What's the time? It's time to catch fish!

My Casio "fish watch" had two fish icons lit,
indicating it was time to catch smallmouth.

Whether by dumb luck or actually utilizing experience, I stumbled across smallmouth bass in a frenzy this morning where I induced seven fish to bite lures in about 30 minutes after Karen and I camped along the Potomac River.

Air temp was brisk after I rolled out the tent -- around 55 and climbing -- and water temp was 65 degrees. Overcast skies. 

After starting off the morning wading a secret spot on the river where I caught a 20-inch smallmouth last year (only caught one dink at the same location this morning), I moved down off a point that created a seam between fast and slow water. I cast a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper a couple feet into the faster water and slowly reeled as the swimbait drifted into the slower section. And nabbed a smallmouth (another dink) just as it crossed the seam.

I switched rods to one with a Heddon Zara Puppy tied on, cast to about the same area, and the lure disappeared in a small whirlpool of disturbance! Another hungry smallmouth, but this one seemed a little bigger. The fish submitted and sure enough, it was about about 14 inches.

The 14-inch smallmouth that nailed the Zara Puppy.
And my blood on my thumb after the fish weaponized the
treble hook to stab me.

While holding the fish and fumbling for my camera, four or five baitfish jumped within a couple feet of me. The spooked baitfish, I think, were trying to evade another smallmouth that was trailing the one I caught (fairly common for them to chase a hooked fish either to snatch whatever "food" is in their mouth or to say, "Hey man, don't worry, everything is going to be alright.").

Figuring there was at least one more smallmouth bass on the prowl, I snapped a picture of my fish, released it and cast the topwater lure again. Another fish attacked but used the Zara Puppy like an orca uses a beach ball at Sea World. The fish nosed the lure through the air a couple times but didn't actually chomp it.

The action went off and on for about 10 minutes with swimbaits (nothing else with the topwater lure), and I landed two more fish -- the tally was up to five at that point.

Then there was a lull for a little while, but it picked up again about 10 minutes later after shuffling a few feet downriver along that seam of fast/slow water. Again casting barely into the fast water and "drifting" the lure across to the sluggish water, I caught three more smallmouth bass -- one was in the 13-inch range, and the other two were dinks. I had another fish on that felt really good, but it freed itself before I could get a look at it.

The Reaction Innovations Little Dippers are really lively and oscillate wildly even drifting through current.

Then the frenzy was officially over -- no more fish were enticed after that.

I wandered back down the C&O tow path to our campsite, and Karen and I had a breakfast of eggs and sausage.

Itching to try again, I waded in the river behind our campsite. I caught a 12-inch smallmouth last night on a Little Dipper, and this area usually yields fish anyway. Peppering the water with casts even up past the last site on the campground, nothing was interested. I returned to the area directly behind our site, cast a Little Dipper and got smallmouth No. 9 for the day. This one was about 12 inches, and I pulled it out of the water just as Karen was coming down the bank with her fishing rods.

Karen gets a picture of me just
after landing a 12-inch smallmouth
behind our camp site.

A few casts later, No. 10 found its way to the end of my line. Nothing else after that, and Karen didn't catch anything (although she caught four smallmouth yesterday). I'm pretty sure it was my best day on the Potomac since 2016 when trying "Ned Rig" Z-Man Finesse TRD worms for the first time. 

That made it ten this morning plus one last night. 

The casualties of war: The tattered Little Dippers.
Notice two that are missing tails.

The spoils of war: A knife, a rod holder and
a hammer. No doubt from catfishers because
they leave EVERYTHING behind.

Also, for others fishing for smallmouth on the Potomac, don't forget to fill out the Maryland DNR survey specific to the river and smallmouth bass. DNR also has a general fisheries survey.

The only fish from yesterday -- a smallmouth bass
about 12 inches -- just before being released.
Picture taken with my Olympus Tough TG-6
submerged.

Karen had spotted these dragon flies emerging
like cicadas from their shells.

Two-foot long rainbows are actually pretty big

 

First fish of the year, a monster rainbow trout!

I was not expecting my first fishing trip of the year involving a monster rainbow trout, but here we are.

I decided to hit the Little Patuxent River this morning in the usual stretch and try out Bass Pro Shops Mean-Eye Swimmers (2-1/4") for the first time as well as a new two-piece Daiwa Tatula XT spinning rod (maybe the best $100 rod on the market).

