JULY M&G Report Thread!!

I'll start it off!!

I finished the day with 12 LMB, almost all in the 15-16" range and all pretty chunky.

.....AND 1 snakehead!!! It was my 1st so I was pretty excited. It was a probably around 22-24". I know there were some much larger ones caught.

My full report from the last couple of days will be up on my blog in the next couple of days so be on the lookout for it!!


Great seeing everyone again and a lot of new faces as well. There was a great turn out!!!!

[Southerly]

12 LMB - not too shabby congratulations on the snakehead - i still need to figure out how i guess. really cool fish (in that nightmare sort of way).

[J.A. Veil]

First of all, thanks to Chexone for organizing the event. The turn out was strong and most of us caught at least a few fish today.

I launched at about 8:00 right after Archery Rob and GKreps (Greg). We fished to the right of the launch (downstream) and found a nice little gut going back into the marsh. Rob and Greg obviously knew what they were doing -- they started catching soon and kept catching until the outgoing current dropped off at 11:30. I had heard that plastic frogs were the choice bait for snakeheads, so I bought a scum frog. I met Redfish along Indian Head Hwy early this morning to pick up a rod I bought from him. He gave me Rage Toad to try. I started out tossing each of the plastic frog baits for a few minutes then switching over to the other one. I did not have a single bite on either. After an hour or so, Greg took pity on me and gave me a soft plastic paddletail fluke, like he and Rob were throwing. Eventually I got a few largemouths. Then Greg told me he was having good success floating a wacky-rigged worm along the channel of the gut where we were fishing. I tried that and finally started to connect with some regularity. I picked up a few nice bass including a 17" fish.



About noon, I decided to head upstream to the area by the sunken barge. I planned to troll three rods as I paddled there. I first put out a 5'6" ultralight rod with one of Woody's 1/8-oz feather jigs. I drifted with the current while setting out the other two rods. But before I could get them out, the small rod bent over almost double. I fought it for a minute or two before seeing what I had hooked. It was a 21" blue catfish caught on a tiny spinner. I tossed the little lure out again. Before I could start paddling, it went down a second time with another catfish of similar size. Even though I had brought earthworms, I never had to break into them.



I eventually arrived by the barges as most of the other anglers were heading back. I found a small stretch of open water inside the large plant beds, next to the shoreline. The water was only 6" deep above the grass, but the water was crystal clear. I slowly paddled around, spotting two snakeheads. I cast to them but had no takers. I then made a long paddle back to the dock against the current.

[DOGFISH]

It was good seeing everyone today. I did not catch any snakeheads, but I did get three bass. I got off to a slow start. I did not have much luck with a frog. Everything I caught was on a frog color Lucky 13. Later, I went back to the frog and nada. So I may have to revisit my strategy. I did see some large snakeheads caught. That looks like fun. I will have to get back and give them another try. I have some GoPro video. If it turns out ok, I will edit it and put it on the post. Again, good seeing everyone. I would like to echo the thanks to Chexone for setting things up.

[gkreps]

John it was nice to put a name with a face today, I enjoyed your company and look forward to more days on the water together. You should make a trip up here to Hagerstown and fish with ROB and I for small mouths on the uper Potomac.

[gkreps]

Matt I was hoping to meet you today to see if you received you Yum package from KBF ?

[ronaultmtd]

Enjoyed the M&G- caught lots of fish and met some new folks I had not met before- the dinner at Grinders was very good, too-
I read about everyone missing strikes with the frog- A lot has to do with the hooks being shaped the way they are and the timing of your strike to set the hooks- you cannot get a snakehead strike to set the hooks- they will throw the bait every time- I bend my frog hooks out slightly from the body- it really improves the hookups- only downside is that they hang up occasionally in the lilly pads easier than if you leave them turned tight to the frog body- I never stopped throwing the frog yesterday- same as my last trip- I would alternate with tossing a small crankbait on my UL spinning gear- a 2 inch firetiger Ralapa...normal Mattawoman Creek day for me- this has to be the best bass stream in the region- a dozen or so 14-17 inch LM bass, one nice snakehead that wrapped me in the sunken barge on the rusty iron rods that stick out everywhere- I should have known that it would be impossible to land a fish in all that debris, broke it off and thought I had lost my frog, but later on I saw the lure floating inside the barge- you know I got my Real Target Frog back- those things are too expensive not to- I fished for a little while with bunker on the bottom for cats and had one on that broke me off- I think the leader had a fray in it somewhere I didn't see- ended up with five catfish, several bluegills, and the bass I released. Best part was fishing with the MKF crew-

[Reelaxin10]

Thanks Chexone and everyone else who set up the Meet & Greet today. It was a great day on Mattawoman and nice to finally meet everyone. I wanted an early start and ended up at the ramp at 4:45am. Launched in the dark and headed to the left. Caught 6 largemouth with the biggest being 18" on a popper and then I was surprised to get a 9" baby striper on the popper too! Then it was snakehead time. I paddled with yakersaltlife (Keith) up on the right side and he hooked into his first snakehead which I paddled over and helped him land with my net. The thing was going crazy, snapped a pic and he put it on the stringer. I tied on a frog and cast it out to have my first snakehead hit it and go airborne in a hurry. Ended up catching one more snakehead at 26" and had one spit the hook. Too bad the gopro battery was dead. I'll definitely be back for more.


Great day out there and Grinders was a good choice afterwards. I look forward to fishing with you guys again soon.

