Fat Boy

Same here, only for me it's been a few years. I've had some success on smallies on the Juniata and Susky this year, and the Upper Potomac. Since post spawn, I've mostly been fly fishing using Tenkara rods for anything that bites. I've done very well on all types of panfish, some trout, shad, and lots of punk sized bass. My biggest Tenkara smallie so far is 18" and my biggest LMB on Tenkara is 17". The smallie was on my larger rod which can handle big fish, the largemouth was on my UL Tenkara rod which was quite a fight. Anyway, good to be back. I'll post some reports and fish pics soon.

I was out there last Sunday... everyone I talked to that bass fished (in your club tourney or not) had a tough day. My buddy Bob fished it last Sunday and caught one dink...very tough and he's a good angler. He says he's done with the 'Mac. I'm not sure what is going on there, but other spots along the river haven't been bad for me. One thing that I noticed a couple weeks ago that a lot of bass were still in skinny moving water and had a good day on buzzbaits. Jetting in that skinny clear water is nerve racking though. Good luck Allen.

BMBass and MARsSPEED, some quality fish posted there, nice and congrats! Nate, some nice 'skis from your buddy there. I went musky fishing yesterday without seeing a musky, but I managed to get one fish to bite, a nice consolation prize, a 19.5" spawned out bronzeback:

Thanks for the heads up Traveler. I wouldn't want the headache of going through this, but if ticketed for such a thing, I'd wonder if a judge would think in court about someone bringing a case to him about being fined for the crime of catching a big blue cat or other invasive fish, taking a quick picture while in his or her boat, and then a quick release. It seems pretty petty to me. There is no more harm to the environment if the fish released in the same location of where it was caught after a minute or two regardless of what part of the boat it was released from. I can understand the concept behind catch and release of protected fish during a closed season, not bringing them into the boat, for the protection of those fish and to increase their chances at survival. Bit this is a bit ridiculous, if enforced. Anyway, I appreciate the fact that you shared this with us, because it will be in the back of my mind. From a management standpoint, unfortunately, these fish are here to stay, and I suspect that in time the laws will ease a bit. Already, the concept of having to keep and kill all of the snakeheads by law has changed, that you can keep (and have to kill) or release them, rather than always having to kill them.

Thanks for sharing, very cool vid. Gotta love those small stream smallies. You can get away, catch a lot of fish, get bass thumb, and create a long lasting memory. Then, go back and do it again!

I fished Johnson's and Leonard's years ago and did pretty well. I've only fished each one time and meant to get back. There are so many places to fish on your side of the bridge...I'm jealous . My fondest memory about Johnson's was that we were fishing during a rainy day in September, and we were struggling to put together a pattern. A buddy of mine had a white spinnerbait tied on and tossed it out and backlashed. He picked out the back lash as we drifted along and his lure was dragging behind the boat but not on the bottom (not much line out) and his lure must have been bouncing up and down like a yo yo, and a nice bass hammered it and he had to pull it in by hand. A light bulb went off and we both started casting our spinnerbaits and letting them sink to the bottom, then jigged them back hopping them to the boat. The bass went ballistic and hammered them on just about every cast. Prior to that, they wouldn't touch a spinnerbait. All of the bass were decent size and a bad day went to a good day during the final two hours of our day, and we forgot about the all day downpour that we were complaining about until the fish started biting. It's funny to me how you can discover new ways to fish simply by accident or mistake. Good luck!

I drove over the Monocacy last night and it looked like chocolate and high. Seneca Creek was like that this morning. Maybe the river above the mouths of those tribs might be OK but I guess it depends on the Doah. Anyone see that?

Nice fish and a great day Rippin! Congrats!

Welcome to Maryland Greg! Check out all of the links on this page: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/keepfishing/?page=wheretofish On your side of the bridge, the many public ponds are bass fishing heaven for you. I like them all as the bass are usually willing and fairly easy to find along with other species, perfect for kayaks. Each pond has their own "personality". Also, if I was you, I'd also buy a Delaware license and fish those waters. There are many good tidal bass fishing spots near you or within a reasonable drive. The Nanticoke, Choptank, Pocomoke Rivers, and right in Salisbury's downtown location on the Wicomico River, and most of their tributaries are very good too, that can provide excellent largemouth bass opportunities. If you don't mind the drive, you can come chase smallmouth and largemouth on the Western Shore rivers. The Potomac has some great access and plenty of fishable water from your kayak. Good luck and post some pictures and stories on the ongoing Maryland thread!

