Four for The Fourth

One of the most satisfying moments from fishing comes from identifying an isolated spot that holds fish -- "I know there's one there."  A small opening in a weedbed, a small eddy behind a rock -- something that's hiding in plain site, but it would take a pinpoint cast to reach that spot.  Then you fire the lure, and it lands exactly where you wanted it and ... wouldn't you know it, there's a hungry fish there.

Yesterday I had one of those rare moments.

I woke up early to beat the heat and was fishing a river about 15 minutes away by 7:15 a.m.  I tried a couple sections that only yielded a few follows on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.  Nothing on the trusty Heddon Zara Puppy.

Moving upriver to one of my honey holes that always seems to yield a fish or a few strikes, I started casting just past the middle of the river and  reeling in.  Usually, the fish like to hang out in the middle where it's deepest.  I assume that's why they prefer that area -- they have never actually told me.  I had a few sunfish -- maybe one or two were a little smallmouth -- that followed the lure.  Trying the Zara Puppy didn't even get a chasing fish.

This fish decided to eat the next thing
that landed in the water -- a Hubs
Chub topwater lure.

Just a few feet in the water on the opposite bank was a large log mostly submerged next to a bunch of large rocks.  The downstream end of the log was protruding from the water and had been torn/eroded/ripped away so it looked like a large dagger.  There was a two-foot pocket of calm water underneath the exposed wood.

"I know there's one there."

I let the Little Dipper fly on a low trajectory, and, wouldn't you know it, it didn't land on the log.  It didn't land a foot short of the log.  It didn't land on the other side.  The lure splashed down right under the log.

A smallmouth bass pummeled the lure after one rotation on the spinning reel's handle.  The fish took off downriver, made a couple jumps and was causing a ruckus on the surface.  Luckily, the hook stayed embedded in the corner of the fish's jaw.  Hoisting the bass out of the water, it looked easily 12 inches, maybe 13, a really nice size for this river (personal best here is 16).  I was going to take a "hero" shot of the fish on the grass next to my fishing rod for size comparison, and it flopped a couple times, somehow got unhooked and looked like a kid on a Slip N Slide as it effortlessly coasted down the bank into the water.  Oh well, no picture for you.

A few minutes later, I caught another smallmouth but this one of the dink variety.



Rain came through later
in the day and kicked the
river up a notch.

Since I wasn't getting any action on the Zara Puppy but I still wanted to keep trying topwater, I switched to a H.C. Baits Hubs Chub.  Although it has a little propeller on the tail, I use it kind of as a popper.  I pop it once or twice and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  You know what?  The smallmouth bass pictured above didn't care what the lure did because it smashed it as soon as it hit the water. Like the fish was waiting there for something to fall out of the sky.  Probably could have had a piece of a hot dog hooked on the line and still caught the fish.

The was the same size as my first one of the day, in the 12- to 13-inch range.  Although his one stuck around for a picture.

Moving down to another spot, I had some more nibbles on the Hubs Chub, but just little fish.  A green sunfish did manage to slurp it down, so that was four fish total for the day.

One final spot before finishing up, I pushed my way through foliage to end up at a small pool in between two large riffles.  After a few casts, I felt something itchy on my left arm.  I looked down, and there was a small green splotch that looked like moss or something.  Thinking that what was causing the irritation, I rolled my sleeve up.  A couple casts later, the irritation got slightly worse.  I looked down on my arm and didn't see anything.  But then I noticed a small green caterpillar on the top pocket on my vest sitting on the zipper.  WTF?  I flicked that thing in the water.  A few more casts, and small bumps appeared on my left forearm.  Double WTF?  That's it for fishing!

I took off back to the car, and the area around the red bumps turned red.  The swelling didn't increase, though, so I figured I wasn't going to die.

Back at the Subaru, I looked up "caterpillar bites" on my phone.  Apparently it's common -- not to have them bite -- for their tiny hairs or spines to cause allergic reactions.  Great!  Now in addition to ticks, snapping turtles, copperheads, bees, thorny bushes, angry otters and all the other stuff, I have to look out for caterpillars.

The fishes we need are everywhere around us

This "fishy" area should hold fish, right?  Places like this
haven't so far on the Upper Potomac.  But on the North Branch ...

