conditions -- water temps were just under 50 degrees in most spots, and the river had minimal clarity.

We would catch a few in a spot, then move to another area after the bite tapered off.  Catch some, move on again when it slowed down.  Only a few areas didn't produce fish.

Jason had us using Right Bite tubes for the most part.  Karen I sometimes switched to other flavors of tubes after getting a snag.  She seemed to have equal success with Campground Tubes, and I had luck with Z-Man TRD TubeZ.  These lures were a bit smaller than the Right Bite tubes, but they all caught the same size fish -- everything from Susquehanna dinks (12 inchers) up to a few that were in the 17-18 range.

We ended up with 50+ fish between the three of us while Team No River For Old Men managed ... not quite that many.

This might be it for the year at least for smallmouth.  Maybe a trip to the Potomac for walleye if the river ever recedes to normal levels.

Mike, Jason, Kirk and Karen checking out Jason's new whip.