I was out twice this weekend targeting largemouth. Friday, spent 1/2 day at Black Hills. The water was pretty murky, about 1' visibility, temps upper 60s/low 70s. Fishing was tough IMHO. I finished with 10 bass, all between 14-18" which was nice as far as size go. But all but one of them came from one small spot, and we worked our butts off everywhere else. All but one were caught finessing soft plastics, and one chaser on a chatterbait. After talking with some folks, I guess I did OK (boats at the ramp complaining about getting skunked), but geez we covered some great spots that are usually good that were dead. I'm thinking that they're in a post spawn funk. If I get out soon, I'll be searching deeper water my next time out. Yesterday, I fished the tidal Potomac and pretty much the same thing. I caught three in 6 hours and worked hard for them all finessing. Nothing on faster baits. Where we found clearer water, we found more active fish. My numbers would have been better had I been on my game as I lost four fish that launched out of the water and tossed the hook. I keep my hooks sharp and thought that I had good hook sets, so I'm not sure what was going on. They were decent sized bass. Again, nothing big, all between 14-17", and I'm thinking post spawn funk too. The carp were going nuts on the river, splashing and carrying on. Nate's comment earlier may have been more of a factor with my lack of fish yesterday. Most of the time I can put things together, but man did I struggle yesterday. I thought that I had a good plan, but looking back, hindsight is 20/20 and thought of some things on the drive home that I should have tried.

Anyone know what shape the Upper Potomac is in? The guage at Little Falls is just over 5', but I was wondering about clarity with all the rain we got last night. Also, are the boat ramps cleared of mud yet? Thanks for the info...

Yes, you're correct. It's not close to home for me, but I like to get out there now and then to get away from everything. The only things that keeps me from going more often are gas prices and beach traffic. It's nice because you can do those lakes with an electric motor, but most of them you can run your outboard (6 mph or less though) to save your battery. There are many good lakes across the Bay from us, and all of them have good fishing depending on the species. I also like the idea that if any particular pond isn't working out for you, the tidal river/creek options are many for bass, pickerel, perch, crappie, etc. Spot changes are not a big deal, and there is always another option nearby in most of the Eastern Shore. But the cypress trees do give you the feeling of the Chickahominy! Here are a couple more pics from a recent trip for tidal bass. We spent a lot of time chasing stripers which weren't biting that day. But when we bass fished, we caught several of these (like identical 2 pound twins everywhere). That's OK, I'll take 'em all day long. I love this picture. When unhooking this bass, the crankbait was free and clear, and as I was ready to release it, the next thing you know I look down and this little bugger was chomping down on my line cutter! It was wedged in there pretty good. My buddy's suggested that I tie it on and cast it out there ;D

Hey guys. Sorry that I've been kinda quiet lately. I've been fishing all winter, but also have had a lot of other stuff going on so I've been away from posting on forums for a bit. This post is about a trip that I took last weekend that had tough fishing, but still was fun. Good company, good scenery, and a few nice fish away from the beaten path is what it's all about for me any more. My buddy Howard hit a small lake a couple hours from home that is one of our favorite day trips. Expectations were high considering our success here the past few years, as we proceeded to launch the S.S. Fat Boy. It was nice getting the boat in the water after having it sit in my carport until I had the money to fix the trailer. Another buddy, Rodger wanted to fish with us that day too, so he brought his scanoe and fished solo. We’d cross paths throughout the day, mostly to make sure that he was OK and also to see if he was into fish or not. We had the option of fishing three out of my boat if things weren’t working out for him. Other than learning to control his scanoe on a windy day, he did pretty well, including catching chain pickerel for the first time. I think this was his second chainside. A fish pic, with Rodg having a death grip on the slime rocket! And for good reason too…these things have teeth, so of course, we told him not to lip them. He took the advice. I wish that I had paid more attention to my own advice. One nice sized chain pickerel that I tried to measure (and didn’t get a length) flipped over the boat and raked his teeth across my hand during his escape: This pickerel cooperated for a measurement later in the day and went 23 ½” long. The toothy critter wasn't very long, but was fat and had a big head! Howard tied into the pickerel too, landing the longest one that measured 24”: Conditions were tough during the day, but we did manage to catch a few bass in the process. Here’s Howard with a decent one. Most of the bass were on the small side on this trip. Howard caught a couple slab crappie on a plastic worm, giving him the multi-species award for the day. I had one hooked and lost it at the boat on a Rat-L-Trap earlier. Howard with another nice pickerel: Wanna play kiss the pickerel? Here’s the business end of ol’ chainsides: What a great day out there. The fishing was on the tough side, but the company and scenery were fantastic. When I want my mind to drift, here is where it goes: It’s another world altogether with those beautiful cypress trees: Howard battling a pickerel in the upper end of the lake in some really skinny water. The bigger bass boats don’t venture up this far. I finished with thirteen bass and seven chain pickerel. Howard had similar numbers. The crankbait bite was hot early, then completely died. After that, plastic worms were the ticket. I had seven bite offs to annoy me! Howard picked up some fish on a chatterbait too. It was a fun trip, but we were pretty beat at the end of the day. Even though it was a Friday, there were more boats on the lake than I can ever recall. Still, I can’t wait to get back there.

