Meet and Greet - Potomac - Brunswick

[J.A. Veil]

I launched with several other guys from the Brunswick ramp just before 8:00 am. The other MKF members at the ramp were quite helpful in advising me what types of lures to use today. I fished two spinnerbaits (1/16-oz and 1/8 oz), a beetle spin with a 3" paddletail minnow, and a Texas rigged Senko.

I have little experience fishing in free-flowing rivers, and never did get comfortable with a fast drift in the current. I looked for places where the current was blocked by rocks or other structure and tucked in behind them. I found one 15-ft long rock ridge that allowed me to stay in one place for my last two hours. That is where I caught most of my fish.

I got the skunk off the boat quickly with a sunfish. A few minutes later I followed it with a smallmouth. Then I had a drought for the next hour. Once I found the rock ridge mentioned above, I stayed there the rest of the morning. I ended up catching 8 little smallies (<10") and 5 sunfish -- not bragworthy, but still fun for a tidewater fisherman. I caught all the sunfish and about half the bass on the 1/16-oz spinnerbait (Strike King Microking). The other half of the bass were caught on the Senko. I had a bunch of other hits on the Senko that did not stay hooked up. The bass tugged so hard on the Senkos that they tore up three Senko baits. The other two baits proved to be too heavy for the relative shallow water. They consistently caught grass and were not really effective where I was fishing.

While I was tucked up next to the ridge, the other guys drifted downstream. I stopped fishing about 11:30 and headed back to the Brunswick ramp. I phoned Dan Marino (Tom) , who told me the group was still drifting and would not be back for and hour and a half. I decided to head home. Many thanks to Tom for making the arrangements and to the other friendly members who helped me get rigged up at the ramp. I look forward to hearing reports from the other participants and seeing some photos. Here are some of my photos.

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[J.A. Veil]

Can someone identify the species of sunfish from my photos?

[Mark]

John,

I always called them redbreast sunfish.

Not sure if that's their real name but a local fisherman on the Potomac told me that years ago.

Sounds like you had a good time on the river.

[imagine29028]

Situations like that...can use bigger baits.

[Mike]

Can someone identify the species of sunfish from my photos?

All the sunniest I caught today were Green Sunfish. They have a beautiful mottled turquoise pattern on their face. Hard to tell from the pic on my small tablet screen but yours could the same.

[bignose]

They look like Yellow breasted Sunfish. Good little fighters for their size.

The current really rips in front of the ramp, but settles down considerably as you move towards the Virginia shore. You'll often find that the fish will move to that side because there is shade on that shore. Or into deeper holes if the sun is high in the sky like today.
Downstream, lots of shallow riffles, the Campground Ramp on the Maryland side, with a big cross river ledge about 1 mile down called the Sawbuck ledge.
In times of very low flow, I have wet waded across the width river from the Campgrounds, but that was maybe 15+ years ago.
Upstream is the Brunswick pool and further up some rocky islands and Knoxville Falls.
I usually find Smallies tucked in front of the ledges, and occasionally just behind big rocks looking to dart out into the current to pick prey off.
My favorite lure is a small Rebel Pop-R, a small Bomber Fat A, and a gold #7 Rapala minnow. I miss too many hook ups with a single hook senko or a sluggo.

I'm just starting with the High School football season.........and I wished that I could have been out on the River today.
Sigh.

[Turtle135]

Lots of smallies today. Many of them were the 10" to 11" fish that are present in multitude on the Potomac this year. I mostly threw a 1/4 ounce jig with a craw trailer and a weightless 5" fluke hoping to select for large bass but the little guys were aggressive and hungry and would take repeated swipes at my lures until they hooked themselves.





Always good to meet some fellow fisherman and board members. Sure can't complain about the weather we had for August.

[Mike]

I ended up with a good tally of smallmouth and sunfish. Nothing huge but every one of them fought with everything they had, even the 6" smallmouth which bent my ultralight rod right under the yak. I fished with a Mepps inline spinner with white bucktail, 2 inch Berkeley Havoc shad on a Draggin Head, Rapala Skitterpop, and a spinnerbait with white skirt and gold willow blade. The skitterpop was a total bust, no hits on topwater. The Mepps was the clear winner but it was tough going with open hooks due to the grass everywhere. Next was the Havoc setup weedless on the Draggin Head. I didn't have luck jigging it but reeling it steadily like the Mepps got hits. Nearly all my fish came on the top 12" of water. With about a mile to go I lost my Mepps and didn't have a replacement, so I put a tiny white spinner on my ultralight which sat unused all morning and started having a blast with 10" smallies and sunfish. The final stretch to the Point of Rocks ramp was difficult. The grass beds were thick and the wind was howling pushing me upstream, so put the poles away and paddled.
Thanks Tom for arranging the trip, it was good to meet you and so many other MKF members. Thanks Running and Zak for meeting up and shuttling from PoR, I hope we can do it again sometime.

