Columbus Day Upper Potomac Trip

[DanMarino]

[jet]

nice job!

[Shady]

wow, nice pictures and fish!

[fishon81]

Awesome. Nice going.

[wfauby]

nice post & pics...job well done on such a cool day. this may be a stupid question but are you guys using the two vehicle method to launch & recover your boats? one upstream/one downstream? i have been dying to get to the potomac but cant find a "second" to go with and am not too sure how much success i will have staying within the area i launch...i can see it now, im having a blast, not paying attention, next thing you know i am 5 miles downstream and have to paddle against the current to get to my truck. again great job. W

[DanMarino]

Thanks guys. The Potomac has been fishing well for me. I was surprised that we caught 4 smallies that were 16 inches yesterday. The water was still pretty warm, so the fish were chasing fluke type baits and grubs still.

Wfauby,

We did a two car shuttle yesterday and floated about 4 miles of river.

On Friday a buddy and me launched and paddled about 2 miles up river and fished as we went. Then we floated back down and fished to our starting point.

I've also launched from one point and floated down river and fished. Then paddled back up river to the car.

In some places you can float and fish down river, then carry your kayak over to the C&O Canal and have a very easy paddle back to where you started. Along the way you can fish for largemouth bass in the canal too.

So there's plenty of options, it just depends on where you launch from and if you have a buddy with you.

[HJS]

I'm truly impressed with your catch on the Potomac. Very nice looking fish. I fished on Monday too, except I fished the Susky at Harrisburg.,, my new favorite spot. I had to work my butt off, covering a huge amount of territory, just to catch 3 smbass. Considering both rivers had about a 10F temperature drop over the past 3 days it's a wonder we caught anything at all. In your second pic, I think I'm seeing the tops of a lot of submerged rooted vegetation? Is there a lot of it there? Vegetation in the Susky is starting to cut loose and floating around. It's not too bad yet but I had to clean my Rapala off almost ever couple of casts or so.

Question: When you were fishing flukes, did you fish them with or without weight?

[DanMarino]

HJS,

This section of the Potomac had a lot of grass. I didn't fish anything with trebble hooks due to it. If there was deep, slow water, it had a lot of grass. Faster sections with rocks had less grass.

The guy I was with was fishing his flukes weightless. I always fish my flukes on a beetle spin with a 1/8 ounce jig and exposed hook. Yes, I was cleaning grass off of my lure about 50% of the time in the grassy sections of the river, especially if I fished it slow and along the bottom.

Yes, we did much better than I thought we would do with the cold front conditions. The water was still warm though and much warmer than the air temperature.

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