First time using BPS Mean-Eye Swimmers.

As I was wandering down the river, a little movement to my right near the water caught my eye. It was a large, dark animal that I thought for a split second was a dog. As I turned my head to get a better look, the creature ambled down to the water, and I could clearly see a flat tail -- a beaver! I saw what I am sure was a mink a few years ago on the Little Patuxent, but never a beaver.

The black blob in the center is the beaver paddling
away to mess around at Metzger's Field

I made a stop upriver from my usual hot spot and made some casts with the Mean Eye Swimmer. It has a more subtle action compared to the Reaction Innovations Little Dipper I usually use for swimbaits. Just the rear tail paddled in the water as opposed to the oscillations Little Dippers produce.

On the fifth or sixth cast, I tossed the Mean Eye (shad pattern) near a rock protruding from the surface, turned the handle on the reel two or three times and WHAM! Wake me up before you go go, a big fish was on! It thrashed to the surface, and I could tell it was too long to be a smallmouth bass. Maybe a carp?

As I reeled in some more and the fish again came to the surface, I saw the horizontal pink band running down the fish's side -- a rainbow trout! This wasn't a little dink; this fish was BIG.

I was standing on the river bank about two to three feet above the water and came to a realization -- what was I going to do? This fish was probably five pounds, and I couldn't just heave it from the water. So I slid down the bank into the water. I didn't have a net, and the trout was a little too big to scoop with one hand while holding my rod in the other.

I held the rod tip up so the fish's head was out of the water, took a picture, then removed the swimbait -- thankfully it wasn't deeply embedded in the top of its mouth. The fish then rolled belly up, so I grabbed the fish's tail and turned it over. After pulling and pushing the fish a few times to get water flowing through the gills, I released my grip, and the trout slowly swam away.

I was stoked/shocked/whatever for about five minutes just trying to process what happened. I didn't measure the fish but eye-balled it with the Daiwa rod next to it as I was trying to revive it. When I got home, I pulled out a tape measurer -- the trout was 24 inches at least. Easily the biggest fish I'd caught on this river eclipsing the 16-inch smallmouth from five years ago.

This trout likely didn't grow this size in the Little Patuxent. When Maryland DNR stocks trout around the state early in the year, they release trout in varying sizes with a few trophy sized fish in the mix. So this rainbow likely grew up in a hatchery before being released to the wild. It feels a little like cheating -- I'd rather catch another 16-inch smallmouth again from its legit home turf.

After colleting myself, I moved down through a couple more spots. Finally caught a run-of-the-mill Little Patuxent smallmouth on the same Mean Eye swimbait that tricked the trout. A few casts later, had another one hooked -- likely in the 10- to 12-inch range -- that clamped the lure just as it hit the water.  Then it did an SDR (short distance release) just before I could pull it out of the river. Both smallmouth were in the same general area, tailwaters behind a rather fast flow through a rocky section.

Now that's more like it -- a cookie cutter smallmouth.

My other rod had a Heddon Zara Puppy tied on, and it wasn't getting any action.

Nothing other than a couple nibbles on the Mean Eyes before I donated them to the river. Switched over to the usual Reaction Innovations Little Dipper and had a couple sniffs at that, but I think they were timid sunfish.

The Mean Eyes are $3.50, so it sucks to lose them, as opposed to a Little Dipper swimbait, which comes in a pack of 10 for $7 or so. The Mean Eyes are a little more durable plastic, though, so as long as you don't snag them, they'd last longer than a Little Dipper. They each behave differently, so it's almost an apples-to-oranges comparison anyway.

The Daiwa Tatula XT rod seemed to do the trick. It's fairly light and had good sensitivity through the rod as the swimbaits skimmed rocks or the river bottom. Or hooked fish! Definitely a bargain at $99 (and I used a $25 gift card from Susquehanna Fishing Tackle that Karen got me for Christmas, so the rod was even less).

In addition to the beaver, I also saw three separate hatchling turtles -- that appeared to be snappers based on their long tails and knobby shells -- swimming in the water. I had never seen turtles in the Little Patuxent either.

Little Little Patuxent turtle.

Found some cookie cutters since the holiday season is around the corner

A cookie-cutter sub-12-inch smallmouth bass from the Upper Potomac River.  This picture was taken with my new Olympus TG-6 submerged underwater.  The river was really clear, and the clarity is really close to a picture I took out of the water of the same fish.

