Shoot some guns, rob some banks, catch smallmouth bass

My first smallmouth bass from Red Dead Redemption 2.

And now for something completely different, I'm going to talk about video games.  Well, just one -- Red Dead Redemption 2.  Yes it was released last year, but I just got it, so it's new to me.

Having played Red Dead Redemption, I was anxious to try out the sequel (actually, RDR2 is a prequel, but better than the Star Wars prequels).  But at the time it came out last year, my Xbox went Tango-Uniform, and I didn't have the motivation/funds to waste money on a new console.  Over the last year, I casually looked for deals but didn't find anything to my liking.  Finally a pre-Black Friday online deal popped up from a box store, and I splurged for a pre-Christmas present.

This time, I went for a PlayStation 4 because ... I don't know.  It was $50 more expensive than an Xbox that was on sale.  Maybe just for a change from the Xbox, even though I had a PS1 and PS2 in the past.

The console came bundled with three other games, but I wanted to play RDR2, so I bought that, too.  It has been an amazing game so far.  A nice upgrade from the "original" Red Dead Redemption (which was a follow-up to Red Dead Revolver, which I never played).  The visuals are stunning and the missions have some variety (such as a balloon chase involving shooting a rival gang on horseback as they chase one of your gang members).

So what does a shoot-em-up game that's basically Grand Theft Auto in the old west have to do with fishing?  Because one of the activities in the open-world format is fishing!  And, yes, there are smallmouth bass, as you can see by my screenshot from above.

Lurking in the waters throughout the game are also muskies, northern pike, largemouth bass, trout, gar and sturgeon among others.  Even Mr. Whiskers makes an appearance.  Fish from shore of a lake or river, or grab a boat or canoe.  There are also Legendary Fish to be discovered throughout the waters.

After completing the mission "A Fisher of Men," fishing is unlocked in the game.  A fishing rod is part of your carried items, and you can select to use it after reaching the shore of a lake or river. Rig it up with bait or lures, which can be purchased in a bait shop or general stores (the latter have limited selections), and cast.  Reel in slowly, let the bait or lure sit, or twitch the rod to attract fish.

If you catch a fish, you have the option to harvest it for food (cook it on a campfire or bring it back to camp for your crew) or throw it back.  I've thrown back every smallmouth bass so far, just like in reel life.

YouTube screengrab of the Legendary Smallmouth Bass
from a user's walk-through of catching all the legendary fish.

It's extremely easy to actually entice a fish to grab your lure or bait.  The hints on bait selections -- cheese, corn, bread, worms, crickets -- say they are specific for certain types of fish.  Also, there are two lures -- either lake or river.  But it seems as if the fish bite on almost anything.  I caught a muskie with a cricket!  There are special lures just for the "legendary" fish, but other than that, it seems as if a fish clamps on the other end on about 90 percent of casts.

The most difficult thing is actually reeling the fish in.  You have to rotate the "R" circle joystick, and it's really slow.  Then the fish fights, and you have to stop reeling or the line will break.  The bluegills and perch are pretty easy, but as the fish get bigger, so does the length of the fight.

Anyway, it's an interesting diversion for the winter months.  I'm just at the beginning of the last chapter missions, so it will be fun to explore some more when the main story is complete.  I haven't tried playing online, so I don't know how fishing plays out there.  Maybe there are fishing tournaments to compete against online players?

Maryland DNR stocks 2,000 juvenile smallmouth bass in Upper Potomac

Maryland DNR stocked 2,000 juvenile smallmouth bass
on the Upper Potomac on Oct. 25. (Maryland DNR photo)

Good news for the Upper Potomac smallmouth bass fishery.  The Maryland DNR released 2,000 juvenile (four- to five-inch) smallmouth on Oct. 25.

"Staff were able to transport the fish back to Maryland and stock them at points along the river from Brunswick upstream to Dam 4.  These sections of the river have experienced low smallmouth bass recruitment due to high spring flows for the past several years."

The fish were brought in from an out-of-state hatchery, which I'm guessing is an answer to a failed attempt earlier this year to get actual Potomac smallmouth to spawn "in-house" (scroll down on that link to the May 20 entry).  Smallmouth bass were originally introduced to the Potomac in the 1800s after being shipped by train from the Ohio River basin, so why not go old-school with non-native fish in an attempt to boost the population?

It will be interesting to see how this impacts fishing in the future.  I've been filling out the Potomac Bass Survey after every trip, so I'm sure they've been gathering data from that survey and other areas to realize catch rates have been low in regard to smallmouth fishing on the Potomac.

Where have all the smallmouth gone?



A fightin' Susquehanna smallmouth.

It has been a rough year on the Potomac River as well as the Susquehanna.  I've mentioned it before recapping trips on the Potomac, where I have caught two fish all year.  On the Susquehanna, fishing has been a little better, but I know from reports on a smallmouth fishing forum, others have been struggling.

I'm still relatively new to river smallmouth fishing, so I can only guess as to what has been causing the poor fishing.  Rain for most of the ideal fishing months LAST YEAR caused major changes.  At least that's my best guess.  Fish moved to spots they aren't usually found in or they're just not biting.  I can't believe they just vanished.

On Monday, a study was released on the assessment of smallmouth bass in the area -- the Susquehanna, Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. 

"Anglers, fishing guides and fisheries biologists all have noticed a precipitous decline in the number of smallmouth bass inhabiting our Mid-Atlantic rivers over the past few years. Where have these fish gone and is this just a naturally occurring cycle or an indication that something is amiss in the water itself?"

