Ferris Bueller's Day Of Dinks

BFOD -- Big Fish of the Day! An 11" 
smallmouth bass!  OK, maybe it was 10.5 inches.
Or 10.  But it was HUGE!

I haven't been fishing much the last year or so because I'm trying to get my autocross Camaro running.  It actually runs and makes #Merica noises but hasn't been reliable, even failing while trying to load it on the trailer the Friday night before an autocross. Even routine maintenance on the tow vehicle has been a chore.  Work the past couple of months has been a huge grind stapled to a desk answering phones, so like Ferris Bueller, since life moves pretty fast, I took a "sick" day for fishing this Friday morning.  No phones.  No people.  No stupid cars.

FFOD: First fish of the day, a surprise
largemouth bass.  This seems to be
the ideal size on the little Maryland 
rivers -- nothing over 10 inches.

Weighing the options, I decided on the Patapsco River, which I haven't fished in [searches blog] five years.  Parking in this area on the weekend is usually sketchy, but since it was a Friday, I was hoping it wouldn't be a problem.

Sure enough, easy pickings.  And of course nobody else was fishing.  

It looked to be ideal topwater time, but the trusty Zara Puppy didn't get much attention at all today.  The other trusty lure -- Reaction Innovations Little Dipper*-- had the little smallies swing batter batter batter swing.  

The water was really clear and low.  I basically waded up the middle of the river casting to spots close to shore on both sides.  A protruding rock here, shaded area from over-hanging trees there, some fast ripples.  Fish to the left of me, fish to the right, here I am stuck in the middle.

One previous time I was in this section [searches blog, can't find a writeup], I had encounters with some meaty smallmouth, but not this time.  I landed six smallmouth bass and one largemouth, and they were all of the dink variety.  Really soft bite on the swimbait.  One smallmouth might have been 11 inches.  Maybe.  Didn't even see any big fish but a lot of small bass were cruising the water, and had three or four fish that got off before pulling them out of the water..

I'm pretty sure I haven't fished here since at least the last flood that devastated the area and since the Bloede Dam was removed, so I'm not sure if the smallmouth population is in a recovery mode or what.  The terrain seemed a lot like the Middle Patuxent River -- flat water and not many hiding areas -- so maybe it is what it is.

* Seriously, follow this link, choose whatever of the 31 flavors of swimbaits you like and fish them.

In search of the big Little Patuxent monster

Looking upriver to "The Spot."  This looks like
several sections of the river in this area, but for
some reason fish like this one more.

It's been a rough couple of years on the Little and Middle Patuxent Rivers.  I've had several trips where not only have I not caught anything, I wouldn't even get a bite.  Today was a little weird in that I caught one small sunfish but had a lot of interest and just about encountered a Little Patuxent monster.

With temps down during the week, it seemed like the dog days of summer were trying to exit.  The river was down to normal level but a bit cloudy.  Of course I felt it was ideal to try top water but instead of the usual Heddon Zara Puppy, I tied on a H.C. Baits Hub's Chub.  Why don't I link to their website?  Because the lure is no longer produced!  I have several still in their original packaging, so maybe unload them on eBay in a few years.

The Hub's Chub is similar in size to the Zara Puppy but doesn't have as much side-to-side slithering action.  It's sort of like a popper but also has a small propeller on the back. The lure doesn't churn through the water like a Whopper Plopper, though.  It seems to work best with short flicks of the rod in between pauses.

There seemed to be immediate interest in the lure but mostly what looked to be sunfish.  On the other rod, I decided on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.  Actually, it wasn't much of a decision -- these have become my go-to lure just about anywhere.  There are stupidly easy to use -- cast, reel in, cast again.  They have great action in the water -- kind of a wobbly motion and almost feel like a crankbait.

Anyway, went to a couple spots, had interest in both lures but mostly just soft pecks.

I moved down to The Spot.  This section has produced maybe 50 percent of the fish I've caught on the Little Patuxent.  OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it sure feels that way.  I've caught a couple 15-inch smallmouth bass here, which are huge for a trickle of water this size.

Made some long casts with the Hub's Chub with the usual nips from below the surface.  Made a short cast and when the lure was maybe 10 feet from me, a GIANT smallmouth appeared from the depths and flashed its side at the lure and disappeared.  Again, "giant" on this river is 15+ inches, and it looked like it was an easy 15 inches.  Biggest smallmouth bass I've caught on the Little Patuxent is 16 inches and ... well ... this fish was probably close.

Not a giant -- a redbreast sunfish.

