Matt in NOVA

Best I can do. I'm not sure it's actually useful. http://www.sklog.labs.gov.cn/atticle/A08/A08055.pdf

Here's the Virginia Dept. of Health advisory for the Potomac: http://www.vdh.state.va.us/epidemiology/dee/publichealthtoxicology/advisories/PotomacRiver.htm PCB city. Little snakeheads lots of PCB-containing fish on the road to becoming big snakeheads.

Awesome! I've been out of town for a couple weeks and was wondering what I'd find on the fishin' front when I got back. Looks promising! (I spent some time fishing for stripers during the vacation, but that was a bust. )

BBH, has any of your success on the Occoquan come from areas accessible from shore? I'm stuck with dry feet, so to speak.

Ah, OK. I know exactly where you mean. I didn't have any luck there. Typical!

Hey, Steve, when you say the inlet do you mean where the creek flows in, or the little cove on the far side of the dam? Or the narrow part right as you come down the path near the dam? The far side of the dam is where the guy I saw on Saturday seemed to be cleaning up.

No, man, you're thinking of Raiden.

To name a few, Lakes Burke, Mercer, Huntsman, the Occoquan Reservoir from places like Fountainhead Regional Park. Do some searches for those. I don't know western Fairfax, but if you search the forum you can find stuff. There's a thread about Reston around here, for example.

Skunked by Mr. Bass at Huntsman this morning, which was especially frustrating because the guy down at the end of the dam seemed to be absolutely slaying them. > Was it one of you guys? However, the morning was partly redeemed by the fact that on my way out I stopped and threw a few casts with a chartreuse and blue spinnerbait from my ultralight, and hooked into a beefy 21" channel cat. That was kind of exciting on 4# line; he put up a good fight. Should be good eatin'.

OK, thanks. Good tips. Keeping them moving to keep them out of the cracks makes sense to me; I just wasn't sure if you could fish 'em that way.

Thanks, folks!

Thanks. I did go back and read some of the older posts before I posted -- I even read that one you linked to -- but I didn't see much specifically about avoiding snags. There's some good stuff on technique, though. Thanks again.

What style was I using? Hmm. Uh... lol! Man, I'm so clueless. Round head, brown and green rubber skirt, head covered in something glittery, weed guard of stiff plastic bristles. I think I got it at Dick's, maybe Wally World. I could give you more details when I get home tonight.

This weekend I tried fishing with jig-n-craw rigs on rocky bottoms, fishing from shore -- so I was reeling in uphill. I lost the first jig to a snag on the first cast, and the second one after about three casts. That's the first time I ever tried fishing with jigs, and it was a little discouraging. Can anyone give me any tips on avoiding snags with jigs, esp. on rocks? I'm wondering if my technique was the problem. I was just barely twitching them along the bottom, a few inches at a time, resting for a few seconds between twitches.

I'm probably wrong about the species. The only way I know to tell the difference is to look at how far back the upper lip extends -- well behind the eye for a LMB, about even with the eye for SMB. This guy's lip looked to me to stop right around the middle of the eye. But I'm really new at this, so please don't take my word for anything. If something I say doesn't make sense, it's probably wrong.

I was on Mercer by 6:00. Total failure. I saw a few other guys out there. Anyone from here on Mercer this morning?

My six year-old was jealous, so after we got haircuts this morning I took him to a small pond that I've seen from the road many times. It was nasty. Basically a retention pond. Mucky, full of junk. Blech. Lots of hungry little bream in there, but no evidence of anything bigger than about five inches. Of course we were there at a terrible time of day, but I'm kind of skeptical anything could live in there long enough to get very big.

Well, the advice I got was to fish along the dam early with topwaters, then work along the left (south) side of the lake from there. To do that with minimal time wasted in walking, you'll want to park near the intersection of Golden Ball Tavern Ct. and Golden Leaf. There's a path that runs down along the dam near there; I know because I saw people walking on it, across the water from us. ;D There are signs up about needing a parking pass, but I'm pretty sure those only apply to the streets where the townhouses are actually located. I think on-street parking on Golden Ball Tavern is OK. But you can read as well as I can, so don't blame me if you get towed!

