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.