Further assessment from the report, poor spawning rates and unstable weather are among the factors over the last several years to have impacted smallmouth bass numbers.  One exceptional spawn occurred in 2014, but other than that, it has been fairly bleak.


Although it wasn't a heavy rain, river level went up more
than a 1-1/2 feet but was down to normal in about 24 hours
a few days ago on a smaller Maryland river.

That being said, I haven't had any dropoff on the other "P" rivers in Maryland. I've still caught fish at similar rates from previous years (an average of about one smallmouth bass per hour). While rains certainly affect these waters, they don't have sustained weeks-long high-water periods.  River levels are usually back to normal or close to it after two or three days.

Last month, Karen and I had a trip booked with Jason Shay of Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  The day before, Jason texted me asking if we wanted to reschedule since the guided trip he had that day was going really slow.  Only a couple fish by 11 a.m.  Since the weather was also going to be sunny and hot, we decided to push it back a month.

Which leads up to last Saturday (Oct. 12) and the re-booked trip with Jason.  We launched from the Fort Hunter ramp with cloudy skies.  The forecast called for the sun to break through later on, but it didn't really happen.



Jason untangles one of Karen's fish from the net.

After motoring away from the ramp, we weren't getting much early on until we noticed fish activity around a grassy island.  The water was really shallow on the edges, and you could sometimes see dorsal fins knifing through the water with baitfish jumping out of the water ahead of the bigger fish.  Jason took the boat over and told us to cast if we saw feeding fish.  Usually, the fish were just out of casting range (go figure), and by the time we got in position, activity had died off.  If one of us happened to plop a lure in the right spot at the right time, a fish hit.

Karen and Jason were using Whopper Ploppers, and I had a Rapala X-Rap Prop.  The latter a little longer but skinnier, and it had a propeller on either end. Despite having two props, it doesn't churn across the water like a Whopper Plopper. I caught one fish, and they each caught a couple at least.  But both lures had equal interest with some missed hookups.



My first fish of the day on the Rapala X-Rap Prop.

We basically did three or four loops around the grassy knoll chasing fish that were chasing baitfish.  The fish usually stopped feeding as soon as the boat was positioned within casting distance, but everybody caught fish and had several hookups and topwater attacks.

We moved upriver and didn't have much luck, then moved back down to the grassy knoll, and didn't have any luck at all.  It was like the fish checked out.

We moved upriver just past the Juniata confluence and floated down tossing spinnerbaits at underwater ledges and rock formations.  This seemed to entice the most interest from the smallmouth.  I caught two fish and lost three that were hooked up.  One of them, I did all the right things keeping the rod low to try and prevent the fish from jumping.  About 10 feet from the boat, its nose protruded from the water, and the spinnerbait came flying loose.

We called it quits at about 1 p.m.

I might fish some of the little Maryland rivers before winter comes in.  The latest fishing report from the Maryland DNR says walleye are starting to bite in the Upper Potomac, so maybe there's that.  As far as smallmouth fishing on the Potomac and Susquehanna, like Nebraska Cornhusker football, it may be better luck next year.

Topwater frenzy



Topwater river smallmouth caught on a 1960s
Mitchell 300 reel.

I haven't fished in the area since Sept. 1, so I went out this morning mainly for casting practice since Karen and I are fishing on Saturday with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  Maybe I could catch something, too, but I didn't know what to expect because temps have dipped down into the 70s, and the rain has been infrequent for the last two months.

The river was the lowest and clearest it has been all year -- the bottom was visible in almost every section.  The water wasn't crystal clear, though.  With the rocks and gravel, they created shadows that made it difficult to target and track fish.

With the water level and overcast skies, I started with a Heddon Zara Puppy, and the small topwater lure produced immediate interest.  Unfortunately, none of the fish could get hooked from the mix of "real" smallmouth strikes and passive sunfish slurps.

On my other rod was a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, and I cast the swimbait in spots where the topwater lure was getting bites.  And it was like casting crickets. Not crickets as in live bait, but crickets as in silence from the fish. While I saw a few sunfish following the lure, the fish weren't actually biting.  Weird since the Little Dipper had been my go-to lure this year, and the topwater bite has been infrequent.

In another pool, I finally hooked a smallmouth, but for some reason, the drag on the reel was set really loose. With the drag squealing, it sounded like I had a tarpon on the line.  As far as I know, there are no tarpon in Maryland.

I paused to tighten the drag, the fish seemed to sense the lack of tension, jumped, and got off the hook.  Reely weird since I have drag set tight on all my reels because I'm not expecting an epic fight from a monster fish

The little largemouth bass.  Sorry it looks like the
fish was captured on The Grassy Knoll.

Anyway, more of the same in this section -- the fish lurked below the surface with hits on the Zara Puppy but didn't feel the need to bite the Little Dipper.

Since the attacks on the Zara Puppy were coming after pauses, I changed the lure on the other rod from a Little Dipper to a Z-Man Finesse TRD.  I figured pausing the worm on the bottom might trigger bites versus the steady swimbait retrieve.

Sure enough, the first cast with the Z-Man worm enticed a little largemouth bass to make a beeline to scoop the lure resting on the bottom.  I have never caught a largemouth bigger than 11 inches in this river, and this one was no different.  It was maybe 10 inches if it was lucky.

But other than that one largemouth, no other fish were interested in the bottom-bouncing Z-Man worm.

Zara Puppy snagged in a tree last month, recovered today.

