Maryland's Who's who!

[basser89]

I have been reading a lot about Black Hills on this forum. I move into Waynesboro this weekend and want to get out fishing in two weeks. How do I get there? Is it a good shore fishing spot, because I don't have a boat yet although it is on the agenda to purchase in a month or so?

pagliaroj, I'm assuming you're referring to Waynesboro, PA? I popped Waynesboro, PA to Black Hill Regional Park (Boyds, MD) into Google maps and it's a fairly straight shot for you from there. Come down 15 to 270 and get off at 121. There's signs that will lead you into the park. There is a decent amount of shoreline fishing in the part as well. This time of year, you don't need to have a boat to catch some decent bass.

Good luck and please share your outing with us!

[pagliaroj]

Basser89 - Thank you for the directions. I will definitely be posting my adventures through out the spring and summer. Since I am currently in NY, I haven't been out much (too cold) but I am stocked and ready to go once I arrive in the MD area!

[Bill Poch]

Good morning, I'm going to skip work today and hit up Black Hills around 11ish and fish until the rain shows up. I hope I catch some big ones.

[Fat Boy]

Good luck Bill.

Here's a belated 3/23 report:

Sorry that I’m late getting this out.

Mark and I met up at our secret spot only to find two other anglers working it. They were fishing ultralight tackle mostly using in-line spinners. They said that they each caught about 15 bass with the biggest at 16”. When I arrived, my buddy Mark had already caught several bass on plastic worms.

I noticed that the water was up a little bit, which was nice to see. There was a lot of scum on the water’s surface. I guess it had turned over. The fish didn’t seem to mind.

I caught this well fed fat 14” largemouth on a chatterbait on my first cast before catching up to Mark.

I caught this next fish on the very next cast, followed by a backlash that cost me 10 minutes of valuable fishing time. These 14” fish seemed to be about my average on the evening.

Mark with a chunky largemouth caught on a plastic worm.

Mark had to leave soon after that, but the fish and I stayed until dark. Here’s another of those average ones:

I really liked the colors of these fish.

I finished the evening catching a small largemouth on a buzzbait. That was the first bass that I’ve ever landed on a buzzbait in Maryland in March. What incredibly good fishing weather we’ve had this early spring. I finished with 13 fat bass all around 13-15” on my favorite chatterbait (gold with white skirt, white ringworm trailer), and one dink on a buzzer. After catching several bass, I started getting a lot of hits but missing them. I added a trailer hook and that helped my hooking percentage quite a bit. Unfortunately, the trailer hook, making the lure not quite as weedless, caught a log making my cast about 1” too long from being perfect, and I lost my favorite chatterbait.

Those Z-Man chatterbaits really get a lot of attention, but I’m not really happy with their hooks. I find them difficult to sharpen and keep sharp, and they’re dull right out of the package. I’ll be checking other brands to see if their hooks are any better. I’ve caught a lot of bass, and big ones, on that lure over the past several years, but that hook issue is their one drawback. Anyone have recommendations of one of these style lures with premium sharp hooks?

The bass seemed really aggressive. I love the reaction bite, so that’s all I tried. I think that if I had fished a worm, my numbers would have been much better, especially if I had followed up my misses with the worm. I’ll admit it, I was lazy. If the fish hit and I saw that it wasn’t a big one, I moved on looking for the big bass. Picky, picky, picky…

I didn't get any big bass. I know that these fish pictured in this post aren't all that big, but pictures help tell the story and they're much more pleasing to the eye than just text.

My next trip out will be Friday morning Upper Tidal Potomac. We’ll test the waters for stripers and fish for bass if we don’t locate the rock.

[basser89]

Good luck Bill! Let us know how you do!

Great post Kevin! Always enjoy reading your reports! I've always heard that buzzbaits work well this time of year just like lipless cranks but I've never thrown them myself this time of year. I may have to break some out as well. Hmmmmm???? As for the chatterbaits, I haven't thrown them too often myself. I do have a couple of the original chatterbaits and haven't had any issues with them. I've heard good things about Strike King's Pure Poison as well as Booyah's Boogee bait as well.

[301-fisherman]

It's Wednesday, which means I am off. Therefore I will be at Black Hills today.

[BrianinMD]

Good luck on Friday Fat Boy. Last saturday it was not hard to locate bass, just finding them over the 15 inch minimum length for our tourney proved a little interesting.

If all goes well I will be heading out to Black Hills on Sunday with a boater from my club. Hopefully the couple of colder nights will not impact the bite to much.

[301-fisherman]

Here is a silly question guys. So I am trying my baitcaster, had it for few months now got it in the winter time. I can throw it with no backlash ( I have a skeet reese victory rod and reel). Now I know when I watch videos on setting it up people say make sure when it drops its moving at the right pace, which mine I believe is. When I throw it out to the water it only goes a certain distance, no matter how hard I try to cast. Was puzzled by this and wasn't sure if anyone would know why. My dad has put the line on the spool as it was a birthday gift for me and he was thinking maybe we put line on it that was for a spinning reel. Not sure if that would have any impact or not but I want to be able to toss my lure out far but its just not happening. Any help is greatly appreciated

-David

[BrianinMD]

Don't get overly concerned with distance at first, get comfortable with consistant cast with no backlash and accuracy. As you get more comfortable you can start turning down the brakes which will help with distance.