It was a return to Fifteenmile Creek Campground along the C&O Canal this weekend on the Upper Potomac River.  I finally tested out my new Olympus TG-6 camera with a couple fishy pictures with the camera submerged underwater.  The clarity of the river now barely affected the pictures -- they were almost as clear as the pictures taken of the fish out of the water (see below).

In just under two hours on Saturday, I caught two cookie-cutter (sub 12-inch) smallmouth bass each on the same Reaction Innovations Little Dipper.  Rando-casting into the middle of the river, both chomped on the swimbait and fought bravely despite their size limitations.  

Fish had no other interest in a River2Sea Whopper Plopper (I didn't think a topwater lure would entice them, but ya gotta try!  Because topwater.) or a shallow-running Rapala Shadow Rap.  

The clarity of the water made it deceptive for wading.  The bottom of the river with its rocky terrain looked to be extremely shallow -- maybe a foot or so deep, and I could walk across to the West Virginia side.  But a few places, I would take a step and plunge to my waist in water.  If the flow isn't as clear, it's easier to identify shallower water because the sunlight still can't penetrate murkier sediment.

Oh and the water was around 48 degrees.  I didn't have insulated waders, but it was tolerable thanks to the sun and air temps in the mid-60s.

What time is it?  It's fish o'clock!

Another new techno product I was trying was a Casio Active Dial Multi-Task Gear Sport Watch.  In layman's terms, a "fishing watch."  I don't wear watches but for some reason stumbled upon this one, and Karen got it for me for our anniversary.  It's water proof (can be used diving down to 200 meters) and has a fishing mode based on moon data (I think common solunar tables integrated with GPS).

It is fairly inexpensive, and I was intrigued by the functionality.  Plus I could check time the old fashioned way -- glance at my wrist instead of fumbling with a phone.  In the middle of a river.  Where I could drop the phone.

There are five LCD icons that indicate the ideal fishing conditions.  Basically no icons means fish aren't prone to feeding, and it progresses from one to five.  The four fish icons lit plus the "FISH" text blinking every second means you better stop what you're doing and cast a line in the water.  Which of course was happening as we were driving home on Sunday.

But whatever.  It tells time and is waterproof.  A small hindrance is the watch hands obscure the digital display, and nobody is going to mistake it for a Richard Mille.

Now here are pictures of smallmouth bass!

Smallmouth number one, picture taken out of the water ...

... and with the camera submerged.

Another photo comparison with the next smallmouth:

Smallmouth number two out of the water ...

... and about to be released.

Moar pics with the Olympus TG-6:

Landscape mode.

Underwater shot.

Setting sun.

River shot.

Sunrise on Fifteenmile Creek at the Potomac River confluence.

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One and a half fish

Under an I-95 overpass, the best view
as morning rush hour was winding down.

Not much doing on a Monday in October with water temps at 50 degrees.  A Columbus Day off directed me targeting non-indigenous fish of Maryland -- smallmouth bass!

After the remnants of Hurricane Ian stammered through the area last week -- just steady, moderate rain -- the Little Patuxent River was at its normal self this morning and actually wasn't very stained.  One cookie-cutter smallmouth slurped a Heddon Zara Puppy on my third or fourth cast and freed itself after a brief struggle.

Later another cookie-cutter smallmouth hit a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper and stayed on so I could take a picture.

Which didn't work out as planned.  I had purchased an Olympus Tough TG-6 to replace my aging (10 years old, LOL) Canon S90.  While replacing my Samsung Galaxy A6 with a newer variant might get me something that takes better pictures, I opted for the TG-6 because it's waterproof and a bit more rugged.  Duh, that's why "Tough" is in the name!  I can drop it in the water and even shoot pictures underwater of fish.  

I envisioned my first fishing expedition with the Olympus camera with me taking a picture with the camera submerged while setting a fish free.  But for some reason I got an error message because of the data card.  

So here are just some random underwater pictures taken with the new camera with no fish present:

Pictures seem better than the Nikon Coolpix I shot with a couple years ago.  I stopped using because of battery life and, well, the pictures weren't that good, although the little camera captured one of my top-five pictures of all time.

And here's a comparison of the Olympus TG-6 (first picture) versus the Galaxy A6 (second picture) at the same spot just seconds apart:

The Samsung phone isn't very good under low-light conditions and even the Canon S90 excelled there.  It looks like the Olympus is better for normal colors and not muddying things down.

