space inwaders  12/05/2009 - 15:58  Trip Reports    I went out just about every weekend this november. Like last year, the minnow imitating hard plastics were working best.

In the last two weeks fishing has tapered for me, even though the water wasn't too cold. i always have trouble when the rivers up a little.

Here are highlights from a few november trips on the upper river.


19 inches, at an area i rarely hike to, nov 1st. A good bite this night, 8 fish hooked lost or landed. all smaller ones 17-19 inches.

REB9  11/24/2009 - 19:23  Trip Reports  Essays  River    Started Thanksgiving vacation early this year. What to do, what to do? I know, head north to fish for some late fall smallies. I met Dave M. this morning and we headed north around 7:30AM. We were on the water around 9AM. Dreary, drizzle, low clouds, some rain mixed in. We started on the Western shore and Dave caught a nice 3 pound chunk. I plodded along and caught one on a teaser tube. We headed for the middle of the river working seam water in deeper areas. We kept picking up a fish here, a fish there, with no concentration of fish noted. We ended the day around 420PM with thirty nice fat smallies in the boat. Dave's first was the biggest of the day. We caught fish on jerkbaits, crankbaits and tubes.

muskalungee  11/10/2009 - 09:24  Kayaking   

Well, I've decided it's time to sell my kayaks. You may have noticed I haven't been around as much the past few months, this is mostly b/c my wife and I just had our 4th child 2 weeks ago and my time is much needed around the house. This had put a huge dent in my "me time", but I'm OK with that. Since it's probably going to be several years before I can get back out with the kayaks like I used to we've decided to sell my 2 Pamlico 100's so someone else can enjoy them. This kayaks are amazing, and have been on nearly every stretch of the monocacy as well as miles of the Upper Potomac. They are small enough to be handled easily, but are wide enough to be stable and give you ample room in the cockpit to stretch out your legs (and store your gear). This is a really good deal, the $350 includes:

• 2 Pamlico 100's with Phase 3 seats (pictured above)
• 2 paddles (One is a Werner 220cm paddle that retails for +$250 ALONE!!!)
• Both Kayaks have rod holders, and other customized rigging
• 2 life vests

Email or PM if your interested mike_at_mdfishing.org (replace "_at_" with @). I'm also going to post to some other sites as well as craigs list but will give priority to anyone from MDfishing.org. -Mike

space inwaders  10/31/2009 - 10:00  Trip Reports    The weather hasn't quite been cooperative during the past few weekends, but we got out in the rain on 10-17, the water was rising fast and the currents were very strong. Toward the end of this evening the back flows were so strong it was hard to feel our lures. Still 2 fish were kind enough to bite, and the first on the very first cast, about a 21" walleye. It was raining too hard to measure or photo this one.

Next evening we got out to a closer to home place where we have luck sometimes. After about 30 mins they started biting pretty well. Annie got her first walleye since the springtime- a really hard fighting 19"er.

Steve826  10/24/2009 - 13:39    Went to the pond for a couple hours this morning in the rain and wind. Not a very nice day to be outside but the fishing was great. Throwing a Mepps #2 I caught 9 fish. 6 LM and 3 bluegill. Dad threw the same thing and caught 3 LM and 1 really nice bluegill. Most of the bass were small but a few decent ones were thrown in as well. Dad got a 3 lb LM within a few minutes of arriving and 2 of the LM I caught were about 1.5 lbs. The rest were pretty small but fun fish anyway.

Steve826  10/10/2009 - 13:36  Trip Reports  Farm Pond  Roll Your Own    My dad and I fished a Frederick County farm pond today from 8-12. Cloudy morning with off and on rain showers. The wind was pretty strong for the first 2 hours which made casting parallel to the shore pretty tough. I caught a total of 7 fish, 6 LM and a bluegill. My first 2 came on a 1/4 ounce red/white buzzbait burned parallel to the grass that was growing close to shore. I had a an additional 2 or 3 strikes on the buzzbait that didn't get hooked because I was fishing it pretty fast.

First fish of the day (around 1.5-2 lbs):

Steve826  10/09/2009 - 20:55  Boating    Hi guys,

I'm planning on getting a trolling motor soon to use on boat rentals (14 ft jon boats) at Clopper and Black Hills next year. The year after that, I'm planning on getting a small boat, either a 10 ft Pelican or BPS Pond Prowler, or a 12 ft riveted jon the year after that. I'm leaning towards the Pelican/Pond Prowler style though...more stable, higher weight capacity. Only drawback is less room for gear, but I think the stability and weight capacity is more important, I can always bring less gear. I know 2 people with this style boat and they both say it suits them well, so I'll probably end up with that style.

space inwaders  10/08/2009 - 19:00  Trip Reports    No I haven't quit, but i've gotten quite a few skunk trips lately.

I had a day off work tuesday and made the most of it. I went down to a smaller river near my house. The water was very low which gave me the chance to wade with my hip boots and check out the structure in the area. I found a really nice ledge going along shoreline that dropped straight down to 7-10' of water, pretty deep for this river. Rumor has it there are 30' deep spots around there, which is very rare for this particular river.

I arrived around sunrise and the smallies were feeding. Of course i was hoping for a rare walleye, so i wasn't fishing the surface. Ended up with about 12 smallies, always fun, but they were pretty small 6-10"ers. I waded, moved, explored, and eventually stumbled onto a sweet spot. Deeper water off of that shoreline ledge, slow current, some fallen timber in the area. After a couple casts with a 1/16 oz jig, gulp saltwater 4" minnow, a nice crappie took the bait. I rarely catch em in the flowing rivers, so that was a treat, it was 10-11" or so.

Captwalleye  09/30/2009 - 06:27  Trip Reports  River    Took the day off on 9/25 and hit a river not so near.I knew the wind was going to be a factor,and knew that the water level was down.
I've never been to the particular area I fished when the water was down so low.Whoa! What a surprise.

The wind was suppose to be 5-10 mph well....I think it was more like 10-20.It overpowered the current easily and made for a very frustrating trip.

I threw a buzzbait and had a total of five blowups with two fish landed.Both were right around 10" long.I also threw a wacky jack on a circle hook.I caught my best fish of 14.25" on the first cast with it,and only had one other hit.The wind just got too bad.

MskSlyr  09/27/2009 - 12:23    Got out today to do a little bass fishing with minimal expectations because of the post front conditions. Caught 18 or 19 with the biggest going 7lb 13 oz.