Fishing has been tough on the Upper Potomac for some reason this year.  I've caught one smallmouth and one walleye out of five or six trips.

Yesterday, Karen and I made the trek even further up to the North Branch of the Potomac to a C&O Trail Campground site.  She wanted to bike down the C&O Trail while I just wanted to fish.

I was anxious for some kind of success considering how far this spot was from the furthest point I fished this year.  Antietam Creek is just between mile markers 69 and 70 on the trail, while this site is near mile marker 173.

First smallmouth.  I usually take a picture of the first fish -- no
matter the size -- just to have evidence that I caught something.

Yesterday, we got to the camp site and set everything up.  No squatters this time, so we didn't have to call a park ranger to deal with the riff-raff.

We camped here about four years ago, and I remembered the river right behind the camp site was barren of fish-holding structures.  No ripples, eddies, weedbeds or large rocks.  Just straight, almost feature-less water.  But there was a spot downriver that had all those fishy elements.

I suited up my waders and headed down the trail and soon spotted a rocky point protruding the water.  After climbing down the bank, I tied on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper on the first rod, and on the other rod, my go-to topwater lure, a Heddon Zara Puppy.

After about 15 minutes, the first fish of the day was landed on a Little Dipper.  It was a dink but had a cool color pattern (see picture above).

The Little Dipper was getting a lot of interest, and I soon had a couple more dink smallmouth with a few other misses sprinkled in.  The Zara Puppy wasn't getting anything.

Moving down to a weedbed with tassels protruding from the water, I said to myself, "Self, I bet if you throw that Zara Puppy just on the edge of the weedbed, there's a smallmouth there, and it will smack that lure."

Plus-sizing with a Rapala X-Rap Prop and
Nichols spinnerbait.  It didn't really work out.

If anything positive lately, since I haven't actually been catching fish, my casting skills have progressively gotten better.

That Zara Puppy landed about a foot to the right of the weeds.  I twitched it a couple times, paused, then twitched it again.  And a smallmouth exploded completely out of the water attacking the lure.

And completely missed.

Heart spiked, but still calmly didn't set the hook waiting to NOT see the lure.  But it was still floating on the surface ... and then ... and then ... nothing. 

A few more casts to the same area and still the fish didn't strike.  Even switching rods and tossing the Reaction Innovations swimbait couldn't entice even a nibble.

Moving on to other spots, I caught another dink smallmouth here and another there.  Six total for the evening.

After the big blowup on the Zara Puppy, the other highlight in "the one that got away" was seeing a couple fish that looked to be slurping bait on the surface.  I fired a cast with the the swimbait right on top of one of them, and the fish hit the lure immediately.  But just seconds later, it got off.  It felt like a better smallmouth than the dinks I had been catching.

This morning, I wanted to plus-size the lures to maybe plus-size the fish.  I started off with a Nichols spinnerbait and a Rapala X-Rap Prop topwater lure.  The spinnerbait didn't get any bites, so I switched to a Rapala Shadow Rap ... and caught another dink smallmouth and a sunfish.  Plus-sizing with smallmouth bass doesn't seem to work, as I should have remembered from a few years ago at another spot a few miles down river.

Finally, something bigger than the dinks.

I had one fish hooked on the Rapala prop, but the fish was next to a weedbed, and it made a beeline among the vegetation and managed to unhook itself.  Then the Shadow Rap got snagged in the middle of the river, so I went back to the Reaction Innovations swimbait.  And caught two more dink smallmouth before finally getting a legal-sized one.

At the end of the day(s), it was 10 smallmouth and a sunfish in five- to six-hours fishing.  Much better by a longshot on the Potomac this year, even if the majority of the fish were dinks.

Interesting to compare the last time we were at this spot on the North Branch four years ago.  Back then, it was another overnight camping trip but in August, and I caught eight smallmouth bass, two sunfish and a fallfish.  Similar numbers to Friday and Saturday.  Yet still further down river on the Upper Potomac this year, the smallmouth fishing has been bleak.

Next Sunday, Karen and I will flush the Potomac fail with another trip with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  Then, almost exactly a month later, we will be fishing on Rainy Lake for northerns and smallmouths and (Oh my!) walleye.