Just one pic, they all look the same! Some bigger, most smaller.
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Mike

[HearadonCatch]

Well, I stuck with my plan and launched at Landers at 6:45. I paddled up to the rock ledge that ran across the entire river, and slowly started my float. I fished hard until about 11, then I had to get off the water to make it home for the in-laws arrival. Worked as many eddies as I could, as well as all the shaded areas. My persistance paid off, and I landed this 19" smallie. New PB too! Just as I got to the ramp, I think I saw you guys making your way up to that long ledge. Wish I could have stayed longer, but I hope you guys enjoyed this float and hopefully you'll come back soon!

[Turtle135]

awesome smallmouth Bryan! congrats again!

I'm pretty sure your bass could have eaten most of the smallies I caught today

[Mike]

awesome smallmouth Bryan! congrats again!

I'm pretty sure your bass could have eaten most of the smallies I caught today

Haha, same here! Awesome fish, nice job.

Mike

[DanMarino]

Thanks to everyone who showed up and fished today. I hope everyone had a good trip. I appreciate PigPen, Beerboy, and Turtle135 for helping with my shuttle arrangement to Lander and for watching our gear.

WOW!!! Bryan that's a nice 19 inch smallie!!! I've never caught one that big.

I think everyone was on the water by 8AM. Me and Beerboy (Tracy) made it to Lander around 1PM. My apologies to J.A. Veil. It took us about an hour longer than I anticipated to make it to Lander and he was unable to stick around for eating some lunch with Beerboy and I at El Sloppy Tacos. I believe most of the group was going all the way down to Point of Rocks.

River conditions were nice. Water clarity was a little more stained on the Virginia side of the river. Lots of GRASS! Plenty of small fish.

Off the start I missed several bass on a topwater plug. The fish didn't seem to actually eat the plug, so maybe they were small fish.
I next moved onto throwing my beetle spin with a paddle tail fluke on it. Had a couple of fish on, but they only grabbed the tail of the bait.
Finally I settled on throwing a 4 inch worm and connected with a couple of bass and some sunfish.
I got tired of the worm and went back to the beetle spin and eventually caught a 14 inch bass.

By this time the wind began blowing us back up river towards Brunswick and I had to begin paddling to make much headway.

It was past 11:00 AM and I decided to throw on a buzz bait in hopes of catching a larger fish. I immediately had 6 or 7 strikes on the buzz bait and I missed every fish. One of them was decent size and stayed on for quite a bit.

After that I put on a small tube and dragged it along as I paddled and I picked up about 4 or 5 smallies quickly before approaching the ramp.

Here's my photos from the trip.

[J.A. Veil]

My apologies to J.A. Veil. It took us about an hour longer than I anticipated to make it to Lander and he was unable to stick around for eating some lunch with Beerboy and I at El Sloppy Tacos.

Tom - No need to apologize -- I chose to fish near Brunswick rather than stick with the group on the longer drift. After loading up, I too had lunch at El Sloppy -- quite tasty!

Thanks again for organizing the event.

[PigPen]

That was my best day out on the potmac todate. I typcailly get bogged down catching blugills and some very small smallies. I was using a 3" white twister tail on a bright orange 1/4-3/8 oz jig with a spinner blade on it. I caught a 14" and a couple 12" small mouths and a number of others too small to want to measure but it was a beautifull day. I did run into a nice ranger at the take out point who was checking licenses and I came away with a warning and free whistle. Did anybody catch any catfish. I saw some really nice ones working the gras and some guys leaving at the same time said they were catching them on minnows.

[DonV]

First thanks to DanMarino for putting together a beautiful trip. Wonderful day and weather and a pleasure meeting everyone.

I had a pretty lame day of it as to fish but the wife had a few nice ones. 2013-08-17-085358.jpg2013-08-17-100152.jpg

Also hit El sloppy Tacos at the end of the day was was pretty impressed. We went all the way Point of Rocks and after taking a little lunch break and rest on one of the islands didn't get back till about 5. Wonderful stretch of river that I had never been on before and look forward to going back.