Nitrofreak

Much appreciated, I will defiantly heed that warning and not risk anything unnecessarily.

This was my very first outing on the Potomac, the guy on the left had never casted a set up before, his only experience was to open the bail and let the bait fall, there was a rule we had which was to catch our two fish as a boater and then spend the rest of our time teaching our veterans how to fish, I had my two by 10 am plus this 10.2 Snakehead that I took home for dinner, it was an absolutely amazing day spent teaching someone else about the sport we love.

I have tried Mattawoman a couple of times and really have not done well at all, I just don’t have enough experience there yet but I’m working on that ??

I have little experience on the Potomac, the times that I have been there have been exciting to fish, Aquia, Chicamuxen Creek are really the only two areas I have any limited knowledge of. I have fished up in Aquia before and experienced the same, with exception to the bends which seems to produce every time I have fished up there. There is so much to Aquia that makes me want to explore it in depth, I have not spent much time around the mouth of Aquia and it’s pretty much the reason I am heading there tomorrow but to also hopefully get up to other areas closer to the bridge in the D.C. area and a little beyond as well. Thanks for the valued information my friend, it is truly appreciated !!!

Rest assured I will not become one of those, there are some areas I find truly interesting and want to explore, I am wanting to go up to the first bridge and just past that there appears to be a parking deck, maybe a gravel dump, possibly ballast from a ship maybe in that general area and it looks like barges that have been sunk in another area close to there as well, if I may ask, I am looking to get my DC fishing license since the line appears to be just past the bridge, would you have a site suggestion that you use to get yours ??

Sorry guys, I haven’t been able to keep up with the thread since work gets in the way as well as having to come home and work on my mother in laws kitchen I have been remodeling, I’m glad to see all of the posts on the Potomac and it’s probably going to take me a little while to respond to some/all of the replies, awesome job peeps !!! Since you quoted me I will start with you my friend. The very first time I set eyes on the place was with the RAHF (Reel American Hero’s Foundation) I happened to take out an ambassador from Jamaica and the one rule we had was once we caught our second bass (boat captains) we had to spend our time teaching our veterans how to fish, well, this cat had never made a cast in his life “literally”, all he had ever done was open the bail and fished vertical, we never caught a fish but he was enjoying the opportunity to fish from the bow and learning how, where and why we fished for bass, I’ll have to find a pic but by 10AM I had my 2 bass plus a 10.2 lb. Snakehead, the rest of the day was fun, it was spent in Aquia as a matter of fact. Anyway, I am no tidal guru one might say so I really appreciate the heads up !! My plan for Saturday is to soak up Aquia and see what she has to offer since the creek had since been sucked dry by the storm systems last year, I was actually thinking about focusing on the mouth and specifically the grasses at the mouth of Aquia as well as the docks on the right as you enter the creek but now I want to investigate the bends in the upper creek too... thanks buddy for ruining my plans ?????? This is something that a lot of anglers face down here, coming from NY that has to be really strange for you, I’ve always wanted to get up there and fish for those amazing smallies y’all have, to visit and fish places like 1000 islands and lakes like Champlain would be a dream come true, I envy you my friend.

I look forward to this place almost as much as I do as when we go to the Chick, the Potomac has tons of little secrets that reveal themselves when tide is out and usually end up producing both quality and numbers, pretty cool place to explore !! I have not been out there when it’s bad as of yet in reference to the weather/water conditions and heavy traffic, can’t say I’m looking forward to that day but we did get caught in a pretty nasty storm last year.

I am looking forward to this event, my tournament partner and I are headed there this Saturday to do a little scouting in Aquia, maybe take a ride up the river to expand on some water to get to know the river a little better. Next weekend is our clubs classic 2 day event, we have done ok there in the past, we were close last year so we are hoping to improve overall by putting in some work, both of us are limited with how much time we can put in on the water so this is a rare practice day for us but we will take it. Who else here likes the Potomac ?

I don’t know that I have a “favorite” to be honest, my home lake is Lake Anna in Virginia, my largest was caught there which is at 9.9, I love all the water systems here in this state because they all hold something that interests me, FISH !! ???? Seriously, if I had to choose I just couldn’t choose one over any of the others.