Bonus walleye

The Potomac River has been tough so far this year.  I've caught one smallmouth and no other fish until today when I landed this 12-inch walleye.

The fish hit a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, and I thought at first I had my second Potomac smallmouth of 2019.  However, walleye don't fight above their weight class like smallmouth bass, but they don't fight like fallfish or sunfish that seem to be resigned to their fate as soon as they're hooked. Based on the fight, I guessed the fish was in between those two spectrums.  But walleye are still a nice bonus since they aren't very common on the Upper Potomac.  They are tasty, too, but this one fell a few inches short of the legal 15-inch limit.  Good news for him!

Double bonus:  Catching the fish standing on the bank just as soon as two guys in a jet boat throttled down about 100 feet upriver.  

Which brings me to another thing about my failings (and Karen's, too) catching fish this year on the Potomac.  On the smallmouth bass forum I frequent, others have been reporting unusually low catches.  It's like the big rains from 2018 have scattered the fish, or that weather did something to truly impact fishing conditions this year.  I can only speculate whether it was a limited spawn last year, fish died off because of the fluctuating river level, or the fish found homes in the tributaries or ... something else.

Usually at this campground, there is very little boat traffic through the river.  There might be one or two fishing boats, but more tubers and non-fishing kayakers than anybody else.  This morning, I was awakened at 6:15 a.m. by two jet boats heading upriver.  When I started fishing an hour later, there was a guy in a kayak fishing just behind our camp site.  Then (I'm pretty sure) one of those jet boats that went through an hour before came down and started fishing the bank behind the campsite.  Then the other one came down about 20 minutes later (and those two guys got to see me catch the walleye).

Several other boats went up and down the river before we broke camp.  Again, this is a stretch that usually has very little boat traffic, but my take is other fishermen are frustrated and are exploring new/forgotten/overlooked spots to get something going.

Karen and I will be going even further up the Potomac next week, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the fishing fares up there.

Turning it up to 11

Smallmouth that made an aerial assault.

I've been to the Upper Potomac five times since I last posted here.  Why haven't I blogged anything about those trips?  Because I caught a grand total of one fish.  Not one fish each trip -- one fish PERIOD.

The river level has declined steadily, and I fished in areas where that held fish before, so it should have been a recipe for success.  But only had that one smallmouth bass to show for it.  This time of year should be prime time for smallmouth on the Upper Potomac, but for whatever reason, it hasn't been.

So this morning I decided to stay closer to home -- you know, drive 20 minutes to fish instead of an hour plus.

Since it was early in the morning, the call of topwater action was reverberating in my head, so I tied on a Heddon Zara Puppy.  On my other rod, I tied on a Z-Man Finesse TRD worm just to go with something different -- offer something on top and something on the bottom.

The first spot I tried, I caught a fallfish on the Zara Puppy.  The oversized minnow actually hit the lure pretty good, but then it gave up fighting like all fallfish seem to do.  No pictures of fallfish.

Redbreast sunfish.  They don't fight at all,
but at least they are prettier than fallfish.

I moved to a spot that always seems to have fish activity -- either I catch something or at least get a few bites.  First cast with the Zara Puppy, it hit just short of the opposite bank, and I brought it back below some exposed rocks.

With the Zara Puppy and similar topwater lures, I always seem to trigger strikes by working the lure for a few seconds -- maybe three to five twitches with the rod -- and then letting the lure sit.  Sometimes I count to five before activating the lure again.  The fish love to hit during that pause, whether it be a bass or a sunfish.  I rarely get them just chasing the lure while it's in motion.

About when the lure reached the middle of the river, a smallmouth bass attacked and launched out of the water trying to grab the Zara Puppy.  It didn't get hooked, and the fish made another pass a second or two later.  I patiently waited as my heart rate went up before setting the hook, but I saw the lure still floating on the surface.  I worked the lure back without any further activity.

Immediately, I fired another cast to the same spot and brought the lure back on the same route across the water.  In the same strike zone as the previous attack, the smallmouth came out of hiding again and smacked the lure.  This time, the front treble hook penetrated the fish's lower lip, and it stayed on.  The fish made a couple more jumps before I finally hoisted it out of the water -- a nice 12- to 13-incher, a lunker for this water.

Green sunfish.  They don't get much bigger.

