Potomac River

[Nitrofreak]

4 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Be very careful with all of this rain we have received.  The river and creeks will be rolling and muddy.  

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

[Junger]

 

On 6/9/2021 at 7:11 AM, Nitrofreak said:

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.

 

Just FYI - there's a MLF event June 17-20th on the Potomac out of Smallwood State Park. It's gonna be a busy weekend out there. 

[Nitrofreak]

2 hours ago, Junger said:

 

 

Just FYI - there's a MLF event June 17-20th on the Potomac out of Smallwood State Park. It's gonna be a busy weekend out there. 

Much appreciated !!

 

Ill pack accordingly and keep my head on a swivel too, thanks man !!

[Nitrofreak]

Had a pretty good day putting things together, still have lots to learn but non the less the whole Creek was explored today, first fish came on a black and blue Missile Baits mini flipping jig, somewhere between a 5 and 6 pound Snakehead, never knew they would take a jig presentation, oddly enough it felt just like a Bass bit it, I set the hook and thought I had a good one until it took off then I knew it was something else, boy those things are something else !!

 

Tons and tons of carp, they were stacked in there today LORD HAVE MERCY I have never seen so many in one area like that.

 

We finally found an area that had a few that wanted to play along, I picked up a Zoom speed worm and started skipping it under docks and working the grass, we caught 5 pretty quick and moved on to exploring more, total bass might have been maybe 9 pounds for the 5.

 

Had a fantastic day just learning about Aquia, a little chilly and breezy to start the day, water temps I did not record because I didn’t even bother putting the graphs on the boat, the start of the day the water clarity was about a foot up in the upper regions of Aquia, it quickly turned to mud as the tide began to roll out which really started to roll about 10AM, we physically saw the mud line start and followed it out to the opening of the upper creek area, the middle of the creek had roughly 2.5 feet of clarity and the mouth had over 4 feet in places, between the wind, current and grass I had overheated my trolling motor batteries and it just gave up so we ended on that note.
 

So many wonders in that river it’s no wonder so many love the place, I am becoming quite fond of it myself.

[Junger]

That’s probably one of the coolest features of the tidal creeks, conditions change daily with the tide but also then with the vegetation and rainfall based on various times of the year. I feel like I will never master the river, and I’m always learning which keeps me going back.

[Nitrofreak]

11 minutes ago, Junger said:

That’s probably one of the coolest features of the tidal creeks, conditions change daily with the tide but also then with the vegetation and rainfall based on various times of the year. I feel like I will never master the river, and I’m always learning which keeps me going back.

Conditions change minute by minute too ?

 

That place has so very much character that it’s both beautiful and challenging with a side order of danger, it’s really got me hooked for sure !!

[Sam]

Nitro, I like the Potomac, although you have to watch the weather closely, especially if wind is in the forecast.

 

From Aquia to Mattawoman; from Hope Springs up Aquia Creek; over to Potomac Creek; at the mouth of Aquia Creek; and all of the other places inbetween you can have success, the Potomac is one fantastic fishery.

 

Sorry I did not see your post sooner to warn you that Hope Springs ramp is undergoing some work and it is not user friendly.  And going to Leeslylvania where you have to wait for them to open the gate and putting up with all that traffic on Route 1 and I-95 is no fun.

 

But, once you are on the water it is great.

 

Good luck and please let us know how you do in your club tournament.

[Nitrofreak]

2 hours ago, Sam said:

Nitro, I like the Potomac, although you have to watch the weather closely, especially if wind is in the forecast.

 

From Aquia to Mattawoman; from Hope Springs up Aquia Creek; over to Potomac Creek; at the mouth of Aquia Creek; and all of the other places inbetween you can have success, the Potomac is one fantastic fishery.

 

Sorry I did not see your post sooner to warn you that Hope Springs ramp is undergoing some work and it is not user friendly.  And going to Leeslylvania where you have to wait for them to open the gate and putting up with all that traffic on Route 1 and I-95 is no fun.

 

But, once you are on the water it is great.

 

Good luck and please let us know how you do in your club tournament.

I thought I had seen your boat as we were working up the creek yesterday, do you still have the same one?

 

The guy on the front even reminded me of you, I almost went over to see for sure.

 

Aquia ramp is really not bad right now, there is construction equipment there but it did not hamper the launch, the launch fee is ridiculous though !!!

 

I wanted to venture up toward D.C. yesterday and explore some of those areas too but there was a small craft warning and Toxics advise was heeded as well, with me not having the boating experience, I decided against going up there, I can wait for a better day to get up that way.

 

Sam, thank you for the well wishes and I will be sure to add a post to this thread about the event.

[Nitrofreak]

Day one of our 2 day classic event went as expected, we fished around and behind some pretty good sticks out there on Saturday.

 

The Potomac was a little attitudinal Saturday morning with 2 foot breakers in areas we traveled, we started our day in Chicamoxen (I think that’s how it’s spelled but I’m probably wrong) within the first handful of pitch’s with a finesse flipping jig we pulled out our first bass from a dock piling which was something that we noticed no one else was doing, we picked apart every single little area that had some sort of vertical timber no matter if it was a stump, a dock piling or a sign post, we pulled out 3 decent ones working that angle but the grass areas were still full of anglers so we moved up to Mattawoman, the water there was a little more stained and targets were a little harder to pick out so I switched up to a dropshot and used a June Bug Strike King Ocho since my partner was throwing a chatter bait, we had just started fishing an area when one of the pros had pulled in on us and started fishing the same area in front of us, not saying that as a bad thing but our limit was filled plus we culled once fishing behind this guy, I am merely offering encouragement to those who fish heavily pressured waters because we do not all fish the same way with the same baits ?

 

We ended our day in Mattawoman picking apart isolated clumps of grass and timber and ended up with 11.95 on the day.

 

Day two went a bit better for us but certainly not the day we had hoped for with less pressure in the area we started in, which by the way was the same as the day before, why? well we figured that the upper regions were still highly pressured even with only 10 boats left in the MLF event and that our area was not hit near as hard, we simply figured our chances of a successful day were a little bit better, and it was, we started out with the same pattern and pushed it hard for about 45 minutes and had to make a change, we switched to focusing on the grass so I picked up a Zoom Brush Hog and went to work with it, by 9:30 we had our limit and it was a decent bag already, probably a little better than our bag from day one, not by much mind you but better, the bite just died after that with very sporadic bites here and there, we culled three times until the bite just completely quit on us  so we moved to the point on the left before you enter the boat launch area at leesylvania state park, my partner was able to catch two culling bass in the last 15 minutes which put us up and just over the 14 pound mark at 14.17, the hard work and perseverance gave us a total of 26.12 for the two days which in turn rendered a 5th place finish for our Classic event.

 

We are doing everything we can as partners and we are learning everything we can as we go along, another couple of seasons together and I believe we will be right there contending for more wins, we are having a great season it just seems like we are missing out on the kickers we need and we would be right there already.

 

Thanks for reading everybody and have a great day !!!

[TOXIC]

Good report.  You are not alone.  I watched the MLF event and they couldn’t get kickers either.  Lots of quality fish but no ditch pickles.  

[Nitrofreak]

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

Good report.  You are not alone.  I watched the MLF event and they couldn’t get kickers either.  Lots of quality fish but no ditch pickles.  

Thanks Toxic !!