Karen and I are scheduled to go camping on the Potomac in two weeks, then there's the first trip of the year with Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions after that, but otherwise, I think the fishing season is winding to a close.

Do not adjust your monitor if you see spots. Or walleye. Or a meanmouth.

The first of many largemouth spotted bass.

As has become a tradition in our yearly road trips, after Karen drives out from Maryland and picks me up at an airport somewhere out west, and we fish the following Wednesday.  In 2019, it was Rainy Lake on the Minnesota-Canada border.  In 2020, it was Lewis and Clark Lake part of the Missouri River system on the Nebraska-South Dakota border.  In 2021, it was back to Rainy Lake.

Karen has left it up to me where to fish, and this year I chose Table Rock Lake in the Ozark territory of Missouri.  We stayed at a hotel the first night, and I didn't find a stash of money hidden in the walls.

This was an experience that wasn't turning out well even before we got on the water.  First, I booked a guide with Fishing Booker, and all I heard from him was the robo, "Thanks for giving me a deposit!" email.  I sent a message a couple weeks later asking where we would be launching from and NOTHING.

After cancelling with him, I went to Fishing Booker again, and because of his positive ratings, I booked a trip with Eric from Eric's Elite Guide Service.  Got the robo response and immediately messaged asking where we would likely be fishing so Karen and I could book a hotel nearby.  He responded within a few hours.

It was a Wednesday trip, and the day before as Karen and I were cruising toward Branson, Missouri, Eric called me.  He had boat issues.  I was afraid he wanted to cancel, but he gave the option of starting to fish at 3 p.m. (initial launch was supposed to be 6 a.m. and fishing for four hours) while he commandeered a backup boat from one of his guides.  I told him I would mull it over and call back.

One of three species I caught for
the first time -- a longear sunfish.

It was HOT at this point and didn't seem to be letting up for the next day.  Mid-90s temps, and we would be fishing right in the middle of it.  I asked Karen what she wanted to do, and she gave me the usual, "It's up to you."  

Thinking we would have to stay another night in Branson since it would be a later trip, and it would be too late reserving another hotel room had me on the fence.  But I found a tent site open at the local KOA.  Called Eric back and told him, "Fish on!"

Instead of fishing at 6 a.m. as originally planned, we had the morning free.  I wanted to go to Pea Ridge Battlefield but Karen suggested another nearby battlefield, Wilson's Creek, and we could visit Pea Ridge the next day.  So we drove to the former.

When we got there, the parking lot at the visitors center looked full, and there were a couple of park rangers heading us off at the pass.

"Are you here for the ceremony?"

"What ceremony?"

"The one for the 161st anniversary of the battle."

Then we saw a large canopy with a bunch of people underneath escaping the heat and the about-to-be-sweltering temps.

It turned out, we stumbled on the exact day of the Battle of Wilson's Creek 161 years later.  Of course we obligated to stay and drove the battlefield tour afterwards.  Spoiler alert:  The Confederates won.  

Looking back on how the events unfolded, if it wasn't for Eric's boat issues, we probably would have fished in the morning and visited Wilson's Creek the next day missing the ceremony. 

After leaving Wilson's Creek, with the sun getting higher in the sky, we meandered through the winding roads of the Ozarks to Baxter Marina.  As the crow flies from Wilson Creek, it's about 20 miles.  As it drives, it's 120, or so it seemed.

We found Eric at the end of the dock already waiting for us, and boarded the boat.

His borrowed steed was a Skeeter of some flavor with a quiet engine even at full throttle.  His regular boat was a 2022 model that had a compressor issue, and he had to be towed back to the marina the day before.

Eric was confident the bite was on, but I was sweating and downing water not sure of what to expect.

After about 20 minutes knifing through the water, we stopped at a spot maybe 30 feet from shore.  It looked shallow but since Table Rock Lake was a reservoir produced from damning the White River in the 1950s, looks were deceiving.  It was roughly 30 feet to the bottom of the lake at that spot.

Eric rigged a "drop shot" -- a sinker with a hook tied 8-10 inches from the weight.  Threaded with a plain nightcrawler on the hook, I let the bait sink and hit the bottom of the lake.

"You have a fish on," Eric calmly said while still trying to assemble Karen's rig.

Double spots?!  What's it mean?