Keep us posted on how you guys get along please, thanks so much for the kind words !!

Study the maps up in the rivers arms, look for areas where the old river channels kiss the banks, work those areas thoroughly and you will get rewarded for your efforts. Lots of luck and as always be safe !!

We only travel to those same lakes once a year also, yes, there are some great sticks in this club who do have experience on this body of water as well as others, as you, we are left to fend for ourselves, what I feel the difference between you and I my friend is that I feel different about the situation we have been presented with, my thoughts are geared more toward a couple/few more years down the road, if my tournament partner and I are still doing this then I firmly believe we can contend for wins as long as we keep learning, as long as we keep exploring, the rest I feel very confident in saying will come to us at some point, lots of work yet to do, our map reading, sonar echos, what we like to fish structure wise, shallow vs. deep, we are learning important things from one another while we are learning from the fish and from the lakes themselves. Thank you Sam, your words of encouragement are always held valuable with me.

That’s great to hear, glad y’all had some fun on the ol girl, down lake I hear is slowing a bit but the boat traffic is appalling up lake (not unusual) let us know when your coming back and maybe we might have some current reports going out at that time for you guys !!

Thank you Sam, it was a very good outing we learned a lot about the lake and respectively had a 5th and 6th place finish, we just lacked getting a couple of those big bites again but my tournament partner and I are getting better and better with each outing we have man, we had a 9.07 day one for the 6th place on day one, winning bag was 11 something, day two we had 7.7 something and got 5th, winning bag was 19. Something, close to a 20lb bag, day 2 was by far the hardest and probably the toughest day we have had since I have been paired with him, we put our heads down, took a look at our maps and said let’s go here and here and ended up with a limit, very, VERY pleased with how day 2 turned out.

Headed down for a two day event 22/23, only been there once, I love the place honestly and I am looking forward to the challenge, last year I came in with big fish 5.22 lbs which came from an area neither my boater nor myself had ever seen but looked really good on the paper map so I convinced him to go, I believe we will be exploring some more options during this event as well, anyone one need any reports on the current status I will be happy to pass along locations, conditions and what I know and used during the event that worked or did not work. Have fun and be safe out there !!!

Awesome job guys!! Be safe and have fun during your trip !!

Well, yesterday I had a grey matter malfunction but all in all a great day. We started the day focusing on areas in which the old river channels would swing close to points, which in turn provided for some good adjustments throughout the day. Water surface temps stayed roughly the same throughout the the day, 66-67.4, clarity depended on areas that were not affected by the high winds we fished in, some areas had roughly 3.5 to 4 feet of visibility while others had maybe a foot and a half. We started our day at the Northern point of Marshall Creek (the one on the left at the splits) and worked our way around that point, picked up our first two on a deep fronted dock and deep laydown, the dock was in 23’ of water, the laydown in 32’, this told me that they were doing both moving in and out as well so we went up to fish Ware cove and a couple of other pockets near the State Park and struck out, we came back to fish some pockets that had man made cover, I.E. docks and brush piles near the old channels and found that the further away we got from our game plan the less success we had so we stuck with it and fished the areas, specifically pockets, of Rose Valley, Harlow Point, Godwins Point that had a mixture of man made and natural cover. The gray matter malfunction came after I had caught our first two bass within the first 45 minutes of the day, one being that I had a deep bite happening and two being that they came from my favorite jig set up. That combination led me to get all excited and worked up over what “I thought” the day was going to hold, shortly after catching those two bass I began having issues skipping my skirted finesse jig under and into any area I wanted to fish, I was not having any issues skipping my swim jig nor my shaky head nor my weightless presentation, I let that get to me and in turn kept trying to force something that I shouldn’t have which also in turn cost us valuable time. The one huge takeaway from yesterday was that the adjustments we made in fishing areas of the lake gave me a ton of confidence that what we were doing was the right thing, all we lacked in our efforts was for a couple of bigger ones to come play with us, had I been more open minded and not tried to keep forcing something to work we may very well have had that opportunity. All in all it was a great day, we ended up with a 12.07 bag, not sure exactly where we finished out of 15 boats but I will take it because we learned a ton about that lake for this time of year, big improvement from two short weeks ago. Thanks for reading guys and I wish you all the best !!!