I meant to post this a while back, so as a report goes, it's probably not too helpful (got busy and haven't been back on until today). But I thought it was interesting and may help people fishing Black Hills while it's still warm. I'd imagine that since the weather has been roughly the same the past couple weeks since that hot snap, that similar results could be expected to what we found. The surface water temp was 82 degrees. My depthfinder wasn't working right so I wasn't able to see a thermocline. In the past, it's been about 20-25' depending on the year, so I started fishing at that depth. My buddy and I noticed a bunch of algae like scum on top of the water, like the lake had turned over. We found the bass, accidentally, on the bottom in 30-35 FOW. I was amazed that they were that deep. They weren't huge, and we didn't catch a ton of them but did OK considering we were only out there for a few hours, but they averaged a couple pounds each. I just thought that it was interesting and would share. Anyone else catching them really deep like that at BH? Oh, and another weird thing, there wasn't a lot of wood in the water where we caught them, it seemed like the lake bottom structure was more important than working the cover. I did manage one decent bass covering water on the way back to the ramp on a Chatterbait caught on the first drop off near shallow water.

Oh yeah, Brian was correct, initially they were stocked for two reasons, and today those reasons still exist, to control crappie, and now yellow perch, and also to provide anglers with additional opportunities to catch a fish of a lifetime.

On July 12, 2012, the Maryland DNR stocked approximately 3,000 4" tiger musky fingerlings them again last year after 6 years of not stocking them due to fears of VHS disease and the Feds making it illegal to export any fish from Great Lakes states where the disease was found. Since then, those states had to have their hatcheries certified as selling "clean" fish, free from disease. Maryland gets theirs from PA, and for the first time in several years, "clean" fish have been available. PA produces the most tiger muskies of any state by far (probably over 90%), so you can imagine that they're in high demand nationwide, hence the other road block to stocking has been simply availability (or lack thereof). Below is a letter from a concerned fellow angler from several years ago that explained the issues. My friend sent another email asking about stocking this year, and was told that they are trying to acquire the same number of fingerlings from PA this year and stock again. Availability is the issue now. That update was three weeks ago. Several years back at BH, while fishing out of my buddy's Coleman Crawdad, I had one bite off my Rattlin' Super Rogue one spring while that lure was producing several very big bass for me that day (all between 18 and 21 inches long). I cast to a log jam, twitched it once and let it sit, then wham. At first I thought it was a monster bass only to see it launch out of the water and it was pretty massive (maybe low to mid 40 inches). I fought it using Fireline on my finess rod, and it was directly below the boat about 4' down and shaking it's massive head. Inside it's mouth, deep, was my jerkbait hooked on each inside cheek sideways, with my line exposed to those teeth. I had just said to my buddy that I don't think we're going to land this one when my line just went limp. The tiger jumped a few times trying to throw the hook but didn't see that occur (not that I could have retrieved it). I was bummed not only because of losing that fish, but more importantly the hot lure of the day was gone. My replacement that day, my closest match, a Husky Jerk, caught bass, but not like that Rogue. I know own many Rogues, LOL. As far as growth rates, those 4" fish are probably about 16-18" now. The should be over 30" in two years, and after that they get pretty large very quick. They only live about 6 years or so, but some have been recorded as living as long as a dozen years. Those fish become massive. The biggest officially recorded tiger musky out of Black Hills was a dead 51" fish. The biggest officially recorded caught fish were mid 40's at most. Now that perch are in there, along with the many gills and crappie, there could be more fish approaching 50" in the future. There were two bogus reports (no pictures of fish on a bump board or other measuring device) of 58" tigers caught at BH. The pictures looked like either the tigers were mid 40's and held very close to the camera, or the angler had extremely abnormally sized hands and fingers that could engulf the head of any human easily in their fist .

