potomac river - dickerson warm water discharge - 2/27

[brettgaba]

skunked today at dickerson. had a few bumps but nothing really happening. fished clousers and wooly buggers. dnr cop said he'd only heard of a few small crappies being caught on bait.

water is high, and slightly off colored right now. didn't look too bad, but fish weren't as active as they were a few weeks ago. feel like once water levels lower it should be great. there are A TON of laydowns along the shore now. way more than was there a few weeks ago.

super muddy with some snow and ice still on the ground.

will try again next week.

[Salmo trutta]

I was there too today for a short while. Well, down river actually. I launched a 14' sea nymph with a 9.9HP from Whites Ferry and ran up to almost even with the parking lot for dickerson and floated back down along a narrow channel on the MD shore. We were goose hunting and muskie hunting during the morning and got off the water around 12pm. I shot my first goose today and just ate some breast meat. NOt very good. Too bloody and gamey. Need to work on that but the whole experience was a ton of fun. We saw a lot of birds. Both geese and ducks. An insane number of birds actually. Only had a few shots though while drifting. If we floated down river, I'd expect we would have had a banner day. First time trying the cast and blast type trip and the season ends next weekend.

I never saw water temperature over 39 degrees today. THe main body of the river was 37 degrees but the narrow channel was only 39. WHen they are releasing warm water that channel should be in the upper 40's all the way down to Whites Ferry. Not so today, probably explains the poor fishing. You never can tell when or why they release warmer water. Some days it's hot, some days it's not. No musky sighting this trip, Like usual. One of these days I'll get one. Water clartiy was much improved and I'd say it was decent but not great. Water was high, I think around 5' at little falls, maybe a little more. IN areas where there is usually three feet of water when it's clear, it was 8 or 9 feet today.
So, I only had the morning free and wanted to go to tie fest but went fishing and hunting instead. The next couple of weeks things could get very interesting on the entire upper potomac.

[brettgaba]

didn't have a thermometer with me but the water felt colder. i heard a lot of geese while on the water so the bird hunting seems like it should be good. on our way home we saw a flock of turkeys on a field.

today i went to bass pro shops to walk around and saw lefty there. that was unexpected and exciting.

[dalton]

I fished the Alexandria power plant outflow today with no luck. Two other guys were there bass fishing and neither one of them caught anything either. Water temps were in the 50s, but the current flow wasn't too easily dealt with on a shooting head spey line. I was told that someone caught a 7lb bass out there earlier in the week.

I wanted to check out Dickerson today but the flows were higher than recommended for wading. I'll be watching the flows and might head out there next weekend, shoot me a pm if you want to meet up.

[Salmo trutta]

That Alex. power plant holds nice smallmouth in the summer even. I've also heard of good walleye fishing there too this time of year. It never gets deeper than 7 feet any where near there either. Most of the water at the discharge and around it is about 4 feet deep. A little deeper the further you go out and an area up river above the discharge is deeper still.

[riverwade]

I shot my first goose today and just ate some breast meat. NOt very good. Too bloody and gamey. Need to work on that but the whole experience was a ton of fun. We saw a lot of birds. Both geese and ducks. An insane number of birds actually. Only had a few shots though while drifting. If we floated down river, I'd expect we would have had a banner day. First time trying the cast and blast type trip and the season ends next weekend.

ST, Congrats on your first goose!! It's takes some experimentation on how to cook goose so it's palatable but there are a lot of good recipes out there. For starters, next time, try a slow cooker mix that McCormick makes for Pot Roast. Just substitute the goose breasts for beef and cook on low for 6-8 hours. It is easy and very good. Congrats again.

[jnashed]

Doah fishing is getting better at least. Not for flyfishing though. Tubes and Berkley power baits landed some good sized smallies this weekend. Had to work hard but all nice sized. A few more weeks until the flyrod production will increase. Jon come over and kill some of the geese in my pond. I have the dogs chase them out every day almost.

Jim