April recaps

I started this blog in June but had been keeping sort of a journal on my fishing expeditions since the early part of the year.  These are the ones from April.

April 18-19: Antietam Creek.  I had fished this particular section of the Antietam once before, last year, and I only caught a small smallmouth on a beetle spin.  Karen and I were camping, and the Potomac was too high and fast for much of anything, so I decided to try the creek again.

I walked down to the aqueduct just before the mouth of the Potomac and spotted a fish right along the bank sunning itself.  It looked brown ... could it be a smallmouth?  I stealthily walked down and made a few casts until I got a tube bait right in front of the fish's nose.  Nothing.  Hmm, maybe that isn't a smallmouth after all.  I inched closer down the bank and got a better look.  It was a dumb carp.  You can't spell carp without C-R-A-P.  Of course, maybe it wasn't so dumb because it didn't bite my lure, but a bunch of smallmouth later did!

I made some casts in that area with a 2.75" tube bait with a Confidence Baits Draggin' Head and didn't get anything.  Tried a yellow 1/8oz Rooster Tail on my other rod and got nothing.  So I walked up the creek some more until I got just before the bridge that crosses the creek.  The water was shallow and fast moving, over rocks -- nowhere really for any fish to hide -- so I walked back the other way until I got to a large tree where the water got a bit deeper.  I made some casts again with the tube bait then the Rooster Tail and didn't get anything.

There were two split trees that extended out over the water about 40 feet downstream (or is that "down creek"?), so I walked down to them.  The lower part of the trunks ran horizontally out over the water for a couple feet and it was easy to walk out until the trees started extending up.  

An 11" Antietam smallmouth.

And this was a honey hole.  The water ran fast just in front of the trees but it slowed down in break to create a small pool by the shore.  I fished here for an hour or so and caught three smallmouth, all in the 10" to 12" range. One was on the yellow Rooster Tail (second cast, fish hit just after the lure hit the water) and two on the tube bait. But was getting way more action on the tube bait but just not much success on hooking fish.  I actually modified the setup later so instead of a weedless rig, the tip of the hook just barely protruded out of the bait.

The 14-inch smallmouth.

I fished this area until I stopped getting bites, moved along and came back later to catch some more fish.  The next morning, I made a beeline to the spot and caught three smallmouth, again in the 10" to 12" range.  I moved along with no luck and came back later to catch two more smallmouth, one measuring 14".

For the weekend, I caught seven fish in this spot and had several misses, mainly with the tube bait.  I caught one other smallmouth in another section and had one miss on a Rooster Tail (fish followed it and bit just as I was pulling the lure out of the water), then I lost one right by the aqueduct on the Rooster Tail. 

The fish weren't very big but smallmouth are awesome to catch.  They are the Roy Jones Jr. of the fish world because they are probably the best pound-for-pound fighters out there!

April 24: Little Patuxent River (Guilford Road).  I scouted this area a couple days before between stops in the tool truck.  It looked "fishy" but I wasn't sure of the what/if on what kind of fish could be found.  Looking on the Maryland DNR's angler's log on the web site, there had been reported catches of trout, bass, catfish, shad ... well, you name it.  But no idea if they were caught in that section.

Three Little Patuxent rainbows!

I decided to hit the section like I did last week on Antietam Creek -- one medium rod with a Mitchell 300 and a 2.75" tube bait on a Draggin' Head and a lighter rod with a Mitchell 308 and a 1/8-ounce Rooster Tail.  I walked down a little more than a half mile until I was within sight of two tall overpasses for I-95.  I found a fairly fast section that looked like it had some nice ambush spots for fish behind rocks.  Made a few casts with the tube bait and got a couple small nibbles.  Like the fish was just trying to bite the tail section, but they wouldn't really take it.  I switched to the Rooster Tail on the lighter rod and hooked a silvery fish after a few casts.  It came off just as it got near the surface ... was that a ... trout?  Whatever it was, it was decent size.  Two casts later, I hooked and landed what looked like the same fish!  A rainbow trout measuring 14 inches!  Not huge but the biggest trout I ever caught.  The Maryland DNR has a fairly aggressive stocking program this time of year, so with that in mind, I decided to keep it (and make Karen happy since she always wonders why I don't keep fish to eat).

I ended up with two more rainbows in different sections upstream, and also a sub-10" smallmouth that I caught in the same section I caught a rainbow.  Everything was caught on the Rooster Tail, although I switched from yellow to white after getting my first one snagged.  But I kept getting nibbles on the tube bait.  When I filleted the trout when I got home, it looked like they had been feasting on hellgrammites, so if I go back, I might try the darkest colored Little Tubes from Confidence Baits with their 1/8oz Draggin' Heads.  

I was pretty stoked thinking about the past week -- 12 fish total, nine smallmouth and three trout!  I'm pretty sure I haven't had those types of numbers since fishing for bluegill and crappie at Hanscom Park 30 years ago!  And, unlike fishing at Hanscom, all were caught with lures and not just throwing a bobber out with a worm or minnow.