Susky @ Harrisburg, 9-7-13

[HJS]

I fished the Susky in the Harrisburg area, 9-7-2013, 10:30am-3:00pm. I caught 7 smbass: one 19”er and 6 in the 12”-16” range, plus a couple of 6”-8” dinks. Flow was 4.3’, which was about 6”-8” higher than what I like. Doesn’t sound like much… but it did make a big difference in fishing effectiveness. I could still paddle upriver but there were precious few rocks left exposed to nose up on. And the BIG problem was the extra current had knocked loose a lot of eel grass that grows abundantly on the bottom in this area. This floating eel grass made casting lures very difficult to nearly impossible. Rapalas were almost out of the question as they would be fouled with eel grass within 10’ of hitting the water. Eel grass was by far worse on the western side. Once I moved farther out towards the middle the floating eel grass became almost manageable. Only solution was to re-rig with totally weedless soft plastics. Seems weedless rigging always cost me a lot of missed hits that I would have caught had I been using exposed hooks. But still, I did catch fish. The most effective lure was a 5” BA, crystal shad, rigged weedless and weightless… twitch it across the surface.

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Nice fat 19"er that was caught on a 5" BA, weedless/weightless.

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Rapids, riffles and scattered islands of water willow. Excellent smbass habitat and fun to fish.

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Downtown Harrisburg off in the distance.

[Turtle135]

Great looking smallmouth! Congrats!

I swear those Susky bronzebacks must take steroids in their youth.

[Berto]

Nice Fish! Good Job!

I really need to make that trip up north.