When the going gets tough, it's time to go somewhere else

Monocacy Aqueduct viewing from the middle of the
Potomac River.

Karen and I started off the morning fishing on the Potomac at Point of Rocks.  I had only fished here twice and not yet this year, so I figured it might be nice to try something different.

Because of the nice weather, the parking lot was almost full by the time we showed up around 8 a.m.  Mostly bikers, hikers and non-fishing kayakers.

I found a spot below the Route 15 bridge that looked rather fishy with a dam of rocks stretching almost the entire river.  The only fish here were sunfish, though.  I caught two redbreast sunfish and had numerous pesky nibbles on a Z-Man Finesse TRD Worm.  Nothing on a Whopper Plopper, swimbait or spinnerbait.

Karen had moved somewhere upriver, and about 20 minutes after she left, the creepers showed up.  Creepers are other fishermen who creep into your fishing space.  One of them started fishing from shore, and his buddy went upriver about equally as far away from me.  Then downriver creeper started making his way into the water.  A little while later, he was easily within casting distance.  I couldn't go further out into the river because it looked to be too deep, and I couldn't wade upriver because creeper buddy was holding station.

I don't understand this shit.  Gigantic river and you start fishing where somebody else is already.

It was time to move on.  I waded back to shore and got up to the C&O Canal Trail to, um, empty my waders after a, um, swimming incident caused by a slippery rock.

Karen texted me and said she as about done because she couldn't find a good place to fish from shore.

It as only around 11 a.m., so since the weather was nice, I wanted to continue fishing.  Since I picked Point of Rocks, she had to choose the next spot.  She picked the Monocacy Aqueduct, and we were off in the back roads of Maryland farm country.

Thankfully when we got to the Monocacy, nobody else was fishing.  Just a few boats in the distance.

This was the same area I fished in early June where I caught eight fish near downed trees along shore.  As luck would have it, that tree formation was still there, so I headed in that direction.

The smallmouth trees as they appeared last time I was
here.  It looked really similar today, just not as
many leaves.

After three casts, I had three smallmouth bass on a Z-Man worm.  Nothing big, though, but they were behaving like typical river smallmouth -- fighting above their weight class.

I decided to scale up the lure to a spinnerbait -- you know, maybe get a bigger fish?  Of course the first fish to clamp on was another redbreast sunfish.  So much for sizing up. 

After that, the bite slowed way down.  Switching between the Z-Man worm and spinnerbait for the next couple hours, I caught three more smallmouth and two more sunfish.  One smallmouth measured just a tick above 12 inches.

The fish weren't found as close to the trees as they were in June, but it appears they use the trees as ... I don't know, maybe just a point of reference?  My opinion is river smallmouth cruise between hot spots looking for food, especially a bigger river like the Potomac.

And what has been going on lately, I had a fish that probably would have been the biggest of the day unhook itself.  Wading out to a large rock formation protruding from the water in the middle of the river, I cast a TRD worm up against the rock.  Felt a hit and set the hook -- fish on!  Trying to keep the fish from jumping and trying to keep it from burrowing down in the shallow, rock-laden bottom as a struggle.  Finally the fish jumped, and it looked like an easy 14-inch smallmouth.  Probably a little bigger.  But the hook flew out of the fish's mouth at the peak of the jump.

Karen caught a smallmouth and two sunfish that she figured were actually the same fish.  So it was nice to salvage the day after not having much luck at Point of Rocks.

Sorry, no fish pictures.  I tried to take a couple but the fish were having none of it.