Potomac Smallmouths

[djones]

Fished the upper river at Shepherdstown, West Virginia last Wednesday and yesterday downriver from Point of Rocks, Maryland, and both days I was satisfied with my catch. In addition to those landed, I lost a number of hooked fish. Losing fish is common when fish for smallmouths, but I barely have lost any in recent years so I believe the law of averages caught up with me. If the trend continues, I'll have to evaluate to determine if I've fallen into bad habits. Judging from the number of young bass I saw while paddling my kayak yesterday, I think the Potomac population must be pretty good right now.

All of yesterday's fish came on a chartreuse Bullet head Darter. At TieFest in February I bought Joe Bruce's booklet on this fly and some of the required materials. I hadn't gotten around to tying any, so I ordered some from his web page. I was confident in the Darter because Joe is very enthusiastic about it and his other fly designs have worked for me. As well as being an effective fish catcher, it's pleasant to cast. Also, I like that it's an intermediate sinker because they're versatile to use at different depths depending on water conditions.

[Salmo trutta]

Cool. I was in that area also. I floated from just below Shepherdstown to Dargan on Sunday morning to mid afternoon. We saw tons of smallmouth sipping the trico spinner fall. Most were small, but again good numbers of smaller fish. My 5 year old son did well with a spinning rod behind some ledges. I actaully saw smallmouth school up and attack a large school of minnows in a riffle almost exactly like striped bass. These fish were all probably the record 2007 year class fish around 12 inches and we caught plenty in a short amount of time, While wading at the riffle. Ryan kept getting washed down stream too. I just grabbed him by the back of his neck and perched him up on another rock upstream, then catch him again on his way back down. Entertaining.


We saw a good number of fish in the slow impounded water closest to the shallowest water. Some good size too over very shallow water which was strange. I've never bothered throwing a trico for smallmouth but with the number of rising fish I saw to those things.... who knows. Too many small fish I'm sure but some looked decent.

[saltfly]

Glad to hear you guys both did well. Love to hear about smallmouth coming back. I heard to many bad stories about the fishing up their. That’s the only fishing I miss living over here. Smallmouth are one of my favorite fish to fish for.

[Bonefish79]

Are you guys seeing much grass up there yet?

[djones]

I saw some grass near Point of Rocks as I looked into the water from my kayak. It had grown only about a foot in about four feet of water. I didn't notice any at Shepherdstown, but I was wading and didn't cover that much water.