Black Friday? More like Good Friday!

A 20-inch Black Friday smallmouth!

Karen and I went camping along the C&O Canal for Thanksgiving, and I caught a good-sized walleye yesterday and a beast 20-inch smallmouth bass this morning!

She had made the reservations a couple weeks ago hoping the weather would be decent like it was a few years ago when we did the same thing during Covid. It looked like temperatures would be in the low 60s but high 30s overnight, so she bought a zero-degree sleeping bag a few days ago.

The only issue was we had two inches of rain go through the area Tuesday, so the level of the Potomac River was going to be up. How far? It looked like it got as high as six feet and was on a slow decline by the time we got to the campsite last night. The Shepherdstown gauge showed about five feet on weather.gov. 

I decided to leave the waders at home and fish from shore.

This time of year is iffy for smallmouth bass. With the colder water, they kind of go into a slumber and are difficult to entice. After catching that 22-inch walleye two weeks ago, I figured if I caught anything, it would again be walleye.

We got to the campsite around 5 p.m. and set things up. The sun was sinking below the trees, and I decided to hit the "easy button" and fish behind the campsite. I tied a Rapala Shadow Rap on one rod but instead of a swimbait on the other rod, I put on a Z-Man Finesse TRD Worm. My plan was to slowly drag or hop the worm on the bottom.

After some casts with the jerkbait, I switched to the rod with the TRD worm. 

And snagged leaves and debris on almost every cast. The Shadow Rap snagged some stuff, but it wasn't that bad. I gave up on the worm and switched to the ol' go-to Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.

Gobble gobble! A Thanksgiving walleye.

On the second cast, slowly reeling against the current, I had a hit! It felt like a good fish, and it was -- probably a keeper-sized (15-inch) walleye. Two walleye in two trips to the Potomac. I didn't have any way to measure it to confirm it was legal, so I threw it back.

Hoping there would be more, I cast fruitlessly for another 45 minutes or so and called it quits.

This morning, I reluctantly emerged from the zero-degree sleeping bag and fished the same spot behind our campsite with the Shadow Rap and Little Dipper swimbait. Nothing was doing, so I moved downstream near the confluence with Antietam Creek. No luck there either, so I moved downstream from the confluence to a spot where I caught the "battered bass" a few years ago. That was earlier in the season, but the river was also flowing higher than normal like today, so maybe a fish was waiting again.

I didn't get anything with either lure and decided to switch from the Little Dipper back to the TRD worm. This area has a point of rocks and vegetation that protrudes out into the river and breaks the flow. Lots of stuff gets caught up there, and I was guessing maybe there wouldn't be as much debris downstream.

On the second cast, I felt something scoop the worm up, and I yanked back on the rod. This felt like a nice fish, and I had walleye on my mind.

The fish jumped -- it was no walleye but instead was a smallmouth bass. It jumped again -- it was a BIG smallmouth! The fish was putting up a good tussle, then started pulling downstream. There was a tree and vegetation in the way, so I didn't have a clear path to get the fish to shore. Sure enough, the smallmouth got into the grass and weeds, and I thought for sure it was going to free itself. I was using my lighter Daiwa Tatula rod/reel setup with six-pound line.

Fortunately, I pulled the fish from the weeds and landed it. With my hands shaking, I took a couple pictures and then a video as I released it back into the water. 

I didn't have any way to measure the fish but took a picture next to the rod. On the photo at the top, you can see a solid black portion of the rod blank just in front of the foam. From where the black fades out to the criss-cross pattern to the rod butt is 20-1/4 inches. It's not hard to speculate that was a 20-inch fish.

The smallmouth briefly got hung up in these weeds.

I was hoping some of its buddies were in the area but if they were, they weren't interested in anything I had.

So while two fish over about four hours between two days doesn't seem like much, I think for the time of the year and that the smallmouth was likely bigger than my previous Potomac best, I'd say it was a win.

As for camping, there are 20 sites at Antietam Creek Campground. Karen and I were the only ones there. We had the whole place to ourselves. No squatters in our site, no bawling kids, no adults not acting their age. Definitely a win.