I reeled in, dropped the rod and picked up the other rod with the Little Dipper swimbait and made a short cast.  Just as the lure was entering the danger zone, a tiny fish emerged from out of nowhere and thieved the swimbait!  By tiny, I mean it was maybe twice as long as the rubber lure.  And just after it hit, that big bass flashed again.  For a brief moment, I thought the bigger bass was going to gobble the little fish but that didn't happen.  The bigger fish disappeared, the little fish shook loose, and that was it.  

This encounter was almost exactly like one downriver from this spot a year ago where a big smallmouth bass emerged from the cloudy depths and attacked a Rapala floating minnow.  That fish also didn't manage to jab itself in treble hooks.

Made some more casts with both lures but the bass had decided it had enough.

Wandered down to another spot, and then another, still getting the same action from little fish but no giants in site.  Eventually a redbreast sunfish managed to actually hook itself after switching to a white Zara Puppy.

Just one fish to show for my efforts, but the encounter with a potential Little Patuxent giant still has me shaking my head.  And cussing a little bit mainly at the little fish that struck just before the bigger smallmouth bass.

Weapons of choice. Old-school Hub's Chub
and Zara Puppy with a Mitchell 300, and a Daiwa
Tatula with Reaction Innovations swimbaits.

Blame Canada

Karen with the biggest fish of the trip --
a 22-inch walleye.

Road Trip No. 3 (for me) started Aug. 6 when I flew to Missoula, Mont., and Karen met me at the airport after she started driving out a little over a week prior.  It's kind of a tradition now to schedule a fishing trip during the middle of the return stint, and this year we went back to Rainy Lake on the Minnesota-Canada border to fish with Rainy Daze Guide Service like we did two years ago.

This time, it was a little different.  Because of that virus thing, Canada had made it difficult for American anglers to cross the border (no walls, no checkpoints, just open water) to fish.  When I scheduled the trip, Canada wasn't allowing ANY boats across the border.  By the time we got to Thunderbird Lodge on the following Wednesday, we learned from a couple other guides in the restaurant that Canada had just relaxed restrictions.  Some. Maybe.  American guides needed a work permit, which meant taking a full day to drive across the border, present the proper paperwork, and if all your I's were dotted and T's were crossed, you should be OK.  But that still usually meant a full day away from the water.

A Potomac-sized smallmouth followed us!

Wednesday morning, we met up with our guide Brent Amy at the lodge.  He's a seasonal guide and had his boat docked a little ways away and could just motor over to the lodge to pick us up.  Really convenient to just roll out of bed and wander down to the dock -- like a fishing Uber guide service!

Brent kind of echoed what we heard from the other guides the previous night, but he heard from his best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with a girl who is a Canadian official at the Thunder Bay office that it was OK for American boaters to cross the Rainy Lake border.  If they weren't guiding.  Or maybe it was alright?  Brent had decided that it wasn't worth the risk because worst-case scenario, the Canadians would confiscate his boat!  Maybe if the Canadiens had done better at hockey and didn't let a U.S. team beat them in the Stanley Cup Final, the folks north of the border would be more lenient.

The forecast looked OK for Wednesday morning -- high 70s to low 80s in temps and partly cloudy.  But the wind would play a big factor.  The choppy waters proved difficult to find fish and entice the bite.  The fish were there but they didn't seem to be hungry.  We were jigging leeches off the bottom in 30-plus feet of water.

I started off hooking the first fish and got it close to the surface, but it got off.  It looked like a really nice walleye, probably more than 25 inches.  Brent I think was more excited about it and speculated throughout the day that it may have been 28 or even 30 inches.

The bite throughout the day was spotty at best.  I caught four or five early while Karen didn't get anything.  I even caught a small northern pike and a Potomac-sized smallmouth bass.

We moved around to a few spots with limited success.  Karen finally got on board with some walleye and another smallmouth bass that seemed to have followed us from home. She even caught the biggest fish of this trip -- a 22-inch walleye.

Here's where the Canada complaints come to fruition.  Even though Rainy Lake is huge, only about 25 percent of it is on the U.S. side.  The Canadian side has more islands and coves which would have made it easier to hide from the wind and choppy waters.

We decided to go to plan B and try for crappie.  While they aren't big or good fighters, they are tasty panfish.  We anchored in a small cove and used small spinners.  Brent pulled out this contraption that looked like a massive ultrasound.  He mounted it to the side of the boat and could see the fish on a computer screen.  I don't know, I couldn't see anything, but he said the fish were there.  

I caught a decent sized crappie, which would be my last fish of the day.  Karen got one, too, then we moved to another spot.  She caught two more, and Brent caught a few using minnows.

Fresh fish is fantastic.  Not what you get from
the local grocery store.

