SteveL
04-23-2010, 07:28 AM
This is not a fly fishing report, but in the spirit of the flyboard being the home of Fletchers reports and other Potomac reports from hardcore fly and light tackle fishermen, this report is from a location about 10 miles upstream from Chain Bridge near the base of Great Falls.
On Thursday I gave a guest lecture to an undergrad marine ecology class at George Mason U in Fairfax in the afternoon. Rather than go back to work in the late afternoon on a beautiful spring day I decided to take a couple hours of leave and do some kayak surfing and "fish sampling" just below Great Falls.
The recent flood put a huge pile of logs into the top of "fishermans eddy", which is between the 2nd and 3rd Observation Decks at VA GF (that eddy was named in the 1800s, as was "shad rock" just upsteam of the eddy). The Park Service closed shoreline access to the eddy because of the danger of climbing over the log pile to get to the river. Whitewater paddlers have been launching upstream a bit where the creek enters the river between Odeck 1 and 2.
I had it in mind to fish for shad, but the water level, clarity, and time of year was so perfect for smallmouth that I tried for them first. I paddled over and got out of the yak and fished the eddies across the river from the Odecks, which are only legally accessable via whitewater boats because no foot traffic is allowed from the MD walkways out to the MD Odeck. I tried some jigs with no luck and I tried a small crankbait with only a single 11 inch smallie. Then I switched to a chart. deep diving rapalla crankbait and it was game on. I caught around a dozen smallies, including one in the nearly 3 lb class and one in the two pound class, the rest were mostly in the 1 lb range, plus or minus. All the smallies were fat and healthy and fought really well. The river was alive with fish, lots of big carp rolling in the shallows and some surface activity from other fish. I snagged a few carp, had a big one on for 5 minutes on my ultralight spinning rod with 6 lb test braid, but he finally pulled off. I also caught a Po Permit (gizzard shad). Many times the lure would bang into large fish. No walleye yesterday, but I mostly catch them in cooler water in March and in Oct/Nov.
What was really interesting is that when I caught both the larger smallmouth, they were followed in by other smallmouth in the same size class. So my 3 lb fish was followed in by its twin, as was the 2 lb fish. Since the water was clear and I was up on rocks looking down, I could see the other fish really well. In other years in April I have done very well on smallies in these eddies, I think they are staging pre-spawn and they can be really aggesive at times. Once in another year I caught two on the same lure at the same time, never done that before or since.
Yesterday was not a hot as my very best days ever for smallmouth, but it was in the top five. If you were ever considering fishing on the Potomac between Great Falls and Fletchers, now is the time. I think there may be Americans in ok numbers up near GF, but yesterday the smallmouth fishing was too good for me to try darts for the Americans. Yesterday multiple paddlers described huge schools of large fish swimming upriver ("almost like a conga line") that they have seen in the eddy when launching in recent days, all of them said they had never seen such schools in the past. From the descriptions it really sounded like American shad, but I did not see any when I launched on Tuesday or Thursday this week.
This weekend is a WV overnight canoe/kayak trip for me and my son--we are doing the Smokehole run on the South Branch Po near Petersburg. So I won't be out again this weekend locally but I hope to try again for shad near GF in the coming weeks.
April on the Potomac is a great place to be!!!
On Thursday I gave a guest lecture to an undergrad marine ecology class at George Mason U in Fairfax in the afternoon. Rather than go back to work in the late afternoon on a beautiful spring day I decided to take a couple hours of leave and do some kayak surfing and "fish sampling" just below Great Falls.
The recent flood put a huge pile of logs into the top of "fishermans eddy", which is between the 2nd and 3rd Observation Decks at VA GF (that eddy was named in the 1800s, as was "shad rock" just upsteam of the eddy). The Park Service closed shoreline access to the eddy because of the danger of climbing over the log pile to get to the river. Whitewater paddlers have been launching upstream a bit where the creek enters the river between Odeck 1 and 2.
I had it in mind to fish for shad, but the water level, clarity, and time of year was so perfect for smallmouth that I tried for them first. I paddled over and got out of the yak and fished the eddies across the river from the Odecks, which are only legally accessable via whitewater boats because no foot traffic is allowed from the MD walkways out to the MD Odeck. I tried some jigs with no luck and I tried a small crankbait with only a single 11 inch smallie. Then I switched to a chart. deep diving rapalla crankbait and it was game on. I caught around a dozen smallies, including one in the nearly 3 lb class and one in the two pound class, the rest were mostly in the 1 lb range, plus or minus. All the smallies were fat and healthy and fought really well. The river was alive with fish, lots of big carp rolling in the shallows and some surface activity from other fish. I snagged a few carp, had a big one on for 5 minutes on my ultralight spinning rod with 6 lb test braid, but he finally pulled off. I also caught a Po Permit (gizzard shad). Many times the lure would bang into large fish. No walleye yesterday, but I mostly catch them in cooler water in March and in Oct/Nov.
What was really interesting is that when I caught both the larger smallmouth, they were followed in by other smallmouth in the same size class. So my 3 lb fish was followed in by its twin, as was the 2 lb fish. Since the water was clear and I was up on rocks looking down, I could see the other fish really well. In other years in April I have done very well on smallies in these eddies, I think they are staging pre-spawn and they can be really aggesive at times. Once in another year I caught two on the same lure at the same time, never done that before or since.
Yesterday was not a hot as my very best days ever for smallmouth, but it was in the top five. If you were ever considering fishing on the Potomac between Great Falls and Fletchers, now is the time. I think there may be Americans in ok numbers up near GF, but yesterday the smallmouth fishing was too good for me to try darts for the Americans. Yesterday multiple paddlers described huge schools of large fish swimming upriver ("almost like a conga line") that they have seen in the eddy when launching in recent days, all of them said they had never seen such schools in the past. From the descriptions it really sounded like American shad, but I did not see any when I launched on Tuesday or Thursday this week.
This weekend is a WV overnight canoe/kayak trip for me and my son--we are doing the Smokehole run on the South Branch Po near Petersburg. So I won't be out again this weekend locally but I hope to try again for shad near GF in the coming weeks.
April on the Potomac is a great place to be!!!