Three's company, too

Big fish of the day, on the last cast.  It fell for a
swimbait "dying" on the bottom of the river

I haven't fished the other Patuxent river this year, so I gave it a try this morning.  The last couple years, this branch has been tough.  There just aren't that many fish, and they are usually small cookie-cutter size.  Although I have seem some bigger smallmouth cruising while observing from banks above the water, there is still always some hope of landing a nice fish.

The weather was great -- 65 degrees and overcast to start the morning.  I tied on a Heddon Zara Puppy in a bullfrog pattern on one rod and a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper on the other since the latter enticed fish last week on one of the other Patuxent branches.

First fish of the day, a scrappy cookie-cutter smallmouth bass.

On the very first cast with the Zara Puppy, a fish went after it just after plopping into the water.  It was probably a sunfish, but still, I thought it was going to be a good day for topwaters after that, but I only had one other bite the rest of the morning.

After an hour of hitting small pockets and pools, I finally got a fish to snare a Little Dipper.  About a 10-inch smallmouth.  Two casts later in about the same spot, another smallmouth was landed, maybe slightly bigger than the first one.

Then the action dried up.  No more bites and not much activity.  Even throwing lures in a few spots that always seem to get activity, the fish were on social distancing mode.

I trudged back upriver and decided to fish the same spot where I caught the two fish from before.  This time a Rapala floating minnow was in place of the Zara Puppy, and two smallmouth bass gave chase on the first cast.  I kept peppering the area with the swimbait and the Rapala.  I could even see fish below the surface, but they didn't seem interested in fake food.

A spot that has held fish before.  This time ... nothing.

I cast the swimbait in the perfect spot and reeled in steadily.  Two fish -- one small and one bigger -- emerged from the shadows in pursuit.  The bigger one seemed more intersted but it suddenly gave up.  I killed it -- the swimbait that is -- by letting the lure hit the bottom of the river.  This last dying act triggered the fish and it took the bait -- literally -- and scooped the lure into its mouth.

The smallmouth bass jumped twice but couldn't shake the hook free.  It looked close to 12 inches.  And  I decided to call it quits after that --  better to go out on a high note than flailing lures for the next half hour or so.