Pacemaker Fishing Forum

With the rebuild of my house and a new job I started in the fall, I haven't fished since early September. I've had the itch big time so the solution was to call Charlie up and have him come down for a few days like last September. It finally came together the past few days.

Charlie got to my house late Saturday night. He was tired from the drive and I was exhausted from working on the house all day. The plan was to hit the Upper Potomac a bit later in the morning than we're used to and not kill ourselves since we had Sunday night and all day Monday to fish as well. We launched at Algonkian and fished from the ramp to about 3/4 of a mile or so upstream. It took us a while to figure the fish out but when we did we had a decent pick of small to medium sized SMB on tubes and jigs. While we didn't get anything big it was a great way to shake off the rust. We probably ended up with 5 or 6 fish each and missed close to as many as well. The average fish was something like this-


After a quick break for lunch, we headed to the Mattowoman. We launched at the "kayak launch" and set out in search of a topwater bite. The fishing was slow to start but we found a few bites as we got deeper into the spatterdock. I missed a pig that got down in the heavy cover and then Charlie hooked one nearby. We fished our way down the creek and managed a few fish on frogs.


As we got to the lower section of our target area the rumble of thunder could be heard from the distance and I saw a few flashes of lightning. I decided that we would work our way back toward the launch and pray that Capt. Mike was right in that this place has some sort of magic storm repellent built into it. Sure enough, about 1/3 the way back the wind blew itself out and it became a beautiful evening to fish. Right about then Charlie also happened to hook a fish and suddenly a pattern emerged. We then proceeded to catch a good number of cookie cutter bass from 2.25 to 2.5 lbs each. Charlie then had his frog eaten and we both watched a large snakehead launch itself vertically right out of the water, come down and spit the hook. Later on he would hook another one, a smaller one that he got boat side only to have it get free with one last minute thrash. All told we landed around 15 to 20 bass each and Charlie capped the night with a very skinny, long fish that weighed in at 4.5 lb.

One that got off the scale. The pics made me laugh :-)

 


Almost...



Skinny Fish- Definitely would have been over 5 lb with some meat on it.


Then it was back to the launch. It happened again... The water gets so low in that section of the creek that what appears to be the creek sends you down a dead end. So we back tracked, walked through ankle deep mud, across gravel, dodged critters and endured a downpour to get back to the truck and head home.

After a LONG day we were exhausted but satisfied with catching some fish. In total we had between 15 and 20 bass each and Charlie had the only 2 snakehead bites that we know of. There were a couple of other good hits but we never saw the fish. In the morning we would hit the reservoir.

We started out later than usual again and decided to focus on the deep water structure. I give Charlie a lot of credit. He has a desire to learn new techniques and he stuck with it longer than we probably should have. I had a first for me at the reservoir. At one point I caught a fish on 3 consecutive casts. Unfortunately they were not of the usual quality I am used to. They were all under 2 pounds. I did manage a couple of other nicer fish in the deep. Charlie finally gave in and started to fish the bank around the reeds. He caught several nice fish on frogs and his swimming plugs. He found a pattern that I never knew before even though, in retrospect, it is kind of obvious and makes sense. Those swimming plugs make a great imitation for the bluegills etc that live in and around those shoreline reeds. I ended up landing 7 fish and Charlie had 5 including a nice smallmouth that ate his "Pikie" swimming plug.

 

Hey Ernie, here's proof that the lures that Charlie gave you are not salt water lures. ;-) The smallmouth ate the 3" pikie but the the largemouth had a preference for the 4" Danny.

 

As always Charlie is great to fish with. We have a lot of laughs, I always learn from him and we caught fish. And this time he didn't forget his keys...