MDfishing.org - Dedication To Conservation and Preservation of MD's Fishing Resources

Finally Back to the River!!!

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:21:29 -0500

Wow, can't believe it is September already. The monsters are back in school, work is going full bore, summer vacations are over. What to do, what to do... With Hanna heading for us real fast, I decided I needed to spend some quality time on the river before the deluge. I PM'd SMALLJAW, MUSKALUNGEE, SPOTHOGG and OGBUDHA to see if they had a kitchen pass today. No takers by 7AM, so off to the reever all by my lonesome. I launched the boat around 8AM and found the river running low, clear and full of salad! A beautiful morning to be alive. Found the fish to still be in summer patterns. Caught several dinks and a couple real nice fish. As I had to renew my drivers license and change the oil in the GMC, I pulled chocks before lunch and headed for the ranch. After I finished up my chores, I decided to head back out for the PM bite. Hooked the James River Jet back up to the truck and waited for my 8 year old son Patrick to get home from school. As soon as he noticed the boat connected to the truck he lit right up and said, "when we going"...... Now was the answer and off we went.

Labor Day: Fishing With Smalljaw

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:40:23 -0500

Smalljaw called me up Sunday night to see if I could fish on Monday. I was already planning on going out, but I had come down with the stomach "issue" that made it's way through my family on Sunday AM and wasn't sure I'd be able to spend any time on the boat without dropping a shore lunch. I told him I'd let him know in the AM...and sure enough I received a text at 0700 to see if I was going. (and another minutes later from OGbudha threatening my life if I didn't go out and fish)

I decided that I could probably make it through the AM, so I unloaded my gear from my boat, packed the truck and was on my way. We both would have liked to get out earlier before the sun got hot, but Jeff was patiently waiting for me at the ramp when I showed up...and off we went.

8/30- Another skunking...

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:02:22 -0500

With all the stress of school starting back up and having company for Labor Day this weekend, we knew it would be difficult to go fish this weekend but we made time to go to Cunningham Falls Lake for a short time this evening. Fished the dam area and got absolutely nothing. Gulp nightcrawlers, Senkos, swimbaits, suspending jerks, spinnerbaits...not a tap. Only positive about the trip was catching a spinnerbait that must have gotten hung up on someones line...free lure :) Saw a ton of minnows nearby. Just couldnt get anything to bite. Very very frustrating. Its been almost 2 months since i've caught a bass. I really hope the fishing gets better soon...or I somehow start getting good at it :)

Fishing with Sam + Muskie On!!!!

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:52:46 -0500

Fished with my son Sam this afternoon. Launched out around 2:30pm. Ran upriver to a couple of guys waving from a boat. Looked like Muskalungee's boat so I ran over to say hi. Got a little closer and realized it was someone else's boat so I turned and kept heading upriver. A little later I got a text from TheDuder wondering why I had snubbed him. Sorry Duder...didn't realize it was you or we would have kept coming over.

Anyway Sam and I caught a bunch of fish...including smallies, greenies, rock bass, bluegills and the elusive Muskalungeeeeee!! My first ever. Got him on a buzz bait. Sam gets credit for the photo.

Had a great time enjoying Sam's company and some water in the river finally.

Smalljaw

Found This Picture of "TheDuder" as a kid....

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:52:04 -0500

I found this picture while going through some old photos at the house, thought you guys would be interested in seeing what theDuder looked like as a kid....
-Mike

Mental Heath Trip: Saturday 23-August

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:05:15 -0500

Well, if you haven't noticed I haven't been around much the past month or so. Work has been crazy, and I've been averaging around 70 hours a week...and that doesn't leave much "spare" time. I haven't seen my family much, let alone even though about going fishing. But that was going to change this weekend.

Mrs. Muskalungee told me I could fish in the AM, so I planned on getting up and taking the boat out before sunrise....but not getting home until after midnight on Friday kind of put a dent into those plans and I slept right through my alarm.

I ended up getting to the river around 1130 or so, and met up with TheDuder and Doug as they were packing in it for the AM. They had a fairly productive AM, and gave me the pattern and off I went to see what I could do. First of all, it just felt great to get out. But it was also great to get out all by myself. I don't fish much by myself b/c I enjoy the fellowship part of fishing...but there really is something to be said for just being out there by yourself every once in a while.

All in all I ended up with 25 fish or so, with the biggest going 18" (and she was a fighter!). Most of the fish came on Jerks but some came topwater, jack's worms and a few on the grub (including my one walleye of the day, 18"). Oh yeah, I got a chance to see Dan's (Spotthogg's) new Synder rig....WOW. That is all I can say about that one. I have some more to right on my trip, but no time to do it today....so stay tuned.

-Mike

Pond Trip 8/23

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:13:31 -0500

Fished a local pond last night with my dad from 7-8:30. Started out with a Senko fished in the dam area...no bites but my new reel casts a weightless senko GOOD. I'm having a little trouble with detecting Senko bites...what I usually do is cast out as far as possible, let it fall on a slack line, wait a few seconds. Then wind up the slack, and twitch the rod tip up a foot and let it fall on a slack line again. And I retrieve the senko doing that..but since the line is slack, how do I detect bites?