At this point, I basically forgot about the Z-Man worm.  If fish are biting topwater lures, there's really no point trying anything else!

I managed to catch two more (smaller) smallmouth, a redbreast sunfish and another fallfish in this spot.

Moving on to another flow that I re-discovered earlier this year, I again had a blowup on the first cast with the Zara Puppy targeting a small pocket between two rocks protruding on the opposite shore.  No hookup, and this time the fish didn't make any further assaults.

However, a little while later, I caught another smallmouth on the Zara Puppy and a green sunfish on the Z-Man worm.

I crossed the river and moved down to another area that always seems to hold at least one active fish.  It's a small pool in between two rocky runs with a lot of submerged rocks.  The smallmouth I've caught here have never been very big, IIRC.  Sure enough, I managed to catch two smallmouth with one being a dink and another really tiny.  The little one had to be from the spawn last year and was going for breakfast, lunch and dinner in one sitting snacking on a Z-Man worm.

You gonna come at me, bro?!

I was keeping track of the fish I had caught and realized I was up to 10 fish for the day!  I don't think I've ever been in double digits on this river.  After just one fish on the five Potomac trips, it was good to feel the tugs on the fishing rods.

Moving back up to the previous spot where I had the big blowup, I switched to a Heddon Torpedo -- which is a topwater lure similar in shape to its Zara Puppy brother, but it has a propeller on the back.

I had a few follows and swipes then snagged the lure on a rock on the other side of the river.  So I tied on a Heddon Tiny Torpedo that I've probably had for 30 years.  It's similar to the Torpedo, just a size down.

And snagged it, too, on the other side of the river.  Both lures were probably three feet apart.

Heddon Torpedo, Tiny Torpedo and Zara Puppy.

So I tried the Z-Man worm and got some fish biting in the middle of the river.  They looked like ... fallfish.  But you never know, maybe a smallmouth bass is in the pack.

After a few casts, I was hopping the worm on the bottom and saw a flash of white as the fish took off with the lure.  It took me a split second to process what was happening -- "Hey, that fish has my lure!"  I set the hook and the fight of shame began -- another submissive fallfish.  It was actually decent size compared to the others I caught.

This fish made it 11 for the day.

It was also almost 11 a.m. and the clouds had gone away, so it was starting to warm up.  I waded across the river, retrieved my two snagged Torpedos back and called it a day.

Rainy day rainbow (and smallmouth)

Smallmouth measuring about 13" on a swimbait.

I fished one of my favorite spots (easy access, about 20 minutes from my house) on Friday, and my game plan going in was to use two lures, wander downstream on the river to a halfway point, switch to two different lures and head back up hitting spots I had already fished.

First duo was the small no-name spinnerbait (bought it a couple years ago and can't remember where it was nor who makes it) and a Heddon Baby Zara.  The Baby Zara is a topwater lure similar in length to a Zara Puppy but has a chubbier body as opposed to a slender cigar shape.  Searching online while writing this post, Heddon doesn't make the Baby Zara anymore, which means it will probably catch a ton of fish the next time I use it, and then I will snag it in a tree.

Baby Zara Spook on the left, Zara Puppy on the right.

Armed with two rods rigged with different lures, I usually cast one lure looking for fish, and then if I'm getting activity but not getting hookups, switch up hoping to trick fish into biting something different.

Casting the spinnerbait, I was getting passive bites, but the switch to the Heddon topwater couldn't trigger anything more substantial -- just a couple swirls here and there, probably from sunfish.  They aren't aggressive at all -- just nipping at lures and not attacking.  Like they just want to snack on the tail of prey and not have a whole meal.

So as I got near my designated turnaround point -- a highway overpass -- it started to rain.  Then it really started to rain, and I scrambled to seek shelter below that overpass.   This part of the river has big rocks protruding from the water, which flows very fast but not doesn't provide much depth. Not really an ideal area for smallmouth.

First-ever sighting for me, an oriole!

But since I was there, I decided to try something to holdout the passing storm.  I picked out a small eddy below some big rocks, flipped the spinnerbait out and was rewarded with a hit on the first cast. Reeling fast trying to skim the fish across the water's surface to avoid getting tangled in the rocks, I could only make out the fish's white belly and figured it was a fallfish. Finally got it to shore, and it was a rainbow trout, the first trout I've caught since 2015! 