We had the whole campground to ourselves.

Fish don't care that it's raining because they are already wet

Personal best Potomac walleye, 22 inches!

Since I had the day off for Veterans Day (I'm a veteran so I should have the day off anyway), I was figuring out how to occupy myself during the day. The weather has been great the past few weeks -- around 70 degrees and sunny -- but as I was looking ahead the past few days at the forecast for today, it was projected to be mid-50s and rainy.

Not ideal conditions, but the fish don't care if it's raining because they're already wet.

I trekked up to Dam 4 on the Potomac River since I haven't been to that section in awhile. I was hoping for some smallmouth bass but this area sometimes surprises with walleye.

I got there around 9:15 a.m. and at first it didn't look like anybody was around. But after I waded into the water below the dam, I saw somebody else fishing on the small island just below the dam. It looked like he had come over from the West Virginia side with a kayak. Somebody else with the bright idea of fishing in the rain!

To start things off, I tied on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, basically my go-to lure. After one hit in about 10 casts, a shallow-running Rapala Shadow Rap went on my other rod. Speaking of "go-to" lures, Shadow Raps are my go-to jerkbait -- they have been great since the first time I used them, and enticed my first 20-inch smallmouth bass to bite one. I would fish with them more often, but in shallow waters, they are more of a danger to snag. At $10 a pop, I'm always tentative using them.

However this morning, the first cast with the Shadow Rap, I had a hit. This felt like a nice fish, but it was using the river current to its strength. Got the fish closer and saw it was a about a 13-inch smallmouth bass, although fairly chunky.

The first dam fish of the day.

A few casts later, another smallmouth bit the Shadow Rap just as I was pulling the lure out of the water. Although it was only pushing 12 inches, it also had some girth. The smallmouth are likely fattening themselves up before wearing their savage face of cold.

After landing two smallmouth bass in about 20 minutes, I didn't even have a hit for almost two hours afterward. I moved down river, tried a few areas below some protruding rocks that were creating small pools and breaks ... and nothing.

Fall is in full swing along the Potomac River.

That's why they call it "fishing" and not "catching."

At this point, I was thinking of leaving but decided to try below the dam again. I hiked up the C&O Canal Trail and waded to about the same spot where I caught the two smallmouth bass earlier. For some reason, I kept getting bird's nests on the spinning reel with the Shadow Rap and had to strip line and re-tie. Now I didn't have enough line on the spool to cast! So my only option was the other rod with the Little Dipper.

After a handful of casts, I had one hit on the swimbait. After that, I kept peppering the area with casts and was about ready to call it quits. Not quite, "Just one more cast," but it was close to that.

Then something slammed the swimbait. It felt like a nice fish, but the 13-inch smallmouth from earlier felt like it was bigger, so I was skeptical at first.

This fish kept tugging and tugging. Without my sunglasses and their assistance of polarized lenses to cut the glare off the water, it was hard to make out what kind of fish it was as it got into visual range. It wasn't football shaped like a smallmouth.

"Oh man, I hope it's not a catfish."

Then I saw the gold coloring and recognized it was a walleye, and a good-sized one at that! I cradled it out of the water and immediately saw it was big enough to keep (the minimum in Maryland is 15 inches), so I put it on a stringer and ended the day fishing right there.

In case you've stumbled across this blog for some reason -- maybe a fan of my Camaro autocross blog? -- and don't know anything about fish, walleye are one of the best tasting freshwater fish on the planet. 

Of course there wasn't nobody around to see me as I went back to my truck. When I get skunked, there are always people along the trail asking, "How'd ya do?" "Ya catch anything?" I usually keep my head down and try not to make eye contact in those cases. But here I was lugging a hefty walleye, and nobody was around to see it.

After getting home, I measured and weighed the fish -- 22 inches and 3.7 pounds! At least length wise, it was my biggest fish from the Potomac.

Although Karen and I caught a bunch of walleye on Rainy Lake a few months ago, this was my first Potomac walleye since 2020.

If you've stuck around this far, here's a bonus video releasing the first smallmouth.