Well anyway after that...decided to use my zebco that i had rigged up with a small hook and bobber to catch some bream to use as bait. Within seconds I caught a little 4 incher so I rigged him up on a size 1 hook under a larger bobber. Had something big take a swipe at it...my bobber moved about 3 feet in 2 seconds...but I didnt connect. Spent the rest of the night catchin bream on my other rig just waiting for somethin to go after the bream i had under the bobber. The grass was HORRIBLE...i cant wait til it gets cooler out and can actually catch some bass..hopefully..I havent caught a bass since July :( Ahh well its ok I had fun catchin little bluegills anyway haha

Took My Cousins Fishing

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:05:49 -0500

Took my two cousins fishing on the river today. Ran into Muskalungee after he picked his brother up at the ramp. We headed up river, and while it started out slow, we caught between 15 and 18, mostly small fish. The biggest was 16", which unfortunately, the fish didn't make it. It was hooked deeply, but we were able to get the hook out, and there was no bleeding. When we put it back in the water, she just stayed on the surface on her side.

Low but not too low...on a river near you

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:18:53 -0500

Yesterday afternoon,I met up with Smalljaw on a river near you.To explore the possiblities of catching some fish from a low river.We first ran down stream and fished the side with shade.Figuring that since fish have no eye lids or ears for holding on sunglasses
that they would be attracted to a location easy on their eyes.Amazingly we were corrected too.

We fished buzzbaits,grubs,flukes,poppers,and Jack's worms catching fish on them all.This area has got some really nice structure,and will definetly be remember for future reference when the river gets back up to where it normally belongs.

We're too low.....we're way too low

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:19:24 -0500

UP at 1.22...this is killing me. I think we need a hurricane...whaddya all think?

I am fishing this friday be damned. I will have a seat open. No guarantees on fish counts but I will be fishing. Thinking about a push off around 3pm or so.

Cunningham Falls Lake August 15-16

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:44:13 -0500

My family went camping this weekend at Cunningham Falls State Park and had a real good time. We went fishin both nights so I got to test out my new reel! It performed really well. Didnt catch any fish though...but it casted and retrieved real smooth and no line twist! First night I fished watermelonseed grubs on a 1/8 oz jighead..for about 3 casts, until I started pulling up huge chunks of grass with it due to the weight. I hate that grass that grows in the lakes during the summer. Switched to a weightless Senko which didnt get as much grass on but I still didnt get any solid bites. Still trying to learn how to fish a Senko...I sort of just deadstick it for a few seconds in cover and then twitch it back to me real slow. Eventually it got too dark and we had to go back to the campsite.

Lower Potomac

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:10:58 -0500

Launched yesterday and fished the Lower Potomac with a hard core bass tourney buddy o' mine. We fished out of my jet rig. Huge flats of grass,spadderdock and a jet rig just dont mix! :)
We ran all over Mattawoman, Chicamux,Leesylvania,Quantico, Smoots, Nanemoy, and Occoquan (sp)
Most of the fish came out of Occoquan.
Fished frogs,buzzbaits,senkos and jigs.
I focused on grass lines near drop off and isolated pockets of grass. I had a decent bag of fish and had my limit with 1 hr. I ended up with 2 dozen keepers.
My best five fish weighed in a little over 12 pounds total weight
This trip ended my streak of a 5 pound fish coming int othe boat. Prior to this trip I was on a long long streak of pegging a 5 poundr a trip. I did miss 2 fish....one followed my swimbait to the boat and took a swipe at it....I got a great look at her and guestimate around 6.5 to 7 pounds....she was a beast and left a heck of a swirl and wake when she missed the bait. I also had a decent hookup in the spadderdock on a jig...felt very nice.

Buying a new reel

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:36:40 -0500

This Friday, my family is taking the trip to Arundal Mills Mall for an afternoon...and of course me and dad will spend some time at Bass Pro Shops. This is actually going to be my first time at BPS, I usually get my fishing supplies at Wal Mart and we went to Cabelas in April-that was fun. But I have some money saved up and I got to thinkin. I decided I think I need an upgrade from my Zebco 33. I've been looking at a couple reels, but I still havent 100% answered this question- should I upgrade from a spincaster to a spinning reel, or should I just buy a better spincaster? I am leaning towards buying the spinning reel, due to some very good advice from Mike. But I am a little leery about shelling out 60 bucks for a spinning reel because of the line twists that probably will come with a spinning reel. If I were to upgrade spincasters, I would go to this: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_44496____SearchResults

Tons Of Wildlife!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:45:09 -0500

Got out to fish the "little river" Sunday morning for a few hours. Perfect weather and water color. Almost fall like as long as you remained in the shadows and out of the sun! The wildlife was very abundant and active during the early morning hours, almost to the point I found myself spending as much time just looking around as fishing! Seen doe with fawns as well as a groundhog crossing river. Also seen a mink scurrying through the roots of a blow down along the bank. Other mammals seen were squirrels, chipmunks, and muskrats. As far as bird life, I believe the only one not seen or heard was the turkey.

Pond Trip 7/30

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:23:28 -0500

Hit the pond this evening from 7-9. Only caught one fish, a sunfish, on a nightcrawler. Other than the live 'crawlers, we also tried a variety of lures. Grubs, Flukes, Hula Poppers, and Hardnose frogs all failed. Dad got a tap on a grub and a half hearted strike on his Hula Popper and thats all. Me...well other than the sunfish I caught I didnt get anything else. Very very frustrating. This pond is starting to really frustrate me, because its a confusing pond to figure out the patterns. I've only figured out a couple things. One, the main forage is bluegills. Two, there is not many areas of the pond that we can find where bass routinely hold. Three, the bass seem to get active at dusk and feed on top. Tonight, we were perplexed that they didnt seem to be active feeding on top since it was rainy and overcast and we fished til it was real dark out. Oh well, we'll figure these fish out someday..hopefully.