Maryland DNR stocks trout all over the state from March through May every year, especially in the smaller rivers and creeks, so I'm kind of surprised I haven't accidentally caught more.

This rainbow stretched about 12 inches. No picture though -- it came off the hook, flopped in the sand and I scooped it back in the water.

The rain finally died down some, and since I was at my halfway point, I switched lures.  It was back to a BioBait DNA swimbait like from last week, and a Rapala BX Brat shallow-running crankbait.

The fish were really going after the swimbait -- I had three or four hits in the first few casts.  One fish hit the so hard, it felt like the rod almost ripped from my hand.  Then about five minutes later, a fish clamped and stayed on -- about a 13" smallmouth.

I had another fish on the Rapala crankbait that looked like a good-sized smallmouth, but it didn't remain hooked.  Always amazing when fish don't stay on a lure with multiple treble hooks.

I capped off the afternoon by landing another legal-size smallmouth on the BioBait swimbait.  The clarity of the river by this point had dramatically changed from the rain, and I didn't get another bite after that last smallmouth.

Fishing for three hours, I caught three fish, which seems to be about average for this river.

Unfortunately as I'm writing this, Mother Nature appears to have picked up where she left off last year.  Rain, rain, rain.  Tracking the level of the Potomac, every time it looks like the water might be at something close to maybe perhaps being fishable, Momma Nature dumps rain.

Biting the BioBaits -- new swimbait review

I picked up some new (to me) swimbaits -- BioBait DNA -- after reading about them on a fishing forum.  The rubbery material is supposed to be more durable and water soluble (i.e. degrades faster and saves trees) than normal plastics.

They also have realistic color patterns like yellow perch, redtail chub, sunfish and brown trout, to name a few.

The 12" smallmouth on an Arkansas shiner.

I normally use Reaction Innovations Little Dippers -- I've tried several other types of swimbaits but prefer the action of the Little Dippers, so I was interested to see how the BioBait lures performed.  Karen got me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday, and Amazon actually carried them, so they were basically free, right?

Unfortunately, Amazon only had four color selections so I bought Arkansas shiner (because they resembled fallfish) and sexy shad (because what fish doesn't like a sexy shad).

Yesterday I fished for a couple hours in a section of river I hadn't tackled much before.  My first impression of the BioBait lures was that they acted almost exactly like Reaction Innovations Little Dippers.  They oscillated through the water -- if you were to look at them in the water coming straight at you, they twisted back and forth like turning a door knob.

I hooked into a fish after 15 minutes, but the line snapped.  Either I tied a bad knot or the line was cut on a rock.  Moving around targeting pools below eddies, I got a few bites and follows before finally hooking and landing a 10-inch smallmouth bass.

On my other rod, I had a Heddon Zara Puppy and fish showed no interest in the topwater lure, and that was the story on that front throughout the rest of the morning.  It seems like now should be the perfect time for frenzied surface bites, but the fish were having none of it -- not even timid passes from sunfish!

Oh deer!

Later, I managed a 12-inch smallmouth on the BioBait swimbait.  Then in an area I don't recall ever fishing before, a smallmouth which looked to be at least 14 inches (a giant for this water) grabbed the swimbait and rose to the surface, shook its head out of the water, and the lure went flying from its mouth.  People walking on a trail on the other side of the river even heard the commotion.  Maybe it was because I dropped an F-bomb?

I stopped fishing a little while later after hooking the Zara Puppy into a tree branch roughly 500 feet above the river.  If I fished in a boat in the middle of the ocean, I could snag a lure on a tree branch.

So the BioBait swimbaits definitely work.  They're a little pricey in comparison to Reaction Innovation -- $7.99 compared to $4.89 -- but the tradeoff is that they are more durable and break down faster when getting lost in the water, or a fish actually eats them

BioBait does have "original" colors that are cheaper than the DNA patterns, and they come in packs of eight as opposed to six.  They also carry other lures like leeches, tubes, crayfish and Flippin Chickens.

I still have a ton of Little Dippers when I stocked up .... last year!  So I probably won't buy more any time soon, but definitely will consider them in the future once my swimbait supply starts running low (I type this as it's dumping rain, so it this year is starting to look like last year).