When I fished here last month, I hooked a Zara Puppy in a tree, couldn't free the lure, and had to break the fishing line.  In between casts today, I started looking for the lure, and sure enough, it was still snagged in the same branch.  Because of the water clarity, I saw a larger rock just below the surface and thought, "You know, maybe I could reach the lure."

I waded down, reached up, used a fishing rod to pull the branch down, and easily plucked the lure free.  If you notice in the picture to the right, it doesn't have a treble hook on the back.  I've been removing rear trebles on most lures because they are more of a nuisance.  Almost every smallmouth bass gets the front treble hook in their lip, and the rear treble flops around (fun when trying to unhook a squirming fish) or sometimes hooks the fish on their body.  Or when catching a sunfish or fallfish, they almost always bite the rear treble hook, making it a pain to remove it from their little fish mouths.

On to another spot, and again the Zara Puppy (the one I brought with me, not the one I recovered from the tree branch) had the fish breaking the surface to try and snatch the lure.  Finally, a smallmouth bass persisted, going after the lure three times before getting the treble hook (barely) in the corner of its jaw.

After that fish, the bite completely dried up.  I think with the shallow water and the clarity, fish were easily spooked.

Fallen leaves weren't much of an issue, but I suspect in a week or so, getting leaves snagged will be more of a problem.

Bigmouth strikes again

A little smallmouth bass.

A little bigmouth bass.

A slow Labor Day Sunday only catching one smallmouth bass and a largemouth bass.  On this stretch of river, all the largemouth look the same -- sub 12 inches.  I haven't found any largemouth bass even measuring 12 inches, even though I've caught quite a few 12+ smallmouth.

This was the first largemouth I've caught river fishing this year.

Both fish today were caught on Reaction Innovations Little Dippers.  There was some interest in the Heddon Zara Puppy, but I threw the swimbait about 75 percent of the time.

The water was really clear, and I could see fish following the swimbait but most of them didn't bite the lure.  I don't know what's more frustrating, not getting bites or seeing fish follow lures and still not getting bites.

The last time I fished this are was back in March, and the water was crawling with people fishing for trout.  Nearly every "good" spot had someone already fishing.  Today, didn't see a single person.

Maryland DNR fishing surveys

Just putting these here so I can find them, but feel free to follow the links yourself.

The Maryland DNR has a couple online surveys for fishermen (fisher people?), and I encourage you to use them.  The first one is specific to smallmouth bass on the Potomac River, and the second one is a general survey for freshwater and saltwater.  Report your catch (or not as I've been doing on the Potomac this year), how many fish you caught, where you caught them, etc.  They are just informational -- results don't appear on their website.

Potomac smallmouth bass survey.

General fisheries survey.

Swimbait Sunday

First fish of the day, a 12-inch-plus smallmouth bass.

Got out for a few hours this morning and managed to catch five smallmouth bass, all on Reaction Innovations Little Dippers.  I think the fish might have been on at least four different flavors, too.  Catch a fish, snag the lure in a tree, switch to a new one.  Rinse, repeat.

The weather had been unbearable since Karen and I got back from our road trip, and I really didn't feel like sweating my ass off while fishing.  The last couple days have been much more pleasant, and I hoped the fish would be more active.

First spot I hit on the river (water temp: 70 degrees, a really good sign), I got a couple nibbles on the swimbait on my first cast, but nothing after that.  On my other rod was a Heddon Zara Puppy, and a few sunfish followed that lure, but they didn't fall for the trickery.

Right around this time, I heard a huge explosion.  It seemed like it was a mile or two away.  I didn't hear any sirens or see a mushroom cloud, so I filed it under, "Hmmm, I wonder what that was."

I moved upriver to my favorite spot where I almost always get something.  This was where I caught the smallmouth on July 4 that was under the tip of a protruding log, and also my second 15-inch smallmouth from this river four years ago.  On the second cast running parallel to the bank I was standing on, something bit the swimbait but didn't clamp on.  Reeling about 10 more feet, something actually did clamp on.  One of those where it feels briefly like a snag, but then the fishing line is headed toward the middle of the river.  Successfully landed it, and it was a smallmouth that was an easy 12 inches (first photo at top).

The swimbait was mangled, so I rigged up a new one and caught a tiny smallmouth on the next cast (above left).  That would be all the fish for this area.  Sunfish followed the swimbait on some casts, a few boils on the topwater lure (I think sunfish again), but nothing else.  It's like the fish that were caught alerted all the others of some human trying to trick them with fake food.

After moving downstream and getting the Zara Puppy entangled up in a tree, I got another 12+ smallmouth on a swimbait. (right).

Downriver at another one of my favorite spots (always seem to catch something here, but never anything of legal size), I caught a smallmouth even smaller than fish number two.  Again on a swimbait.  I was about to pull the lure out of the water, and this smallmouth appeared out of nowhere from the knee-high depths and attacked like a terrier on a squeaker toy.

A bit later after, I did a "one more cast" and had a smallmouth hammer the same swimbait.  This felt like a good fish, but it was only about 10 inches.  Unfortunately, the hook was embedded in the "gill" portion of it's throat (I don't know what the scientific term is).  The fish wasn't bleeding, but after a minute or so of trying to dislodge the hook, I felt it was better to cut the line and let the fish go.  These are cheap eBay jigheads that rust easily, so rather than hurt the fish trying to rip the hook out, I hoped rust would not sleep.  The fish swam away with a quickness, so I was happy to see that.

