Daily routine: Smallmouth at Brunswick Maryland

Explored a new spot today on the Potomac river in search of more big small mouth like the one my brother caught earlier this week. We got out there around five to fish the evening topwater bite but I started with a Reaction innovations Sweet Beaver on a Shakey Headand was able to catch a little 14 incher. There was grass everywhere which made you have to throw precise casts into the open areas rather than fan casting and covering the river. When I would find a large opening in the grass I would fish it slowly dragging the jig from a couple different angles would trigger multiple strikes from the same hole. 

 As the sun dropped we tied on the topwaters and the action was quick.

Daily Routine: Wading for Creek Smallmouth

Yesterdays trip was back to wading in Goose creek. This time to explore another stretch that we had not fished in a while. I challenged Collin to a popper contest each using the Teeny Pop R I had an all white he used a clear one. He took the lead  almost immediately with the little smallie pictured on the left. I then had a big hit on my lure it sounded like someone getting smacked in the face, but the fish missed the lure.

The bluegill and other panfish were aggressive in this stretch and we were constantly getting little hits from the pan fish. We both caught about a dozen bluegill combined and I even caught a kinda rare rock bass. I may need to take my fly rod out there and have some fun catching these guys on the popper fly.

We continued searching for the target species and after a lull in the action we moved down further to the next pool.  There was a ton of action on the surface with minnows and even some large carp moving around the pool. We worked the top end and Collin hooked up again with a 12 inch small mouth this time. Now I was down 2-0 in the popper challenge I stopped joking around and entered into a full tournament focus. I had just laid down a good good cast deep into a downed tree I hear collin say hes hooked up. I could tell this was a larger fish because it didn't just come in like most fish you hook in the creek. After a decent fight he landed it and it ende up being a 21 inch virginia citation smallmouth.

After the excitement of the big fish I went back to fishing and as soon as my lure landed on the water a fish was on. As I reeled in my fish Collin hooked up and we had two high jumping smallies pictured below. I finally was on the board but I was still down by 3 fish and the sun was dropping quickly. As it got darker my white popper began to shine and I caught 5 more  in the last 30 minutes of daylight. The final score in the popper challenge was me 6 collin 4 so I won even though he thinks the big fish should count for two.

Daily Routine: Tavistock Farms pond and Area 51

Today was my day off and I had big plans to go hunt that elusive snakehead. I slept in though and changed plans to take the yak close to home out to yesterdays spot and venture to areas not accessible from the bank. I chickened out when I saw some dark clouds when I did a scientific walk outside weather check. So after two false starts my final attempt was to do some pond hopping .Those dark clouds never rain any more than a light sprinkle and the cloud cover made for some good topwater conditions. The first pond we headed for a pond I will call area 51. My brother and I challenged each other to a head to head competition the person who caught the most bass (no minimum size) in a ten minute span received a point. We both down sized our lures in order to catch more fish he used a Heddon Super Spook Jr and me a tiny torpedo/Rebel Pop R . The first round I won 3 to 2 the following rounds we tied 0, 1,2,2,1. A pretty good day of fishing almost catching one every 10 min. None of the fish were over 14 inches but topwater is always fun.

victim of the pop-r

  Our second stop was at Tavistock farms pond. I had only caught one fish from this pond but I had a feeling the quality would be a little better. The first thing I noticed was there were a ton of bluegill and they pecked away at my little jig I was using. We spent about 20 minutes at this pond and were able to land 3 bass and they were all in the 12 to 14 inch range. Maybe next time i hit this pond I will try some larger baits to see if there are some larger ones lurking.

 

Daily Routine: Keep Loudoun Beautiful Park

 Went out for an after work trip to a body of water where I learned I loved to fish. Goose creek was a quick bike ride from my house and I frequently experimented with a variety of lures casting for the feisty smallmouth and largemouth bass. Today we ventured to keep Loudoun beautiful park a little further upstream than where I usually fish the river. I ventured to this new stretch to find some less pressured fish. As we got out there I noticed much more life in the shallow rapids especially bluegill which are almost nonexistent at some down stream access points.

Going Deep in the Heat

Breaking through on a new technique.

Since the end of the month long tournament in July I have been motivated to improve my bass fishing skills. I ended up in 19th out of 54 anglers which was probably higher than I belonged based on my skills but was not where I wanted to be. I spent a majority of the month fishing shallow that is what I was comfortable with and actually at the end of June and early in July I was catching some nice fish. My first trip of the tourney I caught my largest of the event a 19 incher. As the month wore on though that bite went from big fish to 13 inch dinks. I tried every shallow presentation I knew but I couldn't catch any size. Every day I watched my self slide down the ranks as I struggled to upgrade,I needed to make a change. I finally had enough and decided to break one of my cardinal rules and experiment during a tournament.