BioBait DNA swimbaits.

An almost trophy, plus topwater

A trophy size for this
river -- 14-1/2 inches.

I fished a couple times over the weekend on a local river.  On Friday, I didn't catch a thing.  Using Ned Rigs, a jerkbait and a couple small spinnerbaits, I had a few follows and a couple nibbles.

Since water temp was 60 degrees, I tried a Heddon Zara Puppy, but only had a few sunfish slurps at the lure, probably from panfish.

Yesterday, I went to the same river but in a different section.  I didn't bring along any swimbaits on Friday, but this time, I packed some Reaction Innovations Little Dippers.  And of course since there was interest in topwater the other day, I decided to use the Zara Puppy as well.

After an hour, I just had one smallmouth bite off the tail of a Little Dipper.  There were also some sunfish follows, but nothing else until I managed a dink smallmouth on the swimbait.  Moving to another area, on the first cast with the swimbait, a smallmouth came from the depths (three feet!) and hit the lure but didn't get hooked.  I cast back with the Zara Puppy and didn't get any reaction.

After a few fruitless casts, I went back to the rod with the Little Dipper, and again a smallmouth came from the shadowy depths and hit the lure, but this one stayed on the hook.  Lifted it out of the water, and it was a really nice smallmouth for this river.  I guessed it was in the 13-14 range but didn't have a tape measure with me, so I just noted the length using the end of my fishing rod as reference.  Measuring the rod when I got home, the fish was about 14-1/2 inches, which is really good size for this river.  I've caught one 16-inch fish and a few 15 inchers prior to this.

I've noticed a ton of downed trees this year.

At another spot later, I managed to catch a smallmouth on the Zara Puppy, but it was a dink.  Still, it's great to see topwaters starting to get the fish's attention.  Last year, I didn't try topwater lures until late May and didn't catch a smallmouth bass on one until the following month.

Fat Chad's Stonecat turtle beer can early birthday fishing trip

Karen with her 18-3/4-inch smallmouth.

Expect the unexpected.  I'm sure someone has said that before in regards to fishing.  This weekend involved catching a couple things out of the ordinary, and they weren't even a fish.

Karen got me an early birthday present -- returning once again to fish the Susquehanna River with Jason Shay of Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  With no crazy storms leading up to the day of the trip, the river looked to be flowing almost normal (a bit over five feet), and the weather wasn't going to be too bad after we endured mid-40s in the morning.  Those early morning rides on the jet-prop boat are C-O-L-D!

We got to the ramp early, and Jason already had his boat in the water with several other fishermen getting ready to put in.  We loaded our gear and headed first to a spot that we've fished before just below a rock formation.  The plan was to use soft plastics (tubes, Ned Rigs and Fat Chad's Stonecats) and try jerkbaits.  Jason wasn't too confident on the latter -- they had been getting some fish but plastic presentations on the bottom had seen the most action the previous few days.

Jason and I with a double of 17-inch smallmouth!  Ha ha!

First fish of the day went to me on an Undercover Baits Lil Tube, roughly a 15-inch smallmouth.  And that was the start of the inconsistency -- a fish or two here, a fish or two there.  We would watch other boats pull into an area nearby and fish for maybe 15 minutes before heading to another spot.  So while we weren't slaying the fish, others looked like they weren't boating a single fish.

We were targeting slow water just adjacent to swifter water, and it was really difficult to keep the lures in the strike zone.  Lots of snags as the lures got swept away or fishing line wrapped around a rock or something below the surface.

We did manage to find one nice spot that got us a handful of fish, then some more when we returned to the same spot a couple hours later.  I was having the best luck here with a lure I brought, an Undercover Baits Mini-O -- similar to Z-Man Finesse TRD worms -- used on a Ned Rig setup.

It seemed like there was a lone honey hole in this area that held the most fish.  I would let the worm bounce along the bottom (hopefully not getting snagged), and when it reached this spot, I kept tension on the line as the jig tick-tick-ticked on the rocky floor.  And when a fish bit, it would just barely pull tension on the rod tip, or the jig just stopped moving.  I was using my medium-light St. Croix Avid-X rod, which is perfect for presentations just like that.

Undercover Baits Mini-O after its fifth fish.