I'm really going to have to pack the Knipex "mini bolt cutters" in my gear.  It would have made dealing with that fish a whole lot easier by just snipping the top of the jighead.  I still may not have been able to remove the rest of the hook, but at least there would have been less metal in the fish's mouth

When I got back to the car and started it up, the radio was already tuned to WTOP, and I caught the end of the news report about a gas explosion which occurred about two miles away, so no doubt that was what I heard earlier.  Firefighters were already on site responding to a report of the leak, and they were able to evacuate the buildings before the explosion. 

The perfect trip

Booked a date with RainyDaze Guide Service
for Aug. 6 way back in the first week of June.
Dealing with the anticipation was a daily struggle.

I haven't taken many real vacations.  Maybe none since I was in high school when my mom took me and a friend for a few days on a fishing "resort" in Minnesota.  In my early days in the Air Force, most of my leave time was spent visiting either my mom or dad for a week or so. I don't recall doing much -- just hanging out while they were at work and maybe doing something if my visit was on a weekend.

When I started autocrossing in the late 1990s, my vacation time was mainly spent going to autocrosses (taking off a Friday and/or Monday to sandwich a weekend) or travelling to the SCCA Solo National Championships (in Topeka, Kansas, and eventually Lincoln, Nebraska) from 1998 to 2011. 

Then when I became "my own boss," I couldn't take any time off except for the 2014 Solo Nationals.

Solo Nationals is fun because of autocrossing and seeing friends, but it doesn't really seem like a vacation. Drive cross country (usually just stopping for gas/food and spending the night at a random hotel along the interstate), stress about how well you're going to perform in competition, trying to get in course walks, work assignments, etc., etc., ... it's almost like real work except for not getting paid to be there.

So other than a day or two here and there, I figured I haven't taken a legit vacation since 1998.

That's a long time.

This year, I decided to join Karen on one of her annual road trips and arranged for a fishing trip with RainyDaze Guide Service on Rainy Lake bordering Minnesota and Canada.  I flew into Casper, Wyoming, on Friday Aug. 2, and she picked me up at the airport.  We headed north and arrived at Devils Tower just before sundown.

Devils Tower just before sunset.

The next day, we went to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

Markers of fallen 7th Cavalry soldiers.

This is a place I have always wanted to visit since I was a kid. The teaching back in the 1980s was that Custer was a hero, but over time, the narrative has changed. Indians wanting to be left alone and live on the land they've called home for hundreds of years, and white people not wanting to have that for some dumb reason.

Anyway, enough with the politics. As much as has been written about the battle, it was really interesting to see the landscape in person and get a feel for how everything played out.  Along one of the trails, there's an illustration showing where Custer first sighted the Indian encampment on the Little Bighorn River from a peak 14 miles away! The peak was clearly visible. "Big Sky Country" indeed.

The next day we went to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and saw more unbelievable landscapes.  And bison.

Bison herd at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Finally on Monday, it was off to Rainy Lake.  We cross-trekked through North Dakota, into Minnesota and stayed the night at International Falls.

Personal best walleye, 26 inches.  Probably will
be awhile before I can have a chance at topping that.

Tuesday morning, we met up with Chris Zahn of RainyDaze Guide Service and hit the water cruising across the border into Canada on his Ranger boat powered by a super-quiet four-stroke motor.

Before we started, I told Chris I expected to catch my personal best walleye.  His response was something like, "Uh ... OK?"  Then I told him my biggest walleye was just 15 inches from the Upper Potomac. He seemed to relax after that.

We started fishing in aboot (See what I did there? Since we were in Canada.) 30-feet of water with the bottom mostly flat.  But we saw fish on the Garmin thingie hugging the bottom.  Canada regulates live minnows can't be used as bait, but Chris had bought minnows the night before and "iced" them. He rigged a dead minnow on a jighead like a swimbait, and we dropped them over the side of the boat.

For about 20 minutes, fish weren't sniffing at the minnows. Even though the Garmin sonar thingie showed fish on the bottom of the lake.  We could even see our jig/minnow fluttering by.

Karen with her personal best walleye.

Then a fish bit my jig/minnow. Very subtle bite, moderate tension on the other end of the line.  I set the hook, and it felt like a good fish. Chris said there might be northern pike mixed in with the walleye, and that's what it felt like because Potomac walleye fight like wet socks.

The fish pulled drag, and it battled for about a minute.  Then the fish got close to the surface, and the shiny gold reflecting from the sun indicated it was a walleye.

A big walleye.

After netting it, Chris measured it just a tick below 26 inches (aboot seven pounds).

He said a lot of people consider 28 inches as trophy size for a walleye, so probably equivalent to catching an 18-inch Potomac river smallmouth.

No fish after that, and that was the pattern for the day.  Chris found fish on the Garmin, we would catch one or two -- if any -- right away, and then the bite went cold. Then move on to the next spot.

I managed to land five walleye.  Karen also caught her personal best -- 19 inches.  Her previous best was 17 inches, also from the Upper Potomac.

Around 2 p.m., Chris asked if we wanted to try for smallmouth bass. Oh hell yeah, let's go!  We motored to shallower water with rock formations barely visible below the water's surface.  The weapon of choice here was a four-inch plastic worm "wacky rigged" with a jighead.

One of Karen's smallmouth bass.

The first fish in smallmouth bass territory was a 16-incher that I caught -- which, honestly, fought just as hard as the 26-inch walleye.  We moved around to a few places landing a few fish here and there.  While I caught more walleye, Karen got the most smallmouth (five).  One in particular was pretty funny to watch.  Just before she took the worm out of the water, the bass swam by the lure.  She lifted the lure out of the water, lowered it back in, and the smallmouth turned back and chomped the lure.

