Upper P this evening: Open Invite

[Runnin]

I'm going to try Upper Potomac this evening in case anyone would like to join in. Planning on fishing Swainslock. Swainslock is off River Rd. in Potomac Md. There's a nice rock garden in the area. This is not a float trip. There are several options for fishing. Paddle upstream and fish back. To get to the WSSC dam is about a one mile upstream paddle. The other option is paddle / portage channel in mid river island and you can fish the portion between the island and the Va. side. The other option is float downstream and paddle back. Fish, but go to far and you end up in Great Falls and most likely deceased

Smallies rule. Outside chance at a LMB but they are few and far between. Maybe a channel cat, and sunfish if you bring suitable sunfish bait.

I plan on getting there at 6:15 and want to be in water at 6:30 . Get about 2 hours fishing time before dark. There's a small parking lot. Should not be a problem on a Wednesday . May want to bring a cart. It is about a 100 yds from lot to put in.

I'm the Brown Acura MDX with the Orange Pamlico yak.

[DanMarino]

Wish I could join you Gary!
Yes, I second the cart. It's a long carry to the water.
Watch your step getting down to the river and back up. It gets slick and I fell on my rear last time.
Paddle up river to the dam always works for me.

[PigPen]

Wish I could join you Gary!
Yes, I second the cart. It's a long carry to the water.
Watch your step getting down to the river and back up. It gets slick and I fell on my rear last time.
Paddle up river to the dam always works for me.

That looks like a good location. Let me know if you want to go some other night.

[Runnin]

It was a really nice evening. Perfect weather. The water has finally cleared. I could see bottom everywhere except the deepest holes. Lots of campers out for a weekday evening. Flow is down. Relatively easy paddle upstream and across. All in all I got 8 smallies and a couple sunfish. The first and most smallies came on Senkos', later I caught them on an Z-Man Elastech Fluke. I really like these baits. They float and make a great topwater bait.

I lost a hog that crushed the fluke. It easily would have gone over 15". I got it about halfway in and it threw the hook.

15 minutes before dark, there was a good buzzbait bite. I got three in pretty short order including this one which I snapped with my cell phone.

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[DanMarino]

Great job Gary. I wish I was able to make it out there with you. I'm headed to the beach, but will be back in a week. I hope we can coordinate a trip at some point.

I've got a question for you about the flukes. How do you rig them? Type of hook? Braid? Do you use a mono leader?

I've had problems with line twist when fishing flukes on the Potomac. I've also lost a lot of fish unless I nose hook the fluke with a circle hook. This is a great time of year to fish the fluke though. I'll give the Z-man flukes a try.

[Runnin]

I use a big 4/0 Gammy finewire EWG hook or I nose hook like you do. I use braid with a flour leader always for throwing most soft plastics. I almost always fish with two rods. One rigged with braid and flouro, and the other with mono. I throw soft plastics with braid, and use the mono rigged rod for cranks, spinnerbaits, and swimming grubs.

The Z-Man baits are great. They are super tough. I reuse them 3-4 times. Just take them off hook and put them back in bag.

When using EWG hooks with flukes I like to use a knife and slice the body clean through where the hook bend goes though the bait. This increass hook up percentage. The bodies on flukes are thick and sometimes can keep you from getting a good hookup, I think it's just a flike kind of thing.

[buzz]

It was a really nice evening. Perfect weather. The water has finally cleared. I could see bottom everywhere except the deepest holes. Lots of campers out for a weekday evening. Flow is down. Relatively easy paddle upstream and across. All in all I got 8 smallies and a couple sunfish. The first and most smallies came on Senkos', later I caught them on an Z-Man Elastech Fluke. I really like these baits. They float and make a great topwater bait.

I lost a hog that crushed the fluke. It easily would have gone over 15". I got it about halfway in and it threw the hook.

15 minutes before dark, there was a good buzzbait bite. I got three in pretty short order including this one which I snapped with my cell phone.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12820[/ATTACH]

Sweet.... I'm jealous.
I used to live up that way and fished Violet's Lock every evening. Back then Mepps ruled my tackle box. I would catch SMB, sunfish, and crappie all on Mepps spinners.

Nice catch.

[Mike]

Sweet.... I'm jealous.
I used to live up that way and fished Violet's Lock every evening. Back then Mepps ruled my tackle box. I would catch SMB, sunfish, and crappie all on Mepps spinners.

Nice catch.

I still go back to Mepps when the bite is slow. An inline spinner, silver size 3, with a white tail almost always works in the upper Potomac. Smaller fish on average but better than a skunk!

Wish I could have made it last night, maybe next time!

-Mike