After we left and came back, I snagged the jig rigged with that "hot" color, but I caught more fish -- even on the first cast -- using another Undercover Mini-O in a totally different color.

We all managed other fish at various locations throughout the day on Lil Tubes and Fat Chad's Stonecats (good luck Googling that -- you will just end up down a rabbit hole of pictures of fat cats).  Stonecats are small members of the catfish family, and Jason said Susquehanna smallmouth bass consider them a delicacy.  He had three-inch plastics a local supplier (AKA, Fat Chad) molds that look like a stonecat, even detailed with rubbery whiskers.

This was also my first time really putting Undercover Baits plastics to the test (first time using them was last month for my first two smallmouth of the year).  I picked up a couple packets of Mini-O worms at a fishing show during the offseason, and Jason had a boatload of their Lil Tubes.  While they aren't made from super-durable elaztech material like the Z-Man plastics, they actually held up really well.  I landed seven fish with the same worm before eventually the river decided it wanted the lure more than me.

Me and my turtle.

Now for the unexpected.  The last catch of the day, just trying to get a fish or two before we called it quits, I cast a worm and bounced it along the bottom, just like 100 times before.  And then the lure stopped like a fish grabbed it.  I pulled back on the rod, and there was definitely something hooked up.  I reeled in, but it felt like ... maybe a stick?  A stick "pulling" while trying to reel  against the current sometimes gives the impression a fish is on the other end.  I stopped reeling but felt something pulling back, just not aggressive like an angry smallmouth.

I kept cranking the reel, and finally whatever it was came to the surface behind the boat -- a turtle!  It was upside down, and it took me a second to realize what it was.  Thankfully it wasn't a snapping turtle.  (Honestly, if it was a snapper, I would have cut the line ASAP rather than deal with a mean turtle.)  Jason netted it, and the hook was just under the shell above the head.  But once the turtle was in the boat, the jig just fell off.  No harm done, except a bewildered turtle.

The other unexpected catch -- a beer can.

Karen the science teacher and turtle lover wasn't sure what kind it was.  We took a few pictures as the turtle would stick its head out and tuck back in.  Tossed it back in the water, and it swam away.

On the way home, Karen searched and found it was a northern map turtle, and the yellow coloring around the mouth indicated it was a female.  They feed on mollusks, snails and crayfish, among other things.

The next unexpected thing was earlier in the day -- a beer can.  Miller High Life, the champagne of beers.  Not as impressive as the turtle, though.

So while we didn't have a day like two years ago, Jason put us on fish while everybody else on the river seemed to be struggling.  I managed 17, and I think Jason and Karen each had 10 or 12.  Karen got the biggest fish, though, a smallmouth measuring 18-3/4 inches.

It looks like the weather this week should really be warming up, so the smallmouth action around here may be heating up, too.

Karen unhooking a smallmouth bass.

Top -- Pflueger Supreme XT on a medium-light St. Croix Avid-X.
Middle: Vintage Mitchell 300 on a medium BPS Extreme.
Bottom: One of Jason's Daiwa Tatula LT on a medium Kage rod --
VERY light setup.

The fallfish didn't get the memo that it's spring

Usually catching five fish in a few hours of fishing on one of the skinny Maryland rivers is cause for celebratory fist pumps.

Hoping the failfish would free itself.

But when they are all just fallfish, it's a lot of meh.  As far as I can gather, fallfish have zero redeeming values.  They fight like a wet sock, they don't have interesting colors (like panfish or trout) or patterns (like smallmouth), don't grow to be very big, and as far as I've searched on the internet, they are inedible.  Not like catching a catfish, which taste pretty good, and they are good fighters, too.

Which is why I call them failfish.

The meal ticket for the fallfish yesterday was a Z-Man Finesse TRD worm.  They absolutely loved them.  Like when you drop a piece of food on the floor in a cafeteria and you don't want anybody to notice when you pick it back up.  Everybody saw you drop it.  Just leave it there.  Oh man you're going to pick it back up and eat it??!!

At least the turtles think it's spring.
There are two in the middle of the branch
and a third just poking its head above
water up and to their right.