Because of Canadian regulations, we could only keep one walleye per person.  And they had to be under 17 inches (or over 27 inches).  No big deal -- we weren't there to keep a bunch of fish.  Chris filleted our eater-size walleye, and you betcha we cooked them up a couple days later on the BioLite stove camping in da U.P.  Just sprinkled with Adobo seasoning, fer sure the fish were delicious.

And then we went to Da Beauty League games in Edina, Minnesota, the next day, then up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after that where we dined on the walleye and purple crack Doritos.

Finally on Saturday, we camped at a KOA campground just south of Cleveland.  There was a pond on site, and I couldn't resist throwing a Whopper Plopper as the sun was going down that night.  Tricked one little largemouth bass.  Then Sunday morning, I tricked three more largemouth using a Reaction Innovations Swimbait and a Z-Man Finesse TRD worm.  Actually had four other largemouth bass hooked, but they tricked me by escaping before getting to the shore.  Although the fish were sub 12 inches, it was fun to use river smallmouth lures to catch pond largemouth.

KOA campground largemouth.

Already thinking about what to do next year.  Snake River?  Columbia River?  San Diego lakes and fabricating lies?  This might have been the perfect trip, but I think there are more out there.

Karen has her pictures from the road trip here.  For more of my pictures, click on the bison:
 

You can never have too many jerkbaits

You can never have too much money,
horsepower or fishing tackle.

What's old is new again

Second Potomac smallmouth ... for the year.
At least it was a good fight.

Another close-to-uneventful fishing trip over the weekend on the Potomac.  I managed to catch one smallmouth bass just before I was going to call it quits Sunday morning.  The fish was about 11 inches and made a couple nice leaps from the water. 

It fell for my original "secret weapon" -- a Berkley Gulp! Nightcrawler.  When I started fishing again a few years ago, I used these with very good results.  However, the plastic material is really soft -- wouldn't be out of the ordinary to lose the worm on just a bite.  Eventually, I went to using the Z-Man Finesse TRD worms, which are much more durable and catch fish, too.

My first secret weapon from 2015 caught fish again in
2019 -- a Berkley Gulp! Nightcrawler.

I still had a bunch of 2015 Gulp! worms marinating in their tub and figured I'd try them since nothing else seemed to be working on the Potomac.  That one fish was the only bite I had.

I also landed something else -- a crankbait and small spoon-looking lure.  I noticed an orange spot just in the water in front of me and snagged it with the end of my fishing rod.  Both lures were tangled together with frayed fishing line, so I'm guessing two people fishing together got their lines crossed or something.  The hooks didn't have any rust, so lures had not been in the river for very long.

The crankbait is a Bandit 100 and happens to be the same model as two I recently ordered from Susquehanna Fishing Tackle, although it's a different color.  One from the order is "Black" (seriously, that's what the color pattern is called ... not "Midnight" or "Stealth" or "Dark Matter" or something catchy), the other is "Blue Splatter Back," and my freebie looks like "Spring Crawfish Yellow."

Sweet!  Free lures!  A Bandit 100 shallow crankbait
and a spoon thing.  Of course counting all the lures
I've lost on the Potomac this year, I'm nowhere close
to breaking even.

No idea what the little spoon is, but it's probably a sunfish or crappie lure.

Saturday evening, was even less eventful.  I didn't catch a thing, and neither did Karen.  I was more annoyed by getting pushed out of an area by a mother and father who apparently encouraged their six kids to "swim" out in the river further and further as close to the guy (me) who was wading in the river.

I love people.

In hindsight, I should have tied on something with multiple treble hooks and used them as target practice casting to them as close as I could.

The countdown is still ticking, though!  Less than two weeks as I'm writing this, and Karen and I will be fishing on Rainy Lake!

Smallmouth bass like smashing the pink

The Susquehanna Volcano.

Even a bad day on the Susquehanna was better than any day on the Upper Potomac this year.

Karen's first fish of the day.

With temps in the 90s throughout the week and humidity through the roof, too, Karen and I went out anyway today with Jason Shay of Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  Rain moved through the area last night, and it was overcast all morning with the temps never getting out of the low 80s, so it wasn't totally unbearable.

Unfortunately, the fish didn't enjoy the conditions as much as we did.  It was probably one of the slowest days I've experienced on the Susquehanna since I first started coming up here three years ago.

Jason said he and the other two SSS guides -- Pete Holmes and Rocky the Muskie Man -- fished yesterday, caught 10 total fish and called it quits at noon.  Slow bite and high temps/humidity suck on a day of bad fishing.

With the thunderstorm that ran through last night (which knocked down a ton of trees in the area including littering the boat ramp and damaging a couple nearby homes), I thought maybe it would cool off some, and the fish would respond.  At the first area we stopped after leaving the boat ramp, Jason caught a smallmouth bass near 18 inches on his first cast!  He was using a topwater lure, so Karen and I began burning the surface with River2SeaWhopper Ploppers.  She caught one, and I had a couple bites, but that was it for the rest of the day on topwaters.

This chubby smallmouth fell for the
pink-and-blue spinnerbait.

It was mainly "one off" fishing -- someone would catch a fish on a lure, and nobody would catch anything else on that lure or something similar.  I got one on a BioBait DNA Swimbait and a Rapala BX Brat squarebill crankbait but couldn't get multiples on either lure.

