Maryland's Who's who!

[Deleted account]

BPS has Pad Crashers $3.97.

[microotter]

Anyone been out lately? I haven’t been able to get out for about three weeks. 

[fishwizzard]

I have been out a good bit, but nothing amazing to show for it.  A friend and I have a tradition of taking long hikes on really bad weather days and last Saturday seemed perfect.  Did about 10 miles, drank 3l of water, peed maybe twice.  Ended up catching a pile of small bass out of a marsh on a frog:

 

I also managed another surprise striper way up the Pax River by Laurel.  

I had been throwing a D-Shad into shaded pools and catching fallfish and small LMBs when I decided to make a bomb cast downriver and burn it back in to get the line tight on my spool.  The striper hit the fluke on top.

[MountainMan83]

5 hours ago, fishwizzard said:

I have been out a good bit, but nothing amazing to show for it.  A friend and I have a tradition of taking long hikes on really bad weather days and last Saturday seemed perfect.  Did about 10 miles, drank 3l of water, peed maybe twice.  Ended up catching a pile of small bass out of a marsh on a frog:

 

I also managed another surprise striper way up the Pax River by Laurel.  

I had been throwing a D-Shad into shaded pools and catching fallfish and small LMBs when I decided to make a bomb cast downriver and burn it back in to get the line tight on my spool.  The striper hit the fluke on top.

Did you see many snakeheads around laurel?

[fishwizzard]

4 hours ago, MountainMan83 said:

Did you see many snakeheads around laurel?

Nope.  I mean to fish the Pax more often in the future, I live right by it south of Annapolis but it is always so muddy and the bottom so silty that I had written it off for fishing.  

[Fried Lemons]

I've been scouting neighborhood/retention ponds in my area. Found two that may have potential. Seems like the lakes and ponds within a 20 minute drive all get fished and harvested hard.

 

Word is already out about the snakeheads at Little Seneca but I'll throw in an anecdote. I was up one of the creek arms and spotted a small 12"er cruising over the grass beds with a bluegill head sticking out of his mouth.

[Bill Poch]

Looking for some help in the Frederick area. Anyone service reels? I have a Daiwa Tatula that's jacked up. All was fine, made a cast and the line released kicked in stopping the cast. Gears felt off reeling it in. I've taken the thing apart and it looks ok to me. Put it back together and it's stiff reeling it and the spool is tight when free for spinning. If I set the drag very loose the spool won't spin with reeling. I'm at a loss.

[Deleted account]

On 7/26/2019 at 7:20 PM, microotter said:

Anyone been out lately? I haven’t been able to get out for about three weeks. 

Same as the Wizzard, it's been a dink fest with the occasional pig mixed in in SoMd. 

The striped bass livelining in the bay has been very good for a few weeks now.

[Junger]

13 hours ago, Bill Poch said:

Looking for some help in the Frederick area. Anyone service reels? I have a Daiwa Tatula that's jacked up. All was fine, made a cast and the line released kicked in stopping the cast. Gears felt off reeling it in. I've taken the thing apart and it looks ok to me. Put it back together and it's stiff reeling it and the spool is tight when free for spinning. If I set the drag very loose the spool won't spin with reeling. I'm at a loss.

Can't help you with Frederick options, and I've been looking for someone in the MoCo area myself, but I had one Daiwa Tatula CT go wonky where it was grindy, and sometimes after casting, the handle would just spin without engaging the spool. I sent it into Daiwa for a warranty repair and they replaced the pinion gear and its been fine since then. If you're in a year of purchase, send it back to Daiwa for warranty.

 

Also other than fishing Needwood with my son on occasion for dinks, I haven't gotten out much between short weekend vacation trips and the kids' swim team practices/meets. But I got out with @fishwizzard yesterday for a full day of angling. We got to Mattawoman at 8:30AM, and fished until 9PM, with a 2 hour break in between enjoing PBJs, Shiner Bocks, cuban Monte's, and people watching. It was pretty busy on the creek, and I started us off first with a frog fish early.

 

 

Then it was basically just casting practice for the rest of the day. The pads did not look good, they were on the decline...dried up, and shriveled....like a 90 year old's body part. And underneath, choked with hydrilla with only about 3-4" of water at high tide. Finally as dusk settled, I got a decent one on a popper, and Fishwizzard got 2 good ones on a worm.

 

 

I got another unexpected small dink when cranking the popper into the boat, and a few bluegill blow ups, then we called it. I think if we put down our pride and went with senkos during the afternoon, we could have done much better.

 

 

[fishwizzard]

It was a fun day but very very little sign of fish activity.  Most of my fishing is soft plastics of some sort so the Mattawoman trips are my "topwater vacation", but I think we did try to force it for longer then we should have.  We did get in a little skipping practice and explored one of the creek channels beyond the point of reason, which is a favorite slow-day kayak activity of mine.  It's a lot nicer to be able to motor back out once you hit the end of navigable waters though.  

 

This is the better of the two bass I got:

 

And this is what I had to deal with this morning due to the skipping practice.  PP Super Slick v2 is, in fact, quite slick and trying to pick it out with wet hands was not happening.  It took a blunt needle and three cups of coffee this morning to get it out.

[Junger]

The skipping practice was actually a pretty fun part of the day too. Lots of good targets, and this one...which I got on the first try...#braggert.

 

[Deleted account]

This is what I heard, "blah, blah, blah, Shiner Bocks, cuban Monte's, blah, blah, blah"...   

