inickmo

Hah! Yes of course. I forgot to mention but yea I've been trying to compare high vs. low, rising vs. falling. I never fished in tidal waters growing up so have no familiarity with it. Are there any general principles regarding what is best i.e. a rising or falling tide or higher vs low or is it all location dependent? I feel like I've heard on some Youtube vids some general ideas about tides.

Thanks for the tips everyone. Looks like I have a lot more places to check out with boat rental availability. I do think investing in a trolling motor and batteries will be the best option so I'll look into that. Will probably check out hunting run as my next outing. If anyone has any tips for four mile run, that would be awesome. I either go there and can catch them on anything and a couple days have gotten completely skunked no matter what I throw. Trying to track the temp, time of day, air pressure etc and pick up any patterns. It's the easiest place for me to get some fishing in after work or if I only have a few hours on weekends. Thanks!

Hi all, Apologies, long post incoming. I’ve just gotten back into bass fishing over the last couple of months after basically a 15 year hiatus. I’ve been scouring this thread and elsewhere on the internet to learn about all the local spots the Nova/DC area has to offer and trying to find some good places to find some bass. Since I’m just getting back into this I don’t have a boat or plans to get one this year, but I think in the spring I want to go ahead and pull the trigger on a Kayak (also considering a Pelican). As of right now I’m limited to shore angling and renting Jon boats. I live in the Falls Church area and so far the best place for regular fishing and landing some fish has been four mile run. I’ve been mainly under the bridges, along the airport, and along one of the other trails by the Toyota dealership. From what everyone says the tidal movements play a big part in how good the fishing is there. Thinking about tides is new to me and it will definitely take a while to figure this place out but it’s been fun so far. As far as additional shore fishing I’ve tried Roosevelt Island once with no luck, and also tried to investigate Chain bridge. I was not able to find access to the river, I think I was going on outdated information. I tried getting access through the Gulf branch trail based on an old online post but that trail just ended and I would’ve had to traverse down some steep rocks through the creek leading to the river to access it. I also couldn’t find a path down from the bridge side. Gravely point and roaches run are other areas that come up around here but not sure how successful you can be from shore there. As far as boat renting, we went out to Fletcher’s Cove once but weren’t able to rent a rowboat due to river conditions but caught some catfish from the shore. It doesn’t seem that many people talk about largemouth/smallmouth fishing here, and mostly stripers, shad, and catfish. Does anyone catch bass here? We’ve went to the Occoquan at Fountainhead twice, first time out got a couple small ones on Senkos in the grass and skunked the second time. It seems this place is known for being tough to figure out. I’ve seen Pohick bay and Riverbend park also come up as places to rent boats. Fountainhead rents motors and batteries which is nice, not sure about Pohick/Riverbend. I live super close to Lake Barcroft but know this place is off limits unless you know a resident. I know the Potomac is supposed to be amazing for bass fishing but not sure where on the Potomac itself in the area other than Fletcher’s cove that you could rent a boat. Does anyone have any advice for someone relying on boat rentals other than Occoquan? Also, any other reliable shore fishing spots I could find? I see some of the local Youtuber’s hitting ponds and wet wading in streams which looks awesome. I know ponds are tough since you need to know someone. Any places to target largemouth or any place around that I could do some wading for smallmouth (once the river conditions allow) would be amazing. Sorry for the novel and thanks for any advice!