A tale of three fishies

The fog was thick on Sunday morning!

I didn't realize it's been more than a year since I posted here. The reason? I have either caught nothing on my fishing trips or landed only a single dink, and nobody wants to see another picture of a dink smallmouth.

Last week, Karen and I camped on the Upper Potomac River at Fifteen Mile Creek Campground, and I caught that single dink smallmouth. Rain had come through the area, and the river was higher than normal and flowing really fast. I've always found it difficult fishing faster-moving water because the lure gets swept through target areas fairly quickly.

This is my dink smallmouth. There are many like it but this one is mine. My dink smallmouth is my best friend.

I found a slow-moving spot off current and caught the above fish on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper. No other bites or anything.

This weekend, we camped at Antietam Creek Campground. The river had gone down to normal level, and on Saturday night with the sun dipping below the trees, I caught this smallmouth bass on a Heddon Zara Puppy.

The sundown Saturday night smallmouth bass.

Probably 14 inches, possibly pushing 15!

Sunday morning, I hit the confluence of Antietam Creek and the Potomac. The fog was THICK until about 9 a.m.

I had snagged a Little Dipper, waded upriver to free it, and on the second cast after, I thought the lure was snagged again. But then the fish quickly broke the surface. It put up a good fight, and fortunately didn't start burrowing into the rocky bottom.

The sunrise Sunday morning smallmouth bass.

This smallmouth was a little bigger than the one from Saturday night, and I caught it in an area just before a line of shallow riffles. Same general as the battered bass from a few years ago and the 20-inch Black Friday smallmouth.

I don't think I have caught any decent size smallmouth bass in more than a year, but now I had two in two days! I guess it makes up for the handful of times I have gotten absolutely skunked.

I've probably mentioned it before, but I remove the rear treble on the Zara Puppy and other hardbody lures. It seemed as if smallmouth were NEVER hooked by the trailing treble. In fact, I probably got hooked more by that treble as the fish thrashed around in my hand. Or the hook went into a delicate spot, like near a fish's eye. The only fish that would get hooked would be sunfish or failfish, and the treble hook is difficult to remove from their tiny mouths.

I remove the rear treble on most of my stick baits. They are only good at impaling me and smaller fish. Nearly every smallmouth bass I catch is hooked on the lead treble.

So that's my fishing tip for the day.

Here are a few bonus pics:

The Antietam Creek Aqueduct on Sunday morning.

The Fifteen Mile Creek Aqueduct on Sunday morning from last week.

A C&O Canal lockhouse. Some of these are available for rent!