If you do try Huntsman tomorrow, take the black buzzbaits. Those seemed to go over well. And make sure you know where to park! I blew that this morning, and it kind of messed us up.

Yeah, we haven't caught any very big ones there, either. But we've caught enough to make it interesting, at least, and a couple that were worth cleaning. I've tried for flatheads in the Occoquan a couple times this year, but no luck with that yet.

Congrats. I almost always skip the piers because I figure those are going to be the most pressured fish ever. Where do you do your catfishin' in Burke? For a few weeks in May and early June you could find one or more of my kids and I at the last little platform (the dirt one) down from the VDGIF parking lot, nearest to the dam, just about every Saturday night.

Back from Huntsman. I decided to take my fourteen year-old, and I also got a little turned around with the parking (never been there before), so we got out on the water a little later than I intended -- maybe 6:15 or so -- and we ended up fishing the north side of the lake, on the other side of the cove from the dam. Worked our way back down to the cove near the other end, where the culvert is. I caught a very small (maybe 8") smallie with a Hula Popper. A while later, near the mouth of the little creek, I caught a small (maybe 10"?) LMB on a buzzbait. Then I caught a truly tiny LMB on a little bitty buzzbait on the ultralight rod my daughter was using. (I'd just tied on the lure and decided to give it a couple casts.) Number One Daughter had a couple bites, but missed 'em. That's OK, though; this was the first time she ever fished without live bait and a bobber, so she has slightly more to learn than even I do. This was the first time I've ever used buzzbaits, and I really like 'em. I always saw them on the rack and passed because I figured they'd get snagged if you looked at 'em wrong, but that turned out not to be the case at all. (No surprise to you guys, I know.) And I liked being able to control the lure's running depth so easily. I didn't even lose any lures today! Not in the water, anyway; a couple somehow fell out of my tacklebox at some point, tho. > I have pics of the two larger fish. I'll post them when I get them downloaded, not because they're impressive at all, but just to show y'all that I really did catch something. All-in-all, it was nothing to write home about -- but it was still a little confidence booster for me. Catching small fish beats the heck out of catching no fish. Thanks for the help, all!

Thanks for all these tips, guys. I guess my newbie ignorance is showing, but it never occurred to me that some of these ponds I see around NOVA might hold worthwhile fish.

Yeah, I've rented jonboats at Fountainhead before, but it's a bit of a hassle and the $ adds up pretty quick. I figured if I found a good lake I might spend more time actually fishing, and have enough left over to replace the lures I'll probably lose. >

Hey fellas, I'd like to head out early tomorrow for a couple hours on a lake somewhere in NOVA, preferably not too far from Woodbridge, where I live. Someplace public that I can fish from the bank. I was thinking of trying one of the smaller lakes like Huntsman or Mercer, maybe Burke. I don't have a boat, so the Occoquan Reservoir, Occoquan River and the Potomac aren't the easiest for me to fish. (Or maybe I don't know where to go? I'm just trying to avoid trespassing.) Can anyone give me some tips on specific locations to try at any of these lakes (or any other reasonably nearby NOVA lake)? I've caught a grand total of one LMB (well, one larger than a small bluegill) in my life, so I'm brand new to this game and having been struggling. I've been out roughly six times in the past two weeks and haven't even had a bite, at least as far as I know. (After doing some reading here, I realize that I may have had some bites and not even recognized them. I'm not sure.) I feel like I just have too many variables in play right now, in terms of type of lure, depth, color, retrieve, etc., and then on top of all that not even being sure if I'm fishing a potentially decent spot. So if anyone can give me any tips to maybe help narrow things down a little, I'd really appreciate it.