Dogs and catfish

Cute ... until they became annoying.

All three smallmouth looked
like this.  In fact, I think
the second and third ones may
have been the same fish!

I fished this morning at my secret spot on the Little Patuxent River catching three wee smallmouth bass and a catfish.  The first smallmouth hit (that's being generous) a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm, while the rest of the fish were caught on a Reaction Innovations swimbait.  The catfish hit the swimbait just as it hit the water, so I figured it was a smallmouth.  At least catfish fight better than failfish.

I mentioned before that Bass Pro Shops has a swimbait that looks really similar to the RI plastic lure. I used the RI swimbaits last week and this week, and I think they have a little more action than the BPS Sassy Sally.

Also, my last trip to the secret spot, I encountered a couple dogs -- one male that looked kind of like a pit bull and a female that looked like a mutt.  This time, after fishing for about an hour, I heard barking and three puppies (maybe six months old?) came bounding out of the woods and barking.  They seemed friendly but still puppies.  One tried jumping on me when I reached down to pet it.

"OK, fine, I'll continue fishing."

Then one tried to grab my water bottle and another started going through my tackle bag.  After buttoning everything up, I went back to fishing.  And they continued to bark, and then one tried to grab my tackle bag.

"OK, fine, I'll move somewhere else."

Mr. Whiskers returns!

The dogs followed me as I stumbled through the woods and weeds.  Tried shoo-ing them away and telling them to stay, but they stayed on my trail.  I picked up speed and thought I lost them as I reached one of the other nice spots for fishing in the area, but no, here they came again. Then started barking again.

I had enough at this point and took off as fast as I could (lots of thorny plants here, too).  Going through dense cover hoping the dogs couldn't make it through or get discouraged, they finally lost interest, I guess.

So what I had planned to be a two- to three-hour fishing trip turned into about a 90-minute trip because of somebody's stupid dogs.  I probably won't go back there for awhile.

The Potomac River kicked my ass this weekend

At the end of the branch with no leaves in the lower
half of the picture is a bald eagle.  He didn't catch
anything either.

Not a good weekend of fishing.  Saturday night, I went to Dam 4 and sweated my ass off for a few hours and didn't catch anything.  A 11- to 12-inch smallmouth clamped onto a swimbait for a few seconds, jumped then freed itself about eight feet away from me. No other bites before that, and only one other bite after that.

Five-plus hours of fishing this weekend, and this was my trophy.

This morning, I went to Taylor's Landing bright and early and only sweated half my ass off.  After the first hour, I finally caught one smallmouth that was around 10 inches.  And that was it for actually landing fish.  A couple more hits, even a follow on a swimbait from a fish that I am pretty sure was a small walleye.  Around 9:30 a.m., the sun started peaking over the trees and bathing the entire river in its warm glow which did wonders for the humidity, so I called it quits.

Swimbaits, Z-Man TRD Finesse worms, Bass Pro Shops Stik-O worms, some topwater (topwater bite has been almost nonexistent for me this year, yet still I try), a Rapala Shadow Rap (which I lost, exact same lure that a 20-inch Susquehanna smallmouth liked so much in April) ... nothing seemed to work.

Did I mention it was hot as balls?  I fished mainly in areas right below riffles and could only manage to land that one smallmouth.

A nice morning drive to go fishing

The confluence of the Middle Patuxent and Little Patuxent Rivers.

This morning was a fishing trip a little closer to home -- the Little Patuxent River.  I had not been on the river since last month punctuating my quest of catching smallmouth bass on four rivers in five days.  This time instead of my usual "hot spots," I tried near Savage Mill.

A nice pool where I caught a trout last year ...
but nothing this time.

I fished this area once last year and caught a rainbow trout on a Rebel Wee-Craw, of all things.  What I discovered then was that while I rarely see anybody else fishing on the Little Patuxent in other spots, this place is pretty crowded.

Same thing today.  There's trail access in a park near Savage Mill (everybody parks on the bridge at Savage Mill) and as I wandered downriver, I saw two people fishing.  Then I got to the spot where I caught the trout last year and started fishing and saw two more people on the other side of the river armed with fishing rods.  So four people fishing even before I put a line in the water.

Like yesterday, I alternated between one rod with a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm and another with a Bass Pro Shops Sassy Sally swimbait.  But no luck in this section, not even a nibble.

I remembered there was another big pool just downriver, so I hoofed it that way.  And sure enough, there was somebody else already fishing there.  Figuring it would only get more crowded further downriver, I headed back upriver and found a nice pool below the confluence of the Little Patuxent and Middle Patuxent.

First fish -- a12-inch smallmouth.

First cast with the swimbait upriver, and there was a really hard tug on the end of the line -- fish on!  The fish jumped, and it looked like a decent smallmouth.  The fish stayed on so I could hoist it out of the water -- measured just above 12 inches.  Like I've said, it's always nice to catch a legal smallmouth, especially in this river.

It's worth noting that I had zero action until this point.  No bites or nibbles but then hooked into a legal-sized smallmouth on the first cast in this section of the river.

But that was here -- maybe that smallmouth bass was apex predator for this area -- and I wandered back upriver.