I agree, that's a huge problem. I've had similar issues that I had to straighten out...huge pain. I was fortunate that I didn't lose more than I did. I luckily caught it early on before it got out of hand. I don't know why they need all that info. It's easier to vote than it is to fish!

Good points, well taken. The DL should be good enough. Maybe they need the SSN for the saltwater registry stuff?

Trav...I found it pretty easy. The cool thing is that there are multiple ways to log in, so you don't have to have a great memory...that works for me since I can't remember anyth.... ...what were we talkin' about again?

Oh yeah, and tidal water is always good, but look for deeper holes where fish don't have to fight the tides as much.

If we have open water, the fish should bite somewhere. On lakes for largemouth in our area, here's my approach for winter fishing: Find the deepest spot on the lake and fish really slow on the bottom. Use finess worms (drop shotting is good), jigs, or tubes. Find a spot along the Northern shoreline where the sun beats down. On Indian summer days, when the winds blow from a Southerly direction, and if there is cover there with deep water nearby, those can be hot spots. You may catch good numbers or maybe a big one. Those Southern winds will pile up the warmest water there. I’d toss the same lures, small T-rigged worms, jigs or tubes, but a Rat-L-Trap, spinnerbait or chatterbait might be good choices too, especially the spinnerbait. Nothing fancy, a white tandem spinnerbait with a white trailer will do nicely. For river smallmouth, find the deep slack holes with current breaks nearby. Fish tubes slow or hard jerkbaits worked very slow with long pauses.

Thanks Sean. The snakehead was delicious, but I lost half of it and half a rockfish from Sandy power outages. I'll have to do my part and go down and kill some more snakeheads and stock my freezer again. Joe, good luck. I'll look forward to your reports. I also fished most of those lakes and ponds from shore prior to buying my boat. We caught a lot of fish over the years. You will too.

And Joe, here's another tip...use Google Maps satellite imaging to check the lake out. You can find the shallow and deep spots most of the time and sometimes find good stands of cover. Mapquest satellite works well too. This is great homework when trying a new spot. Also, and you might know this from Tuckahoe, that often good fishing is below the dam, particularly in winter. It's the same on the other lakes on the Eastern Shore too. Most of them have some shore fishing spots, but the dams are generally some of the best. Try the creeks too. In winter, the deeper holes will give you some good perch and pickerel fishing. When planning your first trip to a lake, if shore fishing especially, map out several spots as back up plans (other lakes nearby, creek access points, bridges, marinas) because you may find good fishing at several spots. Then, next time you go you can focus on one at a time. That's how I learned most of my spots over there. A small boat is great, but you really can catch fish all winter long over there from shore. Oh yeah, and you're close enough to fish Delaware too. I wouldn't overlook their ponds.

My advice to you is to fish each of the lakes close enough for you to make the trip worthwhile. As for the ones on the Eastern Shore, what I've found is that what works on one seems to work on the others too. Fish them like you do Tuckahoe, and you'll have great success. What we did the other day would most likely have happened on several of the lakes there. Because of the nature of the internet, I won't give specifics on my spots. But that's half the fun, discovering them for yourself. Another piece of advice, and you might know because your home lake is the same way, that often on warming days, you can find fish in the shallower water. Cold snaps drive them deep. If you plan a trip to any of the lakes in that link and need specific info on them, shoot me a PM and I'll help you as best that I can.

My pickerel, but fought hard: Howard with a healthy pickerel caught on a chatterbait: Here's a picture of the snakhead from my trip to the Tidal Potomac with Rodger (Monocacy): Snakehead (before) Snakehead (after) Good fishing everyone. I was able to get out at BH before Sandy and caught some nice bass, all of them were in deeper water fished slow on the bottom. They weren't tight to wood, but nearby. I'd bet that they'll be in places like that the rest of the year now. But, several warm winter days in a row, you may find them where you find them in the spring where the wind piles up and the water is warm. Here's Monocacy with a nice bass: And here's one of my bass from that day too: