Prettyboy Reservoir / Non Kayak

[DanMarino]

On Friday morning I fished Prettyboy Reservoir from an older gent's jon boat. He must have caught 30 fish on his fly rod, all on hot pink or fluorescent green floating foam spiders. He had about 2 dozen sunfish and at least 6 smallmouth bass all on the floating spiders. So smallmouth bass must eat a fair amount of bugs off the surface.

The water was very clear with a green tint. Nice rocky shore lines. Beautiful place to fish. I was impressed and will go back.

I was fishing spinning gear. No love on tubes or jigs with plastic craws. Lots of bluegills pecking at them though. Same for fishing a senko. Lots of sunfish pecks, but not bass taking the worm.
I ended up with 2 smallmouth bass and about 3 sunfish. All on a rebel PopR or on a beetle spin.

[Turtle135]

pretty fish! that 11" smallie has been chowing down, look at that belly!

[Mark]

"So smallmouth bass must eat a fair amount of bugs off the surface."

Smallmouth bass love fly rod poppers, especially river smallmouth.

I'm surprised more people don't try them in the upper Potomac and Susquehanna.

[HJS]

Prettyboy is one of the prettiest reservoirs in Maryland. Very rugged looking, especially in the upper end. I use to fish it a lot from my canoe, that is until Baltimore City enacted the zebra mussel restrictions many years ago that boats can't be used anywhere else. I still fish it from shore.