[chex]

It was great seeing all those yaks on the water. Everywhere you looked, there was one or more yaks. Saw a bunch of people catch fish. I ended up with 7 catfish up to 22", a multitude of perch, sunfish, 2 LMB but NO SKAKEHEAD, argh!! One day... one day...

It was my pleasure to organize and I'm glad everyone had fun.

[chex]

[Yak Fish]

Great job guys! I'm jealous about those snakeheads. Every year they are on my list of goals and I make no effort to get one, lol.

[Capt C-Hawk]

I had a great time today. The bassboat guys must have thought they were being invaded, with kayaks everywhere you looked. I hooked a nice bass on my second cast and almost caught my frog when he jumped and fired it back at me. My final tally was 3 bass and 6 cats landed and a few others lost.

Congrats to everyone who caught their first snakehead, I'm still waiting for mine. Lunch at Grinders was good, and the air conditioning was excellent. I had the pick 2 basket with fried shrimp and crab balls. That seemed to be the #1 choice. Even picked up a dozen large crabs for the wife and she shared them with me. Very good. Thanks for putting this together, I'm going to try to make it to more.

One of my bass


This spot interests me. Back in the 90's it was all sand with no vegetation in or near the water. Everyone knew it as "the dunes". Weekends were wild there with everything from runabouts to yachts would beach there and party while their kids swam between the boats. My all grown up kids have fond memories of the dunes.


As for the rest of the pics, hopefully you all know who you are because I've had a nap since they were taken. There should have been more, but the day was half over before I thought to take any. Hell, that's nothing, I pedaled a fully charged GoPro around all day without ever turning it on

[CB kayak 02]

Matt I was hoping to meet you today to see if you received you Yum package from KBF ?

I did!! Thanks, Hopefully I can win a few more of those challenges too!!

[Shady]

My brother and I left the dock around the same time as reelaxin10. It was kind of eerie to head up mattowoman in the pitch black. I started off throwing a bronzeye popping frog and had 4 blow ups, but could not stick any of them. One them was pretty big, possibly snakehead? I had that fish hooked for about 2 seconds. I was still working the frog and my brother had went ahead a little ways and all of a sudden I hear him yelling I got a big one! It ended up being a 23" blue cat that he actually caught on a small booyah boogie chatter bait! Soon after that he anchored and started using worms to catch catfish and perch. I continued with my frog with no luck.

Eventually, I got tired of watching my brother catching all the catfish and decided to anchor up and start catfishing. I finally got the skunk off with a small channel cat. I caught a few more catfish, perch, and bluegill anchored up near the barge and my brother probably caught 10 or so blues and channels. The funny thing was he was using a bottom rig with no weight. How does that even work? The current was pushing pretty good for a while there. I actually ended up catching most of my fish on 3" gulp alive minnows on a jighead.

Around 9 it seemed that the cat bite had died down and we went back to bass fishing. It was unbelievable how clear the water was, I started just drifting along the edge of the grass while standing and sight casting to bass with my gulp alive minnow. My brother missed a decent fish inside the barge, but never got to see it. We were just about ready to head back to the ramp, when I finally got my first bass of the day! It was probably 2-3 pounds. Only a few minutes later my brother caught his first bass of the day that was also about 2-3 pounds not far from where I caught mine. He caught his on the booyaa boogie chatterbait. The only pics I got are of my Bass on the water and the Blue cats back at home before cleaning and i dont feel like posting right now. I wish I would have thought to take more pics...

The original plan was to hit the bay bridge on the way home from Mattawoman, but it seemed that the wind was picking up a little bit, so we decided to just go to Jonas Green. We headed down river from Jonas Green and caught a bunch of perch up to 11" along the piers. We spent only about 2 hours on the Severn and decided to call it a day as we were beat. Got home, cleaned the two blue cats that we kept from mattawoman and some perch from the Severn and had a nice fish fry for dinner. Then I got a call that I was needed for a softball game after dinner. What a day!

It was nice to see a lot of familiar faces out on the water today and also nice to meet some of the the newer members. Congrats to the Snakeheaders, Im done!

[beerums]

I definitely had a good time today and it was nice to see the kayaks out number the bass boats for once!!

I started off the day at around 545 and headed to the left to fish along the weed edges with the live target frog and didn't get anything at first. Once I got around the first bend I hooked into this nice 16" LM



That was the only strike and fish i had on that frog. I switched over to the Rage Tail toad and had a good strike on my very first cast but was unable to set the hook. I had a few more strikes on the rage tail but was unable to get a good hook set. Anyone have any good tips on how to get a proper hookset with those frogs??

My next go to was the 7" Berkeley Power worm in the june bug color scheme. I was able to land a 4 or 5 smaller LM and than two more 16" LM on my UL setup which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch any SH but I was glad to see that others were able to and nice ones at that!

So my friend was supposed to rent a kayak from up the creek rentals but the guys never showed up so he made a few casts from the dock and than decided to head out. He stopped at the 225 bridge to see what it was like and threw a chartreuse spinner bait under the bridge and hauled out this hawg:



21.5" and 4.5 lbs

Unfortunately, he didn't realize that a citation bass in MD was 21" so he threw it back and didn't get a good picture with the measuring tape. I informed him afterwards and he was kicking himself for not taking a proper picture.

I left around 1pm and wasn't able to make it to Grinders for lunch but I hope that everyone enjoyed the food!

Looking forward to the next M&G!