I jerked the rod, and there was indeed a something fighting on the other end.  Cranked on the spinning reel to bring the fish to the surface, and it looked like a largemouth bass about 14 inches.

But it wasn't a largemouth.  It was a close relation, a spotted bass.  "Spots" look almost exactly like largemouth but their mouths aren't as big, and they don't sprout more than smallmouth bass size.  A 14-incher like the first one I pulled up was picture worthy.

An easy way to identify a spot over a largemouth is to feel the fish's tongue -- spots have a small sandpaper-like patch on the tip.

That first spot was the beginning of a short frenzy.  Karen caught one.  I caught one.  Karen caught another.  And all the fish were legal size, although we didn't keep any.

I think I had 11 fish while Karen had at least as many before we motored to another spot.  Here I reeled in what looked like a smallmouth bass, but it wasn't a smallie.  Read about The Legend of the One-Eyed Meanmouth Bass.

Double walleye?!  What's it mean?

We trekked to another area and still tantalizing fish with a nightcrawler and found walleye territory.  Minimum keeper size on Table Rock is 18 inches, and we boated three while having to release a few that didn't measure up.  Karen had the biggest walleye at 22 inches.

After four hours, I counted 18 fish for me.  Karen didn't keep track but I'm sure she had at least as many.

Sometimes our guides are more pumped than we are, and Eric was sure the late start made for better fishing despite the heat.  The breeze was comforting and maybe the fish were on the cusp of fall feeding.

Karen and I caught our first spotted bass, and I caught my first meanmouth bass, plus another first, a long-ear sunfish,

Definitely in you're in the Branson, Missouri, itching to land fish, check with Eric's Elite Guide Service on availability.

From water to flame, not many -- if any -- fish
taste better than walleye cooked two hours after
pulling them out of the water.

Want to see more pictures from the trip from Utah and Canyonlands and Arches and the New River, click on the picture below:

The legend of the one-eyed meanmouth bass

This one-eyed meanmouth bass could not wait to feed again. 
No, really.  It could not wait.

If a blind squirrel can find a nut, the odds are way better for a one-eyed fish.

Fishing today on Table Rock Lake in Missouri with Karen and Eric of Eric's Elite Guide Service, I caught what appeared to be a smallmouth bass.  But Eric said, "Hold on a second," and lifted the fish.  He put a finger in the fish's mouth and proclaimed, "No, it's a meanmouth bass!"

Meanmouth bass are hybrids -- offspring from smallmouth bass and spotted bass spawning together. You know, momma spotted bass lays the eggs, papa smallmouth fertilizes them, or vice versa.

Spotted bass look a lot like largemouth, but their lateral lines are darker and their mouths don't extend past their eyes.  Sometimes smallmouth and largemouth breed, but it's rarer since they usually don't share the same habitat.  They might swim in the same body of water but live on different sides of the track.

Spotted bass are found in southern states from Texas to Florida.  Table Rock Lake is one of those bodies of waters where "spots" and smallies run together, so it's definitely possible to find a hybrid meanmouth at Table Rock.

Which I did today.  

And caught the same one twice.

Without taking a DNA sample and sending it off to a lab, the easiest way to differentiate a meanmouth from a smallmouth is to check the fish's "tongue."  Meanmouth and spotted bass have a small sandpaper-like patch on their tongue.

This meanmouth I caught -- verified by Eric checking the fish's tongue that it indeed have that patch -- was missing its left eye.  Maybe it had lost it getting hooked before?  A battle over territory with a walleye?  At the wrong end of the claw with a crayfish? Who knows.

Eric tossed the fish back, and I dropped my line baited with another nightcrawler to the bottom of the lake -- about 25 feet of water in this spot

Waited a couple minutes dead-sticking the bait and felt another bite.  I set the hook, reeled the fish in and it looked like another meanmouth.  No, wait.  It was THE SAME meanmouth with only one eye.  We all laughed -- that fish must have been hungry for nightcrawlers.  Eric said he had seen some weird stuff -- like three different times people in his boat hooking the same fish at the same time -- but never catching the same fish twice.

The joke the rest of the trip when getting a bite but reeling up a bare hook was that the one-eyed meanmouth bass had finally figured out a way to get the worm without getting caught. 

This is just a tease from today's trip where I caught two other species I had never caught before, plus some tasty walleye.  Guess who caught the biggest fish too?  Stay tuned ....

