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.