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.