Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Fished the Occoquan Res and only caught an over-ambitious bream. Got a good workout between peddling the yak and throwing everything in my tackle box over the course of the morning!

Today I went out on the Potomac. Caught some shad right away with the cast net and headed out with ugly skies coming in. I decided to try anyway since I had the bait and weather guy said no embedded t-storms.

It was my first time on the river with my kayak and it got interesting real quick when the wind and tide picked up at the same time in opposite directions. Some of the whitecaps were higher than my head. It was a solid 45 minute peddle to my first spot. I had to bypass some stripers that were hitting shad on the flat(the same one Mike S posted about near Belvoir). I didn't have anything to throw at them so I just watched a lot of 24" or so bass blast the shad while the birds hung out overhead.

It was really rough in the channel, so I would go out and set my bait, then come back to anchor near the shore. I got a few solid hits, but learned the hard way that an Ugly Stik, mono, and a kayak allow waaaayyyy to much flex to get a good hookset. Lesson learned on that one. Wind kept getting worse, so I headed in against the wind and rain. There was a lot of bait on the flats and in the creek. Sometimes I miss my boat...but lessons learned, next time I will be much better prepared.

Still beat a day of work.