The best luck we had was on a lure not available in stores.  In fact, I think Jason buys them from a homeless guy because they are ugly, and most fishermen wouldn't want to be seen with one -- a pink and blue spinnerbait with tandem gold blades.  He said he picked one up from somewhere a couple years ago and used it on a tough day -- much like today -- and caught fish while others weren't catching anything, even on more traditional-pattern spinnerbaits.  Sometimes trying a crazy color pattern pays off.

This smallmouth had a crayfish
in its throat.

So he tied the spinnerbait on today and caught a smallmouth bass.  Then a little while later, he caught another one.  One might be coincidence but two means something.  I switched out a white spinnerbait for the pink/blue thing and caught a smallmouth about 15 minutes later.

And that was a big "run" for the day.  Karen tried the spinnerbait and didn't get anything.  Three fish in about 30 minutes, and nothing for awhile after that.  The last spot of the day, I got one more on the spinnerbait and had another hooked that got off when it jumped from the water.  Both fish slammed the lure.



Trees were down in the Fort Hunter parking lot after the
weather that rolled through the night before.

Which was weird.  Most hits today were really strong, and the fish we caught were fat.  You would think as slow as it was, the fish wouldn't be eating anything or be timid on the bite.  One fish I caught even had a live crayfish in its throat, so that one had been gorging itself.  Maybe they are hunkered down and being more opportunistic feeders rather than foraging.

I think I ended up with five smallmouth, and there were about 15 total between the three of us.

We booked a trip with Jason for September, so hopefully the weather cooperates then.  Probably more importantly, Karen and I will be fishing in almost exactly a month from now with Rainy Daze Guide Service on Rainy Lake near International Falls, Minn.  Smallmouth and walleye and northern pike, oh my!

 

Four for The Fourth

One of the most satisfying moments from fishing comes from identifying an isolated spot that holds fish -- "I know there's one there."  A small opening in a weedbed, a small eddy behind a rock -- something that's hiding in plain site, but it would take a pinpoint cast to reach that spot.  Then you fire the lure, and it lands exactly where you wanted it and ... wouldn't you know it, there's a hungry fish there.

Yesterday I had one of those rare moments.

I woke up early to beat the heat and was fishing a river about 15 minutes away by 7:15 a.m.  I tried a couple sections that only yielded a few follows on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.  Nothing on the trusty Heddon Zara Puppy.

Moving upriver to one of my honey holes that always seems to yield a fish or a few strikes, I started casting just past the middle of the river and  reeling in.  Usually, the fish like to hang out in the middle where it's deepest.  I assume that's why they prefer that area -- they have never actually told me.  I had a few sunfish -- maybe one or two were a little smallmouth -- that followed the lure.  Trying the Zara Puppy didn't even get a chasing fish.

This fish decided to eat the next thing
that landed in the water -- a Hubs
Chub topwater lure.

Just a few feet in the water on the opposite bank was a large log mostly submerged next to a bunch of large rocks.  The downstream end of the log was protruding from the water and had been torn/eroded/ripped away so it looked like a large dagger.  There was a two-foot pocket of calm water underneath the exposed wood.

"I know there's one there."

I let the Little Dipper fly on a low trajectory, and, wouldn't you know it, it didn't land on the log.  It didn't land a foot short of the log.  It didn't land on the other side.  The lure splashed down right under the log.

A smallmouth bass pummeled the lure after one rotation on the spinning reel's handle.  The fish took off downriver, made a couple jumps and was causing a ruckus on the surface.  Luckily, the hook stayed embedded in the corner of the fish's jaw.  Hoisting the bass out of the water, it looked easily 12 inches, maybe 13, a really nice size for this river (personal best here is 16).  I was going to take a "hero" shot of the fish on the grass next to my fishing rod for size comparison, and it flopped a couple times, somehow got unhooked and looked like a kid on a Slip N Slide as it effortlessly coasted down the bank into the water.  Oh well, no picture for you.

A few minutes later, I caught another smallmouth but this one of the dink variety.



Rain came through later
in the day and kicked the
river up a notch.

Since I wasn't getting any action on the Zara Puppy but I still wanted to keep trying topwater, I switched to a H.C. Baits Hubs Chub.  Although it has a little propeller on the tail, I use it kind of as a popper.  I pop it once or twice and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  You know what?  The smallmouth bass pictured above didn't care what the lure did because it smashed it as soon as it hit the water. Like the fish was waiting there for something to fall out of the sky.  Probably could have had a piece of a hot dog hooked on the line and still caught the fish.

The was the same size as my first one of the day, in the 12- to 13-inch range.  Although his one stuck around for a picture.

Moving down to another spot, I had some more nibbles on the Hubs Chub, but just little fish.  A green sunfish did manage to slurp it down, so that was four fish total for the day.

One final spot before finishing up, I pushed my way through foliage to end up at a small pool in between two large riffles.  After a few casts, I felt something itchy on my left arm.  I looked down, and there was a small green splotch that looked like moss or something.  Thinking that what was causing the irritation, I rolled my sleeve up.  A couple casts later, the irritation got slightly worse.  I looked down on my arm and didn't see anything.  But then I noticed a small green caterpillar on the top pocket on my vest sitting on the zipper.  WTF?  I flicked that thing in the water.  A few more casts, and small bumps appeared on my left forearm.  Double WTF?  That's it for fishing!

I took off back to the car, and the area around the red bumps turned red.  The swelling didn't increase, though, so I figured I wasn't going to die.

Back at the Subaru, I looked up "caterpillar bites" on my phone.  Apparently it's common -- not to have them bite -- for their tiny hairs or spines to cause allergic reactions.  Great!  Now in addition to ticks, snapping turtles, copperheads, bees, thorny bushes, angry otters and all the other stuff, I have to look out for caterpillars.