Eight For Eight: The rogues gallery of my most memorable smallmouth bass over the past eight years

Like how ESPN has been showing its "30 For 30" series, I bring you my "8 For 8."  

It's been eight years since I took up fishing again mainly trying to catch smallmouth bass.  With temperatures this weekend in the high 90s and not really feeling like fishing and dealing with the heat, I thought I would look back on the Top Eight smallmouth bass I have landed over the past eight years.

These aren't necessarily the eight biggest ranked by size but of most memorable (spoiler alert: a 16-incher is in the Top Three).

No. 8: First 15-inch smallmouth on the Little Patuxent, May 29, 2015.

First 15-inch smallmouth on the tiny Little Patuxent River. 
This is probably like catching a 20-inch smallmouth on Lake
Erie or the Susquehanna.

Since the Little and Middle Patuxent rivers were close to me, figured those rivers were home to smallmouth bass.  Everything in Maryland somehow connects to the Potomac it seems, so it shouldn't be too far fetched that them brown fish lurked in those skinny rivers.

Searching the internet, it appeared -- yes -- there were smallmouth bass, but I wasn't sure if they were plentiful or if they had any size.  The first one I caught on my first time fishing the Little Patuxent tipped a tape measure at maybe six inches.  And that fish was overshadowed by three rainbow trout.

Fishing near the shadow of an I-95 overpass in early 2015, it was confirmed these rivers had decent fish.  This was 15-incher jerked on a Rapala Shadow Rap.  A couple months later, I caught another smallmouth bass stretching 15 inches again on the Little Patuxent, and the game was on.

Oddly, I haven't caught any "big" smallmouth on the Middle Patuxent even though it feeds into the Little Patuxent.  I have seen a few nice fish, though, but they have been shy about their eating habits.

Next up, unlucky number seven ...

No. 7: The One That Got Away, October 2014.

No pictures exist of this fish.  

I've mentioned it before, but maybe fishing "doesn't take" if I don't hook this fish.  Camping overnight with Karen at McCoy's Ferry, had a few smallmouth and sunfish Saturday night.  

Sunday morning, I had not had that much luck and was about ready to call it a day around 11 a.m.  Working a Heddon Zara Puppy, I noticed the line was kind of frazzled where it was tied to the lure and didn't re-tie.

Kind of bored.  Karen should be about ready to go home.
Close to one of those "one last cast" moments, I let the Zara Puppy sail out, started working it side-to-side and a smallmouth bass EXPLODED out of the water -- it was hooked.  It jumped again, and I was desperately reeling.  The fish charged straight at me where I was standing on the bank.  Not even wading in the water, standing on the "safety" of the bank, and this smallmouth was coming right for me.

It jumped again and then it was gone.  

The line broke.

I've replayed this 100 times.  That smallmouth was easily 16 inches.  Maybe bigger?  The lesson was: Should have cut the frazzled line and re-tied the lure, and this has a better ending.

Up next, six is good.  I like six ...

  

Personal-best smallmouth bass at
that time.  Caught it wading literally
 in the middle of the Potomac River.

No. 6: First 16-inch smallmouth, July 25, 2015.

It was my little niece's first birthday, and I decided to go fishing early on the Potomac River with the plans of meeting up with the family later on to celebrate.  

I was wading in the area that I now call The Plateau.  The bottom of the river has rock formations that angle diagonally to how the water flows.  Easy to wade, and the water is low and clear this time of year.

I was mainly using a three-inch BPS plastic worm on a slider jighead.  Had not discovered the Z-Man worms yet.  

Casting as far as I could down river, this fish clamped on, and it was a battle.  Trying to keep my rod tip low so the fish wouldn't jump, I finally landed it -- 16 inches!

Up next, staying alive with number five ...

First 17-inch Potomac smallmouth bass.  

No. 5: First 17-inch Potomac smallmouth bass, Sept. 17, 2017.

This is a fish that solidified the Reaction Innovations Little Dipper in my arsenal.  They are cheap swimbaits (sub $6 for a pack of 10 from Susquehanna Fishing Tackle), so if one gets snagged, usually it's not worth crying about to lose one.  They are durable enough for two to three hookups.  Most importantly, fish like them.