Did I mention fallfish fight like a wet sock?  That's probably offensive to socks in this day and age, though.  They casually bite the lure, and not sure if it's a fish or a snag, I instinctively set the hook ... and ... there's ... something ... on the other end of the line.  Maybe.

What's surprising is that I went back and looked at my Excel log from last year, and I didn't catch a single fallfish.

Edit: The state record fallfish was just caught on the Potomac River -- 2.07 pounds.  I caught one on Antietam Creek a few years ago that was pretty close to that size.

I went to the same spot as a couple weeks ago, and the water was a bit clearer.  Water temp was about the same 50 degrees, though.  I had a few bites on a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper, but those were probably fallfish, too.

Today is the traditional opening day in Maryland for  trout fishing.  So I probably won't fish this weekend because I don't want to rub elbows with a trout fisherman.  Last week, I went to a spot where I've seen one person fishing in about 10 visits.  This time, I counted six people armed with fly rods already scattered out in primo spots.

Stay tuned, though, because next Sunday (April 7) Karen and I have a trip with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions.  The river and Mother Nature look like they may cooperate.

New toys

First smallmouth bass of 2019!  An Undercover Baits Mini-O
turned the trick.

After two previous attempts this year on the little "P" rivers and getting skunked, I finally caught some fish today.  Two smallmouth from the Little Patuxent River -- the first about 11 inches and the next one a bit smaller.  Both fish were really pale.

Weather was nearing ideal spring levels -- 65 degrees -- and water temp was just above 50 degrees.

First catch of the season on a coppertreuse/red flake
worm from Undercover Baits.

With a humdrum winter comes a desire to experiment with something new.  I picked up a few new-to-me lures during the offseason and soaked them in the river today.

The first were "Ned Rig" style worms from two different manufacturers, Undercover Baits and River Rock Custom Baits.  These look exactly like Z-Man TRD Finesse Worms, but they aren't made from durable elaztech like the Z-Man offerings.  However, Undercover and River Rock have unique colors/ patterns, and both businesses are in the mid-Atlantic area, so why not support local business?

A coppertreuse/red flake Undercover worm hooked my first fish on the second cast of the afternoon.  I tossed the worm into a slow eddy next to fast current, and the fish barely hit the lure on the bottom.  A feisty Patuxent Special 11-inch smallmouth.

I snagged that lure on the next cast, snagged a smoke/blue green flake Undercover worm a couple casts later, then tried another new (to me) plastic -- Cabela's 3.5-inch Swim Minnow in a watermelon ghost pattern.  The Swim Minnow is a typical paddle-tail swimbait.  It didn't have as much action as Reaction Innovation Little Dippers, but the smallmouth seemed interested in it for awhile.  A few bites but no hookups.

Rapala BX Brat looks appealing to me,
but is it appealing to the fish?

Some more snags later, I sauntered down to a bigger pool that has always looked fishy but has never yielded fish.  This spot has all the telltale signs for smallmouth bass -- slow, deep water bordering fast water -- but nothing has ever even sniffed at a lure.

Today, I was in luck for some reason.  After a few casts, a 10-inch smallmouth bit a coppertreuse/red flake Undercover worm -- same lure that got the first fish.  Same subtle bite, too.  A few more hits in this area, too.  I mentioned I had been skunked on my previous two fishing attempts -- well I didn't get a single bite at all then.  Even getting some bites today and even seeing fish follow lures was a win in comparison.

Next up, I tried a new Rapala BX Brat, a shallow-running "squarebill" crankbait.  With all the lures I snagged on the bottom by this point, this stubby crankbait seemed like a good option for running above the danger zone while still being in the smallmouth strike zone.

First impressions using this crankbait -- it has a very tight, slow wobble and not much action.  But it dives down three feet at most and rises quickly when stopping the retrieve.  I didn't get a single bite on it but maybe as the water temps warm up, the fish will show more interest in little crankbaits like this.

I switched between the Undercover and River Rock worms after the second fish but couldn't get a fish to bite.  The Undercover worms seem like they might be more durable of the two, but I'll hold out on making a declaration until I see how they hold up to multiple bites.

A jerkbait would have been nice to use today (but I didn't bring one). Their hovering action when stopping the retrieve might have gotten some bites.

Mother Nature is supposed to dump rain tomorrow, but the cusp of smallmouth season is near.