Mattawoman 5/18

[beerums]

Took the yak for her maiden voyage today on the Mattawoman Creek. Launched out of mattingly park at around 830am and headed upstream. Learned lots of lessons my first time out. The first thing I noticed when I launched was the water coming up through the scupper holes, instantly my butt got wet. So I pulled back up onto shore and plugged the holes with the scupper plugs I had.

The next lesson I learned was to get all my rods set up prior to launching.

Within the first few casts I caught a white perch so I thought the day would be good after that. That was the last fish I caught all day. I tossed a green frog deep into the lily pads and had a couple of nice strikes but wasn't able to set the hook, my guess is they were snakeheads.

My friend met me down there and rented one of the Hobies from Up the Creek. He hooked up with a lmbass in his first few casts, and than another, and another. He was using a chartreuse Strike King terminator spinner. I was using the same thing just in a different color, and no luck!

All in all, great day out on the water. Definitely going to be going out again soon, it's very addicting!!!

[nay_sayer]

Sorry for the slack bite but glad you enjoyed yourself. Welcome to your new addiction.

[ronaultmtd]

Scupper plugs work great on calm waters- most boats will give you a wet willie and in the summer it is fine- winter time is waders and dry top time- congratulations on your maiden voyage- the blowups on frogs in the lilly pads is 95% snakeheads- they have a tendency to just smash fogs without eating them- try fishing unweighted senko's hooked weedless on spinning tackle or dark colored flukes

[ictalurus]

Thanks for the update on the Mattawoman. I've been looking forward to getting back up there.

As for the wet seat, it's 6 of one, half a dozen of another. The seat in my Revo is wet if I don't have the plugs in. As soon as I put the plugs in, I take a wave over the bow or gunwale, and all the water ends up in the seat.

[beerums]

Yeah a similar thing happened to me except when I sat side saddle a couple of times. As soon as I brought my feet back in all the water came with them and just sat there....

[ronaultmtd]

The world record Northern Snakehead was caught in Japan and weighed 17 pounds 4 oz. We should start thinking about Maryland having a world record fish- I have seen snakeheads on the Mattawoman that I thought were around 17-20 pounds and at least 3 - 3 1/2 feet long...

[nay_sayer]

The world record Northern Snakehead was caught in Japan and weighed 17 pounds 4 oz. We should start thinking about Maryland having a world record fish- I have seen snakeheads on the Mattawoman that I thought were around 17-20 pounds and at least 3 - 3 1/2 feet long...

We also have Giant Snakeheads here. Those are probably the larger ones you are seeing. The current IGFA world record for Giant Snakehead is 10 kg or about 22 lbs and it was caught in Malaysia in 2005. I would be more than happy to beat that record!