Kind of bummed at the weather putting a damper on things, but we caught a few eater-sized walleye and crappie.  And the Thunderbird Lodge was great -- good selection of beers at the restaurant bar and walleye on the menu.  The walleye "taco" was fantastic!  We also had a great view of the water from our room and the lodge had real room keys!  Not some card that you swiped and swiped and swiped and hoped it worked, a real, actual room key that we haven't seen since maybe 1998.

Not sure what to do next year.  I keep wanting to try the Columbia or Snake rivers in Washington/Oregon.  We drove through trout territory in Montana, too, and hitting an isolated river or stream would be fun, too.  That's kind of a bucket list trip, to fly fish a "River Runs Through It" trickle of water with a chance of hooking a monster trout.

View of the Thunderbird Lodge docks, grey
clouds just passed through opening up sunlight.

Summer swimbait smallies

Always take a picture of the first fish, no matter
how small it is.  The Reaction Innovations
Little Dipper was the ticket over the weekend.

It's been a rough year fishing, in fact a rough couple of years.  Quite a few times fishing trips have ended without any fish.  Last weekend when Karen and I camped on the C&O Canal along the Potomac River, I had one swipe at Heddon Zara Puppy, and that was it!  

We camped again this weekend, and I didn't have any expectations.  There was some rain during the week, but otherwise, conditions were about the same, although temperatures were a bit cooler.  Sunday morning, water temp was actually a tick higher than air temperature.

On Saturday, I waded out in a spot that I don't usually fish hoping to change some luck.  This was the same section of the river where I caught a catfish on a topwater lure a few years ago.

After a few casts, a little smallmouth clamped onto a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper swimbait with furious anger.  These swimbaits are really simple to use -- cast, retrieve steadily through the water.  With a lightweight rod, they can even feel similar to a crankbait pulsing through the water.

Over the next hour or so, the Little Dipper enticed three more smallmouth.  Actually five total counting one that broke the line, and another that shrugged the lure free after leaping from the water.  The latter was likely a 14- or 15-inch fish.  And then another dink while fishing behind our camp site.

Every smallmouth fisherman loves to catch them little brown fish on a topwater lure.  I tried enticing bites, and despite all the conditions screaming TOPWATER, I didn't get a single bite.  Zara Puppy, Rapala X-Rap, Hubs Chub ... nothing.

I must be in the front row!  Rather than crunch-crunch-crunch
along the trail in the morning and waking up campers, drove
the super stealthy Crosstrek to the other end of the campground.
At 7 a.m., you get prime parking

Sunday morning, I returned to the same spot, and caught two more smallmouth.  Nothing of size, but at least it felt like the monkey was off my back.

I ended up landing seven smallmouth, all dinks but better than nothing.

Be sure to stay tuned to the blog because in just over a month, there might be another post.  Hopefully it doesn't rain on anybody's parade.

One topwater smallmouth is better than none caught on the bottom

Hitting the water for the first time in 2021.

If the first trip of 2021 is an indication of how the rest of the year is going to be, it will be awesome!

Or it will suck.

Maybe it will be awesome?

Karen and I camped overnight along C&O Canal Trail like we've done so many times to start fishing season (she calls it camping season, but whatevs).  Rain hit the area in the middle of the week and I expected a high Potomac River.  But monitoring the gauges throughout the week, it seemed like the water level would be OK.

Arriving at the camp site, the water was a bit higher than Thanksgiving Football Weekend, but not much.  It sure seemed safe for wading.  And I would strap on my new L.L. Bean wading boots purchased in part with a Christmas gift certificate.  These are really trick -- instead of traditional laces that are tied by hand, they are tightened with a "Boa closure" system that is snugged down by twisting a knob on the boots.  Tighten down, then pull the knob to loosen.  

New shoes and a new reel!

And also purchased in part with a Christmas gift certificate and using for the first time was my new Daiwa Tatula LT spinning reel.  As it turned out, the new reel caught no fish while a Mitchell 300 reel from the 1960s caught the only fish of the day!

The river was slightly higher than Thanksgiving Football Weekend and fairly clear.  The skies were partly cloudy, temps in the mid-60s, and the water temp was around 55 degrees.  It seemed like conditions were perfect.  Except the fish didn't cooperate.

I started behind the camp site and waded upriver.  Z-Man Finesse TRD worms, Reaction Innovations Little Dipper swimbaits and, because the water was high enough they shouldn't get snagged, Rapala Shadow Rap jerkbaits.  These are basically my go-to lures.  After two hours of fishing, they were no-go lures.  Not even a single bite.  I made the walk of shame back to the camp site.

Kind of regrouping with the sun sinking low, it seemed like a good time to try a topwater lure.  Actually, this time of year isn't ideal for topwater fishing.  But in my opinion, there is never a bad time  to try enticing a topwater smallmouth strike. If it's the middle of summer or the dead of winter, might as well try because anything can happen.

