Fried Lemons

Various fish I caught over the past month. All caught along the C&O canal or the Potomac parallel to the canal. It's been tough overall.

I found that I can only walk a hollowbody well at the beginning of the retrieve after a bomb cast. Once it gets to about the halfway mark the walking action stops and all I can get are little forward hops. That said, I have had plenty of strikes on the hops so I don't think it matters all that much.

Caught about 8 smallmouth wading the Potomac all in the 12-14" range. Only lure I used was a z man finesse worm.

So I've had a really unlucky season so far with rod mishaps. I've sent in rods for repairs twice now and I have a third which needs a guide replacement. I really don't want to pay the $40 shipping and wait two weeks for the return on this one so I was wondering, does anyone here know of any shops in Maryland or Virginia around the DC area which will fix rods? Thanks.

I fish this stretch very frequently and frankly most days it is not this good. I think the key factor was the overcast conditions. The fish I caught were all in less than a foot of water. I like targeting shore vegetation because it gives me a shot at snakeheads, which seem to hang extremely shallow, right up against the bank.

Walked the canal today looking for bass. I started off looking for beds but the overcast conditions made it difficult. I worked this one bed for 20 minutes then found the sweet spot. I felt bad after this male looked pretty beat up. Made a move north up the canal and found bass in the upper reaches had not spawned yet. It was raining lightly so I pulled out the buzzbait. As it turned out there was an extremely good topwater bite. I caught around 10 in an hour. Seemed like every likely spot had a fish on it.

Walked the canal looking for bass today. Didn't get any hits but saw a pretty nice 3.5 sitting by a log. Showed no interest in anything I tried throwing. I switched to sunfish hoping to salvage the day. Unfortunately the sunfish bite wasn't great either. I kept 3 and chunked them by the river. Pulled up 2 flatheads at roughly 10 and 6lbs, both loaded with eggs. Interestingly enough when I tried this last year I only caught blues and one very small flathead. This year all of my bites have been from flatheads. They don't seem to be as widespread as blues but I'm pretty sure there is a local population spawning a few miles above D.C.

Caught this 5lber on my flooded local river. I was fishing a normally dried up flat which reached a 3ft depth thanks to the snowmelt. Visibility was about 6 inches.

Decided to get out today as the forecast said it would be the least windy day of the week. Reaching the spot I had in mind required a hike and a lot of climbing but the weather was nice. First to hit was this 18" smallie Next cast I had something on which pulled drag for all of 3 seconds before popping off. If it was a smallie it was a lot bigger than this one. About an hour later got this Catching one of these has been a goal of mine for about a year now so I was pretty thrilled. It took a lot of skunks to finally get one.

First bass of the year for me. Caught while jigging the current breaks along the rocks on my local river.

Thanks everyone, I will check them out.

I fish rapids from the very rocky banks of a local river. I like throwing lipless cranks here as I can catch a variety of species depending on the time of year. I found I do best with a slow, steady retrieve just off the bottom. Unfortunately I snag frequently on boulders and commonly lose 1-2 baits per outing. I'm looking for recommendations for lipless cranks that will get me the best bang for my buck. I care mostly about the sound and the hardware quality. I don't really ever yoyo the bait because as soon as it touches the bottom, it's gone.

I don't have the chronarch but I have a metanium and curado I can compare. For casting distance I found the curado to be just as good or better than the metanium. In terms of smoothness, both are smooth but with the metanium you can really feel the micro gears. It's a very smooth connected feel compared to the curado which feels smooth but disconnected in comparison. As far as I know the chronarch doesn't have micro module gearing so this comparison probably applies to the chronarch as well.

Some lures come through rocks and wood better than others. kastmasters are really prone to snagging. I wouldn't consider it a good lure to be crashing into cover. A square billed crankbait or a Texas rigged plastic will come through more easily. As a bank angler your options are limited once you snag up. You may want to consider switching to a superline. Any braid below 30 will be thinner in diameter and strong enough to bend most stock trebles.

I hit the potomac near the chain bridge today. I was looking for smallies and didn't find any but I was surprised to find several schoolie sized striped bass. Largest was this one, just 1/2" short of legal size. Rest were in the 15-18" range.

Got out for a short session on the Potomac at the usual spot. Water was higher and much colder than the last time. I caught this 16" smallie 5 feet from the bank behind a boulder that last time was in about 8" of water.

I'm pretty sure by bfs he means bait finesse. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Haven't been able to get out much lately. Got these 2 fish in the past 2 weeks. LMB on a whopper plopper 130 SMB on a popper

With the canal being low and clear I've been fishing the river when I can. Smallmouth have been somewhat harder to get with the low and clear conditions. I have had some success with whole/chunked sunfish fished on the bottom. Caught my first flathead and a couple decent blues as well. Anyone else catch cats in the stretch above dc? Mainly been trying for big specimens as I don't eat them.

Look for any kind of overhead cover like slop, pads, matted grass or trees. Frogs can work even mid day since bass take refuge underneath when the sun comes up.

The river continues to produce. Caught numerous fish in the 8-12" range with this being one of the better ones. As I was bringing him in I saw another fish following closely. I caught him on the next cast. Canal has been very slow but I managed this long skinny fish slowly dragging a jig.

Had a great time wading the potomac. I hit up a hole that produced for me in the past and it was red hot. I caught this 17.5" fish which I am positive is the same one I released a few weeks ago. Two casts later I topped it with this 19" beast. All in all I must have pulled 10 fish out of that hole and lost one that was either a big smallie or a catfish. Also pulled this out of the canal on the walk back to the car.

Good conditions today. I decided to try and go big with a 10.5" worm and got this on my 2nd cast.

Ah I thought that might have been you. We met yesterday

Recent rains definitely helped my fishing. My usual spots had been down 2ft and the rains brought the water back up into the shoreline vegetation. When the water was dirty I caught a few pitching a jig at my feet. Caught some today on topwater.