Sounds like you had some fun !! I have a club Benefit tournament tomorrow there, no points involved but I am going to take this event and spend some time with her, I have a different approach than I had two weeks ago, maybe it will work, maybe it won’t but I will defiantly come away with some educational experience that I need for this time of year. I don’t know if I will have a report for you guys by weekends end but I will try, thanks for the post and I hope you get back soon to fish her some more !! Be safe !!!

I could not cover the whole lake but I thought that I covered enough that I felt like we should have run into enough to have a shot, there were I believe 3 tournaments on Saturday which might have contributed to not gathering the weight we needed due to fishing behind others but in all we did catch our limit so I’m ok with that but Sunday came and she just smacked me around like a red headed step child, we covered a lot more water but I believe we may have fished too fast looking back on it now since the front hit but I really thought that big wind would help locate some but it simply just was not my day. I am in total agreement with you, I need more time on the water during this time of the year, I think I need to start about a month earlier actually and not bother bringing any fishing gear, just me and my sonars and scan, scan, scan. Thanks for the reply @TOXIC

Work on getting it in very skinny water where they have the advantage of pinning their prey, if they do not beach themselves trying to get it then bring it out just barely under the surface with really small twitches to keep it in the strike zone as long as possible before the current grabs it, unless they are in a very aggressive mood then the speed really won’t matter as much, not sure if you have tried this but if not I hope this helps, good luck and be safe !!!

Small skirted jigs work well for SMB, drop shot is something that works best around current brakes, I use Missile Baits Bomb Shot’s, (Fishalicious color mostly) and Berkley’s Flat Worms 99 percent of the time, if you fish that in current just make sure you utilize shorter casts and shorten your distance between the hook and weight otherwise you will get a bow in the line and the only thing in the strike zone will be your weight, another one I had not seen mentioned was the double fluke rig, I hope you have a safe and fun trip !!

Next Anna update will be in two weeks, I have a club Benefit tournament on the 8th, hopefully I can do a little better next time around for you guys.

Your very welcome, The issue is with me, we found fish but I need more experience on that lake this time of year, I never fished it during any of the spawning month that have in memory, just never had any interest in disturbing/disrupting the process as personal opinion, can’t say that I didn’t try this past weekend that’s for sure ?? I have some work to do before I try that again.

Sunday is what I am assuming your asking about? We started in Anna River at Sunset Cove and worked up to Barnes Point, both sides of that area, suspending jerk baits in Nude to Shad pattern colors, SK 100’s, LC Pointers, 110 and 78, MB vision 110, drop shot with Robo worms, Berkley finesse, Zoom, Missile Baits Bomb shot, SK Ocho from white to natural colors, Wacky Rigged as well as nose hooked, we left that area and went to Ware’s point and fished all in there up to Stubbs Bridge and down to the State Park area, same baits added a couple of square billed Spro Little John 50 series flat sided crank baits, we left there and went to Pigeon Creek fished that entire area, left there and went to Mitchell Creek we fished the back half of that entire area, added finesse flipping jigs, first and only fish on Sunday came off of that technique, left there and fished the mid lake region from the 208 bridge down to Sturgeons Creek. Saturday we started in the back of Pigeon Creek, left there and went to Valentine, Blount, Dukes, Boggs, Sturgeon, all of those were heavily pressured as well as the upper regions of the lake.

Weekend tournament was an absolute bust for me and my partner, the water temps had dropped significantly from the previous weekend visit, Saturday we managed a limit but it didn’t come easy at all, Sunday was an absolute disaster, I managed one bite from a day in which we fished in, we fished out, we explored and fished many structural changes, many cover options, many techniques were employed when we located fish but to no avail, I personally focused on fishing my strengths after coming out empty handed by mid morning, drop shot, finesse style skirted jigs, shaky heads, those are my confidence baits and I flat wore them out, the winds were brutal, so much so that I had to flip a jig 5-7 feet to the side of I wanted to hit my intended target, just a difficult day all around but the one thing I am very proud of is that we never gave up until the last seconds ticked off the clock, we were both plum tuckered out. Thanks guys and gals for the read and I hope you all have a great day !!!