[Munkin]

15 hours ago, Bill Poch said:

Looking for some help in the Frederick area. Anyone service reels? I have a Daiwa Tatula that's jacked up. All was fine, made a cast and the line released kicked in stopping the cast. Gears felt off reeling it in. I've taken the thing apart and it looks ok to me. Put it back together and it's stiff reeling it and the spool is tight when free for spinning. If I set the drag very loose the spool won't spin with reeling. I'm at a loss.

There is a guy that does reel repair in Walkersville by I do not have his information handy. Ask on the local Facebook pages as he was advertising on there.

 

Allen

[microotter]

I went out to the Upper Potomac early Saturday in search of some smallmouth. Apparently I misread the online gauges bc the water was slightly too high and swift for me to wade toward the main channels of the river in a safe manner. I stuck around for a little bit throwing some casts to areas that were less than ideal and trying to do some skipping practice with my new reel. Also had the chance to check out a few new-to -me spots that I want to check out when conditions are better. 

[Junger]

Got out this morning with my youngest son to Madwoman as my son calls it (Mattawoman). Pretty slow until the tide turned to incoming around 10AM, and this time I had my senko rod. Immediate dividends with a 2lber, a few dinks, and a 4lber.

 

 

Really busy out there in the AM too...busier today than on a weekend.

[fishwizzard]

That d**n senko is ruining all the topwater fun!  

 

I went out to the C&O between Violettes and Pennyfield on Wednesday.  The water is still 2-4’ low.  I didn’t see much signs of life until I got past the bend, then I started to see some tiny panfish in the weeds. I spent about 4 hours switching up between a senko, trickworm, and a small jig to no effect.  I saw a few small bass closer to Pennyfield, but none over 8-9”.  

 

Sadly I think I am giving up on the canal for this year, it’s too long a drive to do without having confidences in the bass being there.  I did spend a good bit of time checking out river access along that stretch and I think I’m going to make more of an effort to pay attention to the gauges and give fishing that part of the river my attention.

 

My buddy showed up near the end of the day for some hiking and we got stuck in an amazing thunderstorm. If you don’t mind hiking in the rain the view from the bend is out of this world during a storm. 

[Fried Lemons]

2 hours ago, fishwizzard said:

I went out to the C&O between Violettes and Pennyfield on Wednesday.  The water is still 2-4’ low.  I didn’t see much signs of life until I got past the bend, then I started to see some tiny panfish in the weeds. I spent about 4 hours switching up between a senko, trickworm, and a small jig to no effect.  I saw a few small bass closer to Pennyfield, but none over 8-9”.  

That place is overrun with small snakeheads. I have yet to see or catch a bass bigger than 12" there this year but I see a dozen 4-15" snakeheads each time I go out. I suspect the combination of draw downs and proliferating snakeheads did a number on the bass population.

[fishwizzard]

19 minutes ago, Fried Lemons said:

That place is overrun with small snakeheads. I have yet to see or catch a bass bigger than 12" there this year but I see a dozen 4-15" snakeheads each time I go out. I suspect the combination of draw downs and proliferating snakeheads did a number on the bass population.

Huh, I had spooked some larger fish throughout the day but had just assumed they were carp.  I think I saw about 200lbs of carp between the bend and Pennyfield. 

 

Snakeheads might lure me back out there again next week, I have a weird little 5’10’ frog/topwater rod that would be perfect for the canal 

[Fried Lemons]

The larger fish were likely carp. The bigger snakeheads there are conditioned to hide down in cover and not show themselves. I haven't seen one since they spawned in early July. The ones I see are too small for most frogs and spook easily. I've caught a few on weightless plastics thrown from a light spinning outfit.

[fishwizzard]

18 minutes ago, Fried Lemons said:

The larger fish were likely carp. The bigger snakeheads there are conditioned to hide down in cover and not show themselves. I haven't seen one since they spawned in early July. The ones I see are too small for most frogs and spook easily. I've caught a few on weightless plastics thrown from a light spinning outfit.

Huh, too bad then. I hope the bass population recovers and that NPS lets the water rise a bit, it’s was such a fun place to fish and get some walking in at the same time.  

 

 Do you know offhand what USGS gauge is the closest to that section of the river? 

[Fried Lemons]

I go by the little falls reading.

[fishwizzard]

14 minutes ago, Fried Lemons said:

I go by the little falls reading.

Cool, thanks! 

[Fried Lemons]

Hit a spot around Dickerson I don't travel to much to test the waters. The water is usually too choked up with duckweed to fish anything besides a frog. I tried a frog in the thick matted duckweed for about an hour and caught a single dink. Moving north I was pleased to see that wind had blown most of the duckweed towards the south end where I was fishing. I switched to a weedless swimbait which I pitched around laydowns for a few fish.

 

I missed 3 big bites, characterized by a tick followed by a loss of feel. I could see from the teeth marks the fish were completely engulfing the bait but for some reason I was not sticking them. On the return trip I switched to a line thru for better hookups. On my first cast I pitched next to a stump and as soon as I turned the handle this fish was on. 

[fishwizzard]

1 hour ago, Fried Lemons said:

Hit a spot aroun

Very nice!  I lost a breathtakingly huge bass there a few years ago, my bro was like "man that's a weird looking carp" and when I looked it was a monster bass just sitting off the bank. I pitched a jig at her, she grabbed it, and I whiffed the hookset so badly that my dog wouldn't even look at me when I got home.  

 

What swimbait is that?  I have been fishing the Boom Boom weedlesses for a bit now and really like them.  

[Fried Lemons]

The weedless one is the Working Class Zero Citizen, line thru is 3:16 Rising Son.