Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Ernie · Jun-16-10 5:25PM

Today, Steve Barnes and I met on the SS Rojas for a "strategic" meeting....much better than at the office!

We put in at Gravelly right at low tide (6:28 AM) and headed over to the Washington Channel. We immediately hit the Ft. McNair point and on his 2nd cast, Steve nailed this LMB on a Smack It top water bait!

Not a bad way to start. While Steve kept throwing TW I was throwing jigged flukes....after all, we were after stripers! After 4-5 drifts, we decided to head down to the "lure eater'' to see if any one was home and sure enough, Steve once again comes through with another LMB.

This one was landed while jigging....for stripers.

We worked shallow, deep and in between but got no more love so we decided to head back up to the point but I changed my mind and we went to the point at Bolling AFB. Man....did we have some major marks! We saw shad flipping and carp jumping but we could not elicit a bite form anything.

So after my wife called us reporting thunder and rain in Ashburn we decided to head up to the bridges. Even though we had low clouds looming around, it looked like we would be spared. We worked several pilings, the shore, the mouth of Columbia Island Marina and the mouth of the Tidal Basin and we got nothin'!

Hmmm....now what? Steve had been talking about the show City Limits and how Ike had caught bass at the power plant so we went over there. OK...not so smart, the water was 85 degrees. This place is good when the river water is cold. Now what? Since we had a very long high tide due to the SW winds, I decided to take Steve to Blue Plains....1st time there in my boat.

The water was murky but the "blue" water was coming out and in our 2nd drift I landed a nice yellow perch.

Then we started to get some nips and after adjusting our retrieve, we started catching a bunch of these guys......

.....finally we were on the stripers, albeit little ones.

Around 2PM we decided that we had pushed our weather luck far enough and called it a day.....with the fish biting mind you! For the day, we caught 2 LMB, 1 YP and 7 stripers.

Always a great picture....

We were able to miss the rush hour traffic and get the boat tucked away safely.

I like these kinds of meetings!

jumping jasper · Jun-17-10 5:38AM

Tough day at the office! Did you expense your boat gas too.

Ernie · Jun-17-10 6:01AM

Ha! No write offs.....but certainly a benny!

Salmo · Jun-17-10 6:29AM

BP can hold good numbers of stripers this time of year. The water at the discharge is actually cooler than the rest of the river. It even holds some migratory fish in there later in the year than anywhere else but mostly at night. Plus you don't need to be right at the discharge. There's a flat a little to the south in front of those docks. It's free of wood or other obstructions and is about 4 or 5 feet in a large area. Anywhere in there on an outgoing tide could be good. Plus the channel marker just before you make that sharp turn to the east to get to the discharge often holds some nice fish right on the drop off. I like fishing a lucky craft pointer 100 over the flat just south of the discharge. I often need to change the hardware though as the 20+” schoolies will mangle the hooks in no time. On one March afternoon I got into some serious fish there for a couple days… then all of a sudden they vanished. But we have caught decent size schoolies in there well into June and July. Plus that flat makes it perfect fly rod water too.

The power plant on the va shore holds fish in the middle of the summer, even at 85 degrees. Mostly smallmouth, just like the city limits show. No idea why. I hit it last July at the end of the month on one of the hottest days imaginable. River water temp was in the mid 80's and the discharge was in the upper 80's but guess what... we managed two nice smallmouth in no time. It’s got moving water and that’s what they want. Blue plains that day had an insane number of fish in it as it’s like looking into the Baltimore aquarium most days. Some of the LM bass we saw in there were massive. Easily MD state record proportions. Plus walleye! Lots of them. and carp. There were a few LM bass in there larger than the Carp!! But we couldn't get them to hit a thing. Actually we couldn’t get anything to hit. We tried drop shotting, gulp, shaky heads, dropped down to 6 pound floro leaders, you name it. I think they know the exact brand hook and line you use as they have seen it all. If you have the courage and a beat up old boat, fishing there at night can pay off. Live bait may too.

Last edited by Salmo (Jun-17-10 6:34AM)

Pacemaker Fishing Forum

#1 Jun-16-10 5:25PM

6-16-10, Potomac River (DC) report

#2 Jun-17-10 5:38AM

Re: 6-16-10, Potomac River (DC) report

#3 Jun-17-10 6:01AM

Re: 6-16-10, Potomac River (DC) report

#4 Jun-17-10 6:29AM

Re: 6-16-10, Potomac River (DC) report

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