I lumbered down the bank behind the campsite and tossed a Heddon Zara Puppy in a bullfrog pattern.  This is my go-to topwater lure.  Even though it's a smaller version of the famous Zara Spook, it fires like a bullet and is easy to work in a "walk the dog" pattern.

After a few uneventful casts, I made a cast hoping to let the current steer the lure underneath some overhanging trees protruding from the shore.

Cast.

Plop.

First smallmouth bass and first
fish of 2021 ... on a Heddon Zara
Puppy ... in March.

Five seconds later, without even twitching the Zara Puppy, a fish smashed the lure like it was The Fourth of July when The Topwater Bite is on.  Not like late March when smallmouth bass are between winter slumber and spawning mode.

There was immediate tension on the other end, and the fight was on.  The fish thrashed on the surface, and I yelled for Karen, who I could see up the bank at our campsite.  It wasn't a huge smallmouth, but it was a good size by Potomac standards.

I had a blowup a couple casts later but that was it for the rest of the night, and I got skunked the next morning.  Still, getting the first catch of the year on a topwater lure is still pretty cool, especially considering it didn't seem -- by a long shot -- conditions were ideal.

Also kind of funny, I stopped by a flea market last week and stumped across a guy selling a new Zara Puppy, unopened, exactly like the one I used, for $5 in a bundle deal with a Rebel Wee Craw.  He also had a classic Mitchell 300 reel but it was basically just usable for parts, so I passed on that.

Hot Pockets! L.L. Bean Rapid River Fishing Vest Review

L.L. Bean Rapid River Vest Pack

River smallmouth fishermen share a lot in common with their trout-loving brethren.  Wading in rivers  searching for elusive fish, we all like to have all our gear at our fingertips instead of lugging around a tackle box that's parked on shore.  

However, one thing that stands out among the differences between us (heathen smallmouth fishermen) and them (snooty fly-tying trout fishermen) is the size of our equipment.  Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm talking about fishing tackle!  Where did you think I was going with this?  Let's get back on track -- smallmouth fishermen are going to have an arsenal of larger lures -- spinnerbaits, hardbaits (crankbaits, jerkbaits and topwaters), and jigs and small plastics that dwarf the size of of usual trout flies.

A few years ago I searched the interwebs for a fishing vest like what trout fisherman had but what could accommodate larger bass lures.  I bought a fishing vest that looked "right" as advertised on the web, but after trying it a few times concluded it was not functional for smallmouth fishing -- pockets were too small and didn't hold much tackle.  Christmas time was rolling around and I searched again online for an ideal fishing vest and came across L.L. Bean's Rapid River Vest Pack -- looked to be a good size with lots of storage space.  I put it on my Christmas list and Karen got it for me!

After two years of use, it has held up really well, so I thought I'd highlight some of the features and benefits.

The front pockets are ideal for storing
plastic containers for hardbaits and spinnerbaits

First off, it has a lot of pockets, so many that when I first started using the vest, I would forget where things were.  "Oh my Z-Man worms are in this pocket ... nope ... maybe this one ... nope ... oh here they are."  Or maybe I'm just getting old.  There are two zippered pouches on either side on the front, a zippered pouch on either side of those, and above each of them, a larger zippered pocket.  On the waistband, there are two more zippered pockets.  That makes 10 storage areas just on the front of the vest.

I finally have figured out how to keep track of where everything is -- pockets on the right have jigs and soft plastics, and on the left are larger spinnerbaits and hardbaits.  Or maybe it's the other way around?

But wait, there's more!

Flipping the vest reveals inside pockets with
soft mesh ideal for bulkier items like a cell phone,
small camera or extra spools.

On each inner flap on the front is another zippered pouch with stretchy mesh material that is ideal for holding bulkier items like cell phones, cameras and extra spools. One pouch has a heavy duty "ziplock" bag for keeping those electronic items dry. I use one pocket for a stringer with a thermometer attached for checking water temperature.

We're not done yet!

Even more storage space on the
back of the vest!

On the back of the vest are three -- yes, count 'em, three -- zippered pouches.  This is ideal for storing stuff in between fishing trips.  No need to hunt around the house for sunglasses or a fishing license or pliers or whatever -- I tuck those away in a pocket after each trip.

One of the pouches is suited for a water reservoir like a Camelbak (not included), and it has an opening for the "straw" to slide through for easy access to the front of the vest.

The vest is equipped for a bladder so you can stay
hydrated.

The L.L. Bean vest is lightweight with plenty of storage for river anglers. At $149, it's great for smallmouth fishermen and maybe even trout fishermen, and it comes in any color as long as it's green.