The fishes we need are everywhere around us

This "fishy" area should hold fish, right?  Places like this
haven't so far on the Upper Potomac.  But on the North Branch ...

Fishing has been tough on the Upper Potomac for some reason this year.  I've caught one smallmouth and one walleye out of five or six trips.

Yesterday, Karen and I made the trek even further up to the North Branch of the Potomac to a C&O Trail Campground site.  She wanted to bike down the C&O Trail while I just wanted to fish.

I was anxious for some kind of success considering how far this spot was from the furthest point I fished this year.  Antietam Creek is just between mile markers 69 and 70 on the trail, while this site is near mile marker 173.

First smallmouth.  I usually take a picture of the first fish -- no
matter the size -- just to have evidence that I caught something.

Yesterday, we got to the camp site and set everything up.  No squatters this time, so we didn't have to call a park ranger to deal with the riff-raff.

We camped here about four years ago, and I remembered the river right behind the camp site was barren of fish-holding structures.  No ripples, eddies, weedbeds or large rocks.  Just straight, almost feature-less water.  But there was a spot downriver that had all those fishy elements.

I suited up my waders and headed down the trail and soon spotted a rocky point protruding the water.  After climbing down the bank, I tied on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper on the first rod, and on the other rod, my go-to topwater lure, a Heddon Zara Puppy.

After about 15 minutes, the first fish of the day was landed on a Little Dipper.  It was a dink but had a cool color pattern (see picture above).

The Little Dipper was getting a lot of interest, and I soon had a couple more dink smallmouth with a few other misses sprinkled in.  The Zara Puppy wasn't getting anything.

Moving down to a weedbed with tassels protruding from the water, I said to myself, "Self, I bet if you throw that Zara Puppy just on the edge of the weedbed, there's a smallmouth there, and it will smack that lure."

Plus-sizing with a Rapala X-Rap Prop and
Nichols spinnerbait.  It didn't really work out.

If anything positive lately, since I haven't actually been catching fish, my casting skills have progressively gotten better.

That Zara Puppy landed about a foot to the right of the weeds.  I twitched it a couple times, paused, then twitched it again.  And a smallmouth exploded completely out of the water attacking the lure.

And completely missed.

Heart spiked, but still calmly didn't set the hook waiting to NOT see the lure.  But it was still floating on the surface ... and then ... and then ... nothing. 

A few more casts to the same area and still the fish didn't strike.  Even switching rods and tossing the Reaction Innovations swimbait couldn't entice even a nibble.

Moving on to other spots, I caught another dink smallmouth here and another there.  Six total for the evening.

After the big blowup on the Zara Puppy, the other highlight in "the one that got away" was seeing a couple fish that looked to be slurping bait on the surface.  I fired a cast with the the swimbait right on top of one of them, and the fish hit the lure immediately.  But just seconds later, it got off.  It felt like a better smallmouth than the dinks I had been catching.

This morning, I wanted to plus-size the lures to maybe plus-size the fish.  I started off with a Nichols spinnerbait and a Rapala X-Rap Prop topwater lure.  The spinnerbait didn't get any bites, so I switched to a Rapala Shadow Rap ... and caught another dink smallmouth and a sunfish.  Plus-sizing with smallmouth bass doesn't seem to work, as I should have remembered from a few years ago at another spot a few miles down river.

Finally, something bigger than the dinks.

I had one fish hooked on the Rapala prop, but the fish was next to a weedbed, and it made a beeline among the vegetation and managed to unhook itself.  Then the Shadow Rap got snagged in the middle of the river, so I went back to the Reaction Innovations swimbait.  And caught two more dink smallmouth before finally getting a legal-sized one.

At the end of the day(s), it was 10 smallmouth and a sunfish in five- to six-hours fishing.  Much better by a longshot on the Potomac this year, even if the majority of the fish were dinks.

Interesting to compare the last time we were at this spot on the North Branch four years ago.  Back then, it was another overnight camping trip but in August, and I caught eight smallmouth bass, two sunfish and a fallfish.  Similar numbers to Friday and Saturday.  Yet still further down river on the Upper Potomac this year, the smallmouth fishing has been bleak.

Next Sunday, Karen and I will flush the Potomac fail with another trip with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  Then, almost exactly a month later, we will be fishing on Rainy Lake for northerns and smallmouths and (Oh my!) walleye.

Bonus walleye

The Potomac River has been tough so far this year.  I've caught one smallmouth and no other fish until today when I landed this 12-inch walleye.

The fish hit a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, and I thought at first I had my second Potomac smallmouth of 2019.  However, walleye don't fight above their weight class like smallmouth bass, but they don't fight like fallfish or sunfish that seem to be resigned to their fate as soon as they're hooked. Based on the fight, I guessed the fish was in between those two spectrums.  But walleye are still a nice bonus since they aren't very common on the Upper Potomac.  They are tasty, too, but this one fell a few inches short of the legal 15-inch limit.  Good news for him!

Double bonus:  Catching the fish standing on the bank just as soon as two guys in a jet boat throttled down about 100 feet upriver.  

Which brings me to another thing about my failings (and Karen's, too) catching fish this year on the Potomac.  On the smallmouth bass forum I frequent, others have been reporting unusually low catches.  It's like the big rains from 2018 have scattered the fish, or that weather did something to truly impact fishing conditions this year.  I can only speculate whether it was a limited spawn last year, fish died off because of the fluctuating river level, or the fish found homes in the tributaries or ... something else.

