White men can't jump, and neither can walleye

Woody the Walleye can't jump.

Despite only catching two fish on the Upper Potomac this weekend, the fishing on the river might be better than last year?  I think.  We'll see.  The weather certainly has been less unpredictable with average rains and no sudden surges to the river level, unlike last year.

With that in mind, and me struggling to maintain focus on the LS swap in my 1982 Camaro (Fish?  Work on the car?  Fish?  Oh I can't fish for fun because of a pandemic.), the camping restrictions were lifted in Maryland, and Karen was back to her old SCCA Pro Solo self hitting F5 to reserve a spot on the C&O Canal Trail.

We got to our reserved spot yesterday around 3 p.m., and par for the course, found some squatters on our campsite.  They weren't around but had left their stuff on the site's picnic table.  Mmmmm, potato salad from Trader Joes that has been sun roasted while sitting on the picnic table for who knows how long ... I'm sure that will be great!

After unloading the car, Karen set up camp while I went fishing.  I hiked up to The Plateau, and wading into the water, the river looked murky -- visibility only a couple of feet -- and wasn't down yet to typical summer flow levels.  I made some casts with a Bio Bait DNA swimbait and had two hookups in the same spot.  Each fish jumped and shook the lure.  Both were smallmouth bass, maybe the same fish? They bit in the exact same spot.  It's rare for me to get a smallmouth on the line, get loose and have it hit again.

I tried a spinnerbait on my other rod but after some uneventful casts decided to switch lures to a Rebel Wee R shallow running crankbait.  The same lure I caught my biggest fish ever and my biggest smallmouth from the Little Patuxent River.  My spinning reel had a loop in the fishing line on the spool, and I basically cast the little crankbait out  to get the line straight.  But something tugged on the other end while reeling in.  I set the hook and -- thinking I had hooked another smallmouth, tried playing the fish to keep it from breaching and freeing itself like the previous two fish.

A tiny mushroom ... or a large maple seed.  Just behind our campsite.

The fish didn't jump, and as it got closer I saw why.  It was a walleye.  They are like Woody Harrelson from that 1990s movie -- they can't jump.

It was also far from legal size, so off it went to get bigger.  Good luck on learning how to jump.

After all that in 30 minutes or so, there was zero fish activity after that.  Nothing until I watched a smallmouth bass clamp down on a Bio Bait swimbait right in front of me and immediately spit it out.

Back at the campsite -- the same area where I first tried the Z-Man TRD finesse worm a few years ago -- another smallmouth hit the Bio Bait swimbait, jumped, and shook the lure.  After some casts, I moved a little upriver, then shuffled back down, and another smallmouth clamped on at the same spot as the earlier hookup.  It jumped and looked like the same fish!  Maybe 14 inches, a Potomac lunker for sure.  After the second jump, the line snapped.  That made it three smallmouth unhooking themselves, one spitting the lure out immediately, and one fish getting away because the fishing line snapped.  But there was that one Woody Walleye that couldn't jump.

Nothing after that, and I even tried after the sun dipped below the trees.

In the morning, the tweeting birds woke me up, and I fished behind the campsite again.

Nothing.

Hiking down to mile marker 69, this spot always has looked fishy.  It always does.  One of those things where it should be a prime spot, and it never is.  A fish or two here and there but no where close to prime fish real estate.

Three pictures of the natural dam, and damn if it would
only attract some fish.

Fast water into slack water, seemingly with multiple ambush points.   Several pools and eddies which look like spots where no smallmouth bass river fisherman should pass up.

This morning, more of the same.  Not one bite.

Finally, a smallmouth bass.

Back at the campsite, Karen and I heated maple sausage and scrambled eggs.  Afterwards, I decided to test out my patience with a baitcaster and a spinnerbait behind the campsite.  Not my favorite combination because I'm still trying to get the hang of baitcasting reels, and spinnerbaits don't seem to produce much for me.

So some casts.  Nothing.

A bird's nest, sorted out and some more casts.

Nothing.

OK, one more cast.

And a fish hit!  If I didn't see and land the fish, I would have sworn it was at least 14 inches, that's how much of a tug it was.  But it was maybe 11 inches, if that.  

That made it two fish for the weekend.  Looking back on my fishing log (not blog, an actual log I have been keeping the last few years), I made four trips to the Potomac at this point last year and only caught one smallmouth.  Now it's one trip with a smallmouth and a walleye.  Maybe it will better this time around.

While the fish didn't cooperate much this weekend, we saw lots of birds tweeting around our campsite.  Bluebirds, yellow finches, among others we don't usually see at the backyard bird feeder.