I was wading about 20 feet from shore and spotted a slow eddy -- about two feet in diameter -- hugging the bank.  Not much room for error to hit this spot, but I made one of the best casts of my life.  Wouldn't you know it, this smallmouth was looking for something to eat and pounded the swimbait.

Up next, number four caught off the Susquehanna floor ...

My personal best smallmouth bass at that time. 
It would be surpassed just a couple hours later.

No. 4: Susquehanna 18-inch smallmouth, April 1, 2016.

My first fishing trip on the Susquehanna River with Jason Shay (he was guiding for another outfit -- Susquehanna Smallmouth Solutions was just a glimmer in his eye).  Searching through forums and sleuthing The Google, I read how the Susquehanna in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area was prime smallmouth territory, and I wanted to experience it.

I coaxed my buddy Kirk to join me, and we trekked up to meet with Jason.

On my first cast as Jason was still helping Kirk get his gear ready, I caught a 14-inch smallmouth.  FIRST CAST and something worthy of a picture.  

Bigger ones were yet to come.

Later on, this one went for a small tube cast as we were drifting down the bank running next to Highway 15.  Precision casting to small pockets, and this fish slurped the tube.

This was my personal best smallmouth at the time, and that record would be broken only a couple hours later.  

Up next, though three was caught on a Wee, it was fierce ...

Personal-best smallmouth for the Little Patuxent River. 
After catching three 15-inchers, finally found one that
was bigger.

No. 3: Little Patuxent 16-inch smallmouth, April 11, 2018.

Like I wrote earlier, this isn't ranking the size of the fish but telling the whole overall story.  The Little Patuxent River is a trickle of water that flows through eastern Maryland.  Not suitable for kayaking or swimming in most places, but this is my home river.

Usually the smallmouth bass are in the 10-inch range, and I consider anything above 12 inches a trophy.  If I consider a 15-inch smallmouth bass a trophy from the Little Patuxent, what about something bigger?

I have identified three or four good spots on the Little Patuxent and hit those regularly.  For some reason on this day, I tried an area of the river that never produced a fish for me before.  On an old (actually the term is vintage) discontinued Rebel Wee-R square bill crankbait that had been rattling around my tackle assortment since even before I started fishing again in 2014.  If I remember correctly, it had never caught a fish before.

The Wee R had some interest that day from rainbows.  Casting to another section to avoid the trout, this smallmouth bass hit lightly.  At first, I thought it was another trout or a dink smallmouth, but then it started pulling.  I was standing on the bank about three or four feet above the water and had to heft this beast up hoping something bad didn't happen.

Three 15-inchers prior to this, so it was a great feeling to see there are bigger fish in the little river.  I swear I've had two hooked since then that were just as big.

Up next, number two reaches for twenty ...

No. 2: Susquehanna 20-inch smallmouth, April 1, 2016.

When I caught smallmouth bass No. 4 on this list, it measured 18 inches.  It was also my first time on the Susquehanna River, so the river had already lived up to my expectations.

But the river produced more.

I cast a Rapala Shadow Rap downriver behind the boat and started working the lure back.  Felt a light tap on the line and set the hook.  Jason Shay, the guide, saw me set the hook and asked if I needed the net.

"Nah, it's not that big."

Reeled some more and got a look at the fish.

"Uh, yeah I need the net."

That Shadow Rap got a work out that day.  It also enticed a fish that length wise wasn't even close but probably chunked out to the same weight as the 20-incher.  One treble was missing from the front hook, and the two rear hooks were bent.

Up next, number one ...

Biggest smallmouth I've caught on the
Potomac and matches my personal best.

No. 1: Potomac 20-inch smallmouth, June 25, 2022.

I had seen pictures of them.  Big smallmouth bass from the Potomac River.  So I knew they were out there, but up until this day, my efforts had only yielded a 17-inch smallmouth (No. 5 on the list, and it was caught five years prior to this).

This makes No. 1 because it was caught wading (not on a boat), it smashed my personal-best from this river, and it was caught on a TOPWATER lure.  This is the only fish on the list landed after hitting a topwater lure, a Rapala X-Rap Prop.

I just wish I had taken a couple more photos before releasing the fish.  This was taken on my phone, which isn't great under low-light conditions.

Honorable mentions:

My tube hanging out of this smallmouth's mouth. 
And if you enlarge and peer down the throat, there
is another tube AND a crayfish!

Karen and I with a double on the Susquehanna River.

Another double!  Earlier this year on Lake Erie.