Usually at this campground, there is very little boat traffic through the river.  There might be one or two fishing boats, but more tubers and non-fishing kayakers than anybody else.  This morning, I was awakened at 6:15 a.m. by two jet boats heading upriver.  When I started fishing an hour later, there was a guy in a kayak fishing just behind our camp site.  Then (I'm pretty sure) one of those jet boats that went through an hour before came down and started fishing the bank behind the campsite.  Then the other one came down about 20 minutes later (and those two guys got to see me catch the walleye).

Several other boats went up and down the river before we broke camp.  Again, this is a stretch that usually has very little boat traffic, but my take is other fishermen are frustrated and are exploring new/forgotten/overlooked spots to get something going.

Karen and I will be going even further up the Potomac next week, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the fishing fares up there.

Turning it up to 11

Smallmouth that made an aerial assault.

I've been to the Upper Potomac five times since I last posted here.  Why haven't I blogged anything about those trips?  Because I caught a grand total of one fish.  Not one fish each trip -- one fish PERIOD.

The river level has declined steadily, and I fished in areas where that held fish before, so it should have been a recipe for success.  But only had that one smallmouth bass to show for it.  This time of year should be prime time for smallmouth on the Upper Potomac, but for whatever reason, it hasn't been.

So this morning I decided to stay closer to home -- you know, drive 20 minutes to fish instead of an hour plus.

Since it was early in the morning, the call of topwater action was reverberating in my head, so I tied on a Heddon Zara Puppy.  On my other rod, I tied on a Z-Man Finesse TRD worm just to go with something different -- offer something on top and something on the bottom.

The first spot I tried, I caught a fallfish on the Zara Puppy.  The oversized minnow actually hit the lure pretty good, but then it gave up fighting like all fallfish seem to do.  No pictures of fallfish.

Redbreast sunfish.  They don't fight at all,
but at least they are prettier than fallfish.

I moved to a spot that always seems to have fish activity -- either I catch something or at least get a few bites.  First cast with the Zara Puppy, it hit just short of the opposite bank, and I brought it back below some exposed rocks.

With the Zara Puppy and similar topwater lures, I always seem to trigger strikes by working the lure for a few seconds -- maybe three to five twitches with the rod -- and then letting the lure sit.  Sometimes I count to five before activating the lure again.  The fish love to hit during that pause, whether it be a bass or a sunfish.  I rarely get them just chasing the lure while it's in motion.

About when the lure reached the middle of the river, a smallmouth bass attacked and launched out of the water trying to grab the Zara Puppy.  It didn't get hooked, and the fish made another pass a second or two later.  I patiently waited as my heart rate went up before setting the hook, but I saw the lure still floating on the surface.  I worked the lure back without any further activity.

Immediately, I fired another cast to the same spot and brought the lure back on the same route across the water.  In the same strike zone as the previous attack, the smallmouth came out of hiding again and smacked the lure.  This time, the front treble hook penetrated the fish's lower lip, and it stayed on.  The fish made a couple more jumps before I finally hoisted it out of the water -- a nice 12- to 13-incher, a lunker for this water.

Green sunfish.  They don't get much bigger.

At this point, I basically forgot about the Z-Man worm.  If fish are biting topwater lures, there's really no point trying anything else!

I managed to catch two more (smaller) smallmouth, a redbreast sunfish and another fallfish in this spot.

Moving on to another flow that I re-discovered earlier this year, I again had a blowup on the first cast with the Zara Puppy targeting a small pocket between two rocks protruding on the opposite shore.  No hookup, and this time the fish didn't make any further assaults.

However, a little while later, I caught another smallmouth on the Zara Puppy and a green sunfish on the Z-Man worm.

I crossed the river and moved down to another area that always seems to hold at least one active fish.  It's a small pool in between two rocky runs with a lot of submerged rocks.  The smallmouth I've caught here have never been very big, IIRC.  Sure enough, I managed to catch two smallmouth with one being a dink and another really tiny.  The little one had to be from the spawn last year and was going for breakfast, lunch and dinner in one sitting snacking on a Z-Man worm.

You gonna come at me, bro?!

I was keeping track of the fish I had caught and realized I was up to 10 fish for the day!  I don't think I've ever been in double digits on this river.  After just one fish on the five Potomac trips, it was good to feel the tugs on the fishing rods.

Moving back up to the previous spot where I had the big blowup, I switched to a Heddon Torpedo -- which is a topwater lure similar in shape to its Zara Puppy brother, but it has a propeller on the back.

I had a few follows and swipes then snagged the lure on a rock on the other side of the river.  So I tied on a Heddon Tiny Torpedo that I've probably had for 30 years.  It's similar to the Torpedo, just a size down.

And snagged it, too, on the other side of the river.  Both lures were probably three feet apart.

Heddon Torpedo, Tiny Torpedo and Zara Puppy.

So I tried the Z-Man worm and got some fish biting in the middle of the river.  They looked like ... fallfish.  But you never know, maybe a smallmouth bass is in the pack.

After a few casts, I was hopping the worm on the bottom and saw a flash of white as the fish took off with the lure.  It took me a split second to process what was happening -- "Hey, that fish has my lure!"  I set the hook and the fight of shame began -- another submissive fallfish.  It was actually decent size compared to the others I caught.

This fish made it 11 for the day.

It was also almost 11 a.m. and the clouds had gone away, so it was starting to warm up.  I waded across the river, retrieved my two snagged Torpedos back and called it a day.