Launched out of the water like an ICBM

Good morning Potomac River!

It wasn't quite "one more cast" time, but it was getting close.  Karen was fishing about a mile downriver, and she texted me asking when I wanted to leave.  It was close to noon, so I figured I'd start wading back toward the shore.

It was a cloudless sky over the Upper Potomac, with the water flowing as low and clear as I've seen it all year.  I caught four smallmouth bass already -- one about 12 inches -- but it was a fairly slow morning after three-plus hours in the water.

I started firing a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper back toward shore, near the exact spot where I caught a chunky smallmouth just under 13 inches at the beginning of July.  One cast, two casts ... nothing.

First fish of the day, a skinny smallmouth
almost 12 inches.

Then the third cast, there was a hit on the other end.  It didn't feel like a big fish, so I started to quickly crank on my Pfluegger Patriarch mated to a 6'8" medium St. Croix Avid rod.

Sometimes, when smallmouth bass hit a swimbait, they don't attack it with ferocity.  They clamp on and just casually keep moving the same direction the swimbait is moving.  I could see the fish, and it was doing exactly that -- just swimming in the same direction as the lure.  It didn't look very big.

But then it must have noticed me or just figured something wasn't right.  It launched out of the water like an ICBM, but it wasn't a dink smallmouth!  It was pushing 16 inches easily!  It jumped again maybe 10 feet in front of me, and I wrestled it closer.  It shook it's head, and the swimbait went flying through the air about five feet to my left.  I thought the fish had spit the lure, but then I saw the jighead was still in its lower jaw.

The outer edge of The Plateau.  It's knee deep almost
to the middle of the river until this point, then it drops
off gradually to waist deep.

Now the fish was in full angry smallmouth mode thrashing at the surface of the water next to my knees.  Tried grabbing it, and the fish wasn't going to let that happen.  Finally I grabbed the line just above the jighead and hoisted the fish out of the water.  It gave one more shake, and that's what let the fish go to freedom.  "Splash" and the fish was gone.

It would have been nice to measure the smallmouth since my personal best on the Potomac is 16 inches (twice).  I think it was right there with those other two fish.

So leading up that, as I mentioned before, I caught four smallmouth.  Two on a "Rat Ta Tat" Whopper Plopper, one on a campground tube, and one on a Z-Man Finesse TRD Worm.  Interesting to use four different lures to hook five fish.

The smallmouth on the Z-Man worm was funny.  I saw some smallmouth bass cruising in front of me and cast the worm out a little ways and bounced it along the bottom.  I saw one of the bass turning toward the worm, and then I lost sight of him.  Then there was tension on the line.  It wasn't a big fish, but it was still fascinating to watch.

Karen was about a mile downriver trying to catch legal-sized walleye but only caught one smallmouth on a swimbait, but had a few hookups on a Whopper Plopper.