[basser89]

I'll second Brian's reply. Distance will come in time. Try to be patient, trust me, I know that's a tough one! As I had mentioned in a previous post, practice as much as you can, whether that's on the water or at home. I'm not familiar with your reel, not sure if it has any internal braking system or not. If it does, then as you get more comfortable with the reel and remain backlash free keep, you can back off the braking which will give you more distance. When I first started, I was told to adjust to line tension knob so that you have to move the rod some to get the bait to move. Then make smooth casts, not getting the rod to load up, until I was comfortable and not getting backlashes. After I was comfortable, that's when I backed off the line tension slightly so the bait dropped every so slightly and continue practicing. Keep making the adjustments with the line tension until the bait would basically "free fall" with no tension at all. Hope this helps! If you have any questions, let me know and I'll help out the best I can!

[Fat Boy]

I agree with Brian and Sean. Get used to it, then adjust and push your limits a little at a time by adjusting either or both the magnets and line tension knob. Accuracy is most important always. When fishing baitcasters, it's not a finesse approach anyway. At least in my case, I'm tossing big lures and am not worried about spooking fish with short casts. Rather, I'm thinking about covering water, lots of shorter casts that hit where you want will keep you in the strike zone more often than long inaccurate casts.

The exception might be flipping and pitching, where the goal is to toss larger lures with little or no splash. Those are advanced techniques, and are important to learn, but again, even with those, accuracy is most important. But with spinnerbaits and topwater, the splash actually attracts bass to hit sometimes. Distance will come with experience.

[Traveler2586]

Don't get overly concerned with distance at first, get comfortable with consistant cast with no backlash and accuracy. As you get more comfortable you can start turning down the brakes which will help with distance.

X2

[Bill Poch]

Good luck Bill! Let us know how you do!

Great post Kevin! Always enjoy reading your reports! I've always heard that buzzbaits work well this time of year just like lipless cranks but I've never thrown them myself this time of year. I may have to break some out as well. Hmmmmm???? As for the chatterbaits, I haven't thrown them too often myself. I do have a couple of the original chatterbaits and haven't had any issues with them. I've heard good things about Strike King's Pure Poison as well as Booyah's Boogee bait as well.

Completely skunked. I fished from about 11 - 2:00 Later in the evening I ran out to a creek up near Spring Ridge in Frederick. Manged to catch 2 and miss 1 smallie. There were not big fish, biggest going about 8 - 10" but they are sure fun to catch.

[Traveler2586]

Completely skunked. I fished from about 11 - 2:00 Later in the evening I ran out to a creek up near Spring Ridge in Frederick. Manged to catch 2 and miss 1 smallie. There were not big fish, biggest going about 8 - 10" but they are sure fun to catch.

I don't call that skunked, you unhooked two, and got a nibble - - if I get a nibble I'm not skunked It was still a good day fishin' wasn't it

[301-fisherman]

I caught a few at Black Hills tonight. I would post a pic but I have no clue how to do so. And I am comfortable with throwing it for accuracy and with out backlash but it just wont go. My lure is at the point where it does free fall

[Traveler2586]

I caught a few at Black Hills tonight. I would post a pic but I have no clue how to do so. And I am comfortable with throwing it for accuracy and with out backlash but it just wont go. My lure is at the point where it does free fall

I just went through the learning process for posting photos, check out http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/84971-gallery-tutorials/page__fromsearch__1

Question: what type and size of line do you have, and describe "wont go"

If you hold your rod at 11:00 and release the spool, if the bait does a "free fall" it sounds like your reel/spool is OK. What I think you're describing is the mag breaks kicking in; turn the dial to "0" to see what you get (careful, don't get a birds nest)

[301-fisherman]

I know you never put the fish on the ground but it was so big I needed to get it in the frame some how. And with my reel if I take the cover off I cannot turn the dial to a set number

[301-fisherman]

The way that photo was put up looks funky. I obviously did something wrong lol. My apologizes

[Traveler2586]

PM sent

[Bill Poch]

I don't call that skunked, you unhooked two, and got a nibble - - if I get a nibble I'm not skunked It was still a good day fishin' wasn't it

my mistake, meant to say skunked at Black Hills.

[basser89]

Like Eric mentioned Bill, catching or not, ya still got out so it couldn't have been too bad of a day! I like Brian's signature, you didn't fail, you succeeded at figuring out what they didn't want.

301, maybe we could meet up for a lunch time outing next week and see if we can figure out what's going on with your reel if you don't get it figured out before then? If I remember right, you're off on Wednesdays? Let me know. What I do with my pics is upload them to myfishingpictures and use the links provided on there to post my pics on here.

[Bill Poch]

Oh, don't get me wrong. Skunked doesn't mean I would have rather been doing something else.

[BrianinMD]

Sean, I sent 301 a PM hopefully I can help. But also my wife is on travel next week. If the weather is decent will hit BH at least one evening after work. If 301 can join me we can take a look. Have to check weather to see what night or nights I go over.

[Munkin]

Maybe we can have a small get together Sunday at Black Hills?

Allen

[Top Sarge]

I love bass fishing and when have the chance fish on the Chesapeake and all the local rivers. Live on the Gunpower River. Have not been fishing for quite a while since dont have a boat. Been looking for a partner who would like to have a back seat friend. Would share expenses.