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| A 20-inch smallmouth? If not, it was really close and easily my personal best on the Potomac. |
Possibly a 20-inch smallmouth on the Potomac? If not, really, really close.
Headed up last night to meet with Karen to stay overnight at Antietam Creek Campground. I got there around 7:30 p.m. so didn't have much time to do some real fishing -- just drowned some lures behind the campsite for 20 to 30 minutes. With a family a couple campsites away causing a ruckus in the river, I didn't think fishing would be very productive.
It wasn't.
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| Saw baitfish just in front of the tip of the line of rocks closest to the weeds. With no bites, then made a cast near the overhanging branches in the center at the top. |
This morning, I suited up and went upriver to near where I caught my personal best Potomac smallmouth -- 17 inches -- almost five years ago. Maybe 100 yards upriver from that spot is a rock formation that creates a set of rapids protruding almost the width of the river. The water in front is smooth as glass, but the current is pretty fast.
As I ambled down to the water, I saw baitfish activity on the surface just in front of the rapids. A few small fish jumping here and there, some feeding from the top. Then there was a boil from a larger fish -- a smallmouth? -- so I made my first cast with a Rapala X-Rap Prop and churned it through there.
Nothing.
I made another cast. Nothing.
I was casting toward the center of the river, so I turned 45 degrees and fired the lure upriver under the edge of overhanging branches. The twin propellers frothed the water for about two seconds before a fish slammed the lure. I waited a half second, couldn't see the lure anymore, and set the hook.
Fish on! Only issue was that I was in fairly fast current. Even dink smallmouth bass can use the current to their advantage.
The fish didn't jump but shook its head a couple times out of the water. The fish was going for the rapids, which is definitely something I didn't want happening.
Usually I bring a lighter rod for jigs and swimbaits and a medium rod for larger lures like topwaters, jerkbaits, crankbaits, etc. Instead of grabbing a medium power St. Croix rod with a cork handle and a Pflueger reel, I grabbed a medium-light rod with a cork handle and a Pflueger reel. So now I was battling this bruiser in current with the lighter rod and wondering why I wasn't making much progress.
Basically I held ground and finally muscled the fish along the weed bed. There was still strong current but it wasn't even ankle deep, so the fish couldn't swim anymore -- just dragged it along the water until I could grab its lower lip. With me clamping on its mouth, it wiggled enough so part of the treble hook went into my thumb (notice the small blob of red in the picture at the top). If it started thrashing, I was going to be in trouble. Fortunately, it stayed calm -- the hook wasn't embedded too far and came out easily.
It was a nice smallmouth. A beast by Potomac standards. I didn't have a tape measurer so eye-balled it next to the rod and figured I would measure the rod after getting home. It looked to be an easy 18 inches, possibly more.
After that, I lost a smaller fish on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, and that was it for the next two hours. No bites or anything.
But it was worth it.
After I got home, I immediately took the rod and headed for the garage to get a tape measurer. While standing in the river, I had put the fish's tail against the butt-end of the rod, and the nose went to a logo on the main shaft ahead of the cork. With the tape measurer, this was 19-3/4 inches. This was just holding the fish by the jaw and not measuring properly -- the mouth wasn't closed, and the tail wasn't squeezed to narrow it the length of the tape. If it wasn't 20 inches, it was really close.
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| From the bottom of the rod to the "RS" logo ... |
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| ... 19-3/4 inches! Not measuring it "properly" with a closed mouth and squeezing the tail so it wasn't fanned out. |
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