The river is kind of a misnomer, I think.  It's more like a creek.  Really shallow this time of year, and this area was a minefield of protruding rocks.  Most of it isn't ideal for fishing unless you want to toss a lure at each of the hundreds of rocks that scatter the river floor.

Moving on, I found another pool of water that looked decent.  I had a hit on the swimbait when I tossed it downriver, but couldn't get anything to clamp on.  After several casts and nothing, I threw the swimbait upriver and had a hit.  Kind of.  It was a smallmouth but maybe six inches.  Must have been hungry.

Rare for me to catch a green sunfish.

After that and no more action on the swimbait, the switch to the Z-Man worm got me something I don't think I've caught on the river before -- a green sunfish.  Usually, the sunfish I catch on the Little Patuxent and even the Potomac are redbreast sunfish.  A small fish but nice to see something different.

And that was it for this section.  I thought there was a big pool further upriver, and walked up scouting the river.  More of the same minefield of large, scattered rocks in close quarters.  It's really scenic but I don't think good areas for holding Mr. Smallmouth.

I finally found a section that looked OK.  Not great, but one of those things where I walked long enough and decided to settle on something.

I tried the swimbait first and felt a tap on the end of the line.  No fish, so I figured it was just the jig hitting a rock.  But then I saw a fish behind the lure, and it grabbed the swimbait.  The fish jumped once revealing it was a smallmouth.  It fought hard so it seemed like a decent fish, but when I hoisted it out of the water, it probably measured 10 inches.  But that's the thing with smallmouth bass -- they think they are bigger than they actually are!

I usually have two rods so it's easier to switch
between presentations.

That was it for the day, but not too shabby for a couple of hours on a little river that flows through D.C.-Baltimore gridlock.  One legal-sized smallmouth, two other smallmouth and a rare (for me) green sunfish.

Funny that as I was leaving and driving over the bridge at Savage Mill, I saw three more people heading to the river with fishing rods.  If you like people, this is the place for you.  But if you go fishing to get away from people, maybe not.

Four dinks

Potomac River downriver from Taylor's Landing.

Went back to the Taylor's Landing boat ramp on the Upper Potomac today.  This was the same area I fished a month ago when I got six smallmouth and my first Potomac rock bass.

Bass Pro Shops Sassy Sally on top, Reaction Innovations
Little Dipper on the bottom.  Sally is a little longer and skinnier
and the Little Dipper is slightly chunkier and
more pronounced ribbing on top.

I ran out of the "hot" color swimbait that worked really well last week, but a new shipment wasn't scheduled to arrive until Monday.  Earlier in the week when I was at Bass Pro Shops at Arundel Mills Mall, I found a really similar swimbait at Bass Pro Shops and bought a pack of those in the "Houdini" pattern.  They are slightly more slender and have a slightly different profile, but they seemed like a good alternative.

I hit the water around 8:30 a.m. and started with a topwater lure -- a Heddon Super Spook Jr.  A few fish swiped at the lure, but none of them clamped on.  I think a couple of them were sunfish.

Then I tried the new swimbait and had a fish on the first cast!  Reeling the fish in, it felt like a decent size ... but then freed itself.  This would be a recurring theme throughout the day.

No more luck for a little while, and I switched to my rod with a Z-Man TRD Finesse worm (click that link ... maybe they will start giving me a discount on the worms!).  Again, first cast, just as the worm hit the water, there was a fish on!  Reeling the fish in, it felt OK again -- nothing like the 16-incher from last week -- and then -- poof! -- it was gone like Keyzer Soze.

Fishing that same area for a little while with no action, I said, "Just one more cast."  How many times do you say that and nothing happens?  This time, a fish clamped on to the worm and stayed hooked.  It was probably around 11 inches.  No picture because my Canon S90 thought the battery was dead, and my phone was in a pocket of my shorts (wearing chest waders), and the fish was hooked pretty deep.  After some work, the hook came out thankfully with no blood.  I'm sure the fish didn't like it, though!

I think this was the third fish.

I waded downriver and alternated between the rod with the swimbait and the one with the Z-Man worm.  Not a lot of action.  Had a couple more fish on that managed to free themselves after reeling them in for a few seconds.  Finally I landed two dink smallmouth within three casts using a Z-Man worm.  A few minutes after that, casting upriver and working the worm back, another fish was on!  This time it got within sight -- maybe a 12-inch smallmouth? -- but then it came unhooked.

By this time, it was around 10 a.m. and the clouds were starting to clear.  I started wading back upriver this time with a "Money Shot Green" Reaction Innovations swimbait (they have great names for their colors) instead of the Bass Pro Shops swimbait.  I caught one really small smallmouth on the swimbait, but that was it.  Other than two hookups again where the fish got off.  <Grumble, grumble.>

A review of the Sassy Sally versus the Little Dipper: The Sassy Sally's action is a really good imitation of the Little Dipper, almost exactly the same  They are cheaper per pack -- and come in a pack of 10 compared to nine of the Little Dippers -- and I don't have to pay for shipping since they are a 10-minute drive away.  The only question now is how they compare on durability.  The Little Dippers usually only lasted through three or four fish, so there wasn't enough action today to see how the Sassy Sallys held up.