Fishing's fun until other people show up

Massive downed tree that looks like it fell several years ago.

Karen and I went to the Upper Potomac this morning to the same area where I missed The One That Got Away two weeks ago.  Monitoring the river gauges, the water had spiked at Paw Paw from rain on Thursday and Friday, so it would be a race to see if we could get to the river before the water was unfishable.

And we just made it.  Barely.  The depth was a foot higher than normal compared to two weeks ago, but the clarity was pretty good.

I fished for maybe an hour and didn't get a thing.  Not even a nibble. Then finally got a dink smallmouth.  And then nothing.

I abandoned Karen and hiked the C&O Trail to the spot where I lost The One That Got Away.  Seemed like a good idea -- caught some fish two weeks ago, missed a big one.

Second smallmouth, a chunky 11 inches.

And today in that exact same spot, what happened?

Nothing.  No fish or even a nibble.  Using the exact same lures.  That's why they call it "fishing" and not "catching."

I moved down to another spot that, when I was here two weeks ago, yielded nothing.

So what happened today?

Three hits on the first three casts up against a weedbed.  I landed one fish -- about 11 inches -- and had a 12-incher get off right before landing it.  Then a little while later, two more fish.

And then like an on/off switch, the bite switched off.

I went back down the trail where Karen was fishing.  This is an almost treacherous area for wading because of the large rocks and hidden trenches.  I've fished this area before when the water was lower but didn't feel comfortable today venturing too far out from shore.

I found a pool down from a partially submerged rock.  Casting a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper and dragging it back parallel to the rock didn't get ... anything.

Then I switched to my St. Croix Avid-X rod with a Z-Man Finesse TRD worm and had a hit.  Next cast, another hit.  Next cast, another hit and I saw the line going upriver and could see a nice smallmouth bass just below the surface.  It tugged back, and I fought it out of the current -- the fish jumped and easily was in the 14-to-15-inch range.  And then it got off the hook.

I stood in the flowing water for 30 minutes after that and had a few more hits but could only land a dink smallmouth.

Then the people who have no sense for personal space showed up to "party" on the river.  At least a casting distance away, they made their home on a rock.  Yay, let's go swimming in the bacteria-infested river!  Then more people armed with their buckets and fishing rods started making their way out to the river.  No place else for them to go but to where I was standing.  I deal with 300+ people a week, and now on a calm Sunday morning I would have to deal with more.  No thanks.

Karen managed to catch one smallmouth while I caught five.