Fried Lemons

Took a short trip to Little Seneca Lake today hoping to break in my new rod. I was set on fishing a Deps 250 for the trip. I fished and hiked for about two hours without moving a fish. I reached a shallow flat and figured it was worth one last cast. About 5 feet from the bank I got a strike and landed this dinky but aggressive fish.

Kurouto lures. JDM maker.

That thread on crappies got me thinking...

Here’s one from the Potomac. Terrible picture but it’s the only one I’ve got. The spot is where I go to catch dinks on the ned rig so sometimes you never know.

The baits I mentioned with the exception of the slammer and s waver 200 are all roughly between 1-2.3 ounces. A heavy frog rod or flipping stick can handle them.

Don't start that small. A swimbait is good at imitating large baitfish and drawing bass from a distance. A small swimbait loses these advantages over a regular lure. The bass in my state don't get that big either and when I started I was extremely skeptical that our bass would eat swimbaits. I thought that a hudd 68 was a big bait. This was my first fish on the bait, on my second trip. Big northern strain bass will eat large baitfish. If you want to get your feet wet I'd recommend something like a hudd 68 for this time of year. Other good starter baits I've tried s-waver 168/200, mattlures hardgill, MS slammer 9 inch.

Tried the mouth of difficult run and fisherman’s eddy further upstream. Both skunks. The water was very clear and shallow. I prefer fishing the MD side but wanted to scout different spots. VA side doesn’t have as many deep eddies and most of it seems to be sheer cliff walls.

I haven't had much time to fish. I went on Thursday for about 2 hours. Dragged a hudd and a rising sun around. Not even a sniff. I'll be fishing the Potomac on Sunday to hopefully grind out a fish or two. Hopefully others are having better luck.

I played around with many different configurations and have settled on a simple system. Braid to leader for any finesse presentation thrown on spinning gear. Straight braid for fishing heavy vegetation. Fluorocarbon for anything dragged on the bottom. Mono for everything else.

I've mainly been using it for small to mid size swimbaits up to 2.5oz. I threw lipped wake baits and even 4oz lipped bait with a large amount of water resistance. Time will tell how well it holds up to the abuse but so far it is the smoothest reel I've used. Even under load turning the handle is effortless and I can't feel the gears at all. It's pretty much what I was hoping for, a smooth compact reel with a lot of torque. It feels even more refined than the regular conquests I've used. On the casting end I've mainly been using it to cast baits weighing 1-3 ounces with a fair amount of wind resistance. I have the inner dial set on nylon and mainly fiddle with the outer dial. W (I would assume for wind) seems to have the most aggressive braking and is what I use most of the time. Bomb casts feel slightly overbraked on that setting but pitching feels good and controlled especially compared to my previous gen DC reel. I'm still getting it dialed in with different baits.

Deep is relative to the stretch of river. I use blades from 1/4 to 3/4oz depending on depth and current. Go with the lightest you can to reduce snags. I use 4 inch paddletails with an exposed hook. I consider it more of an active fish bait so I don't fish it smaller. Shallow snaggy areas I prefer to fish hair for the slow rate of fall.

On my river the walleyes are already moving to the spawning grounds. They and other fish will spend the winter in the nearby deep holes and will occasionally move onto the warmer flats to feed. You want to look for places with slow current and transitions from soft to hard bottom. Rock points and the downstream ends of islands usually have a deep slack pool with a soft bottom. In the right conditions I catch active fish on small paddletail swimbaits. My favorite technique is to bounce bottom with a blade bait. Many different species use the same wintering holes and the blade bait will catch them all.

Working class zero citizens. Very snag resistant and shouldn’t weigh more than 2-3oz depending on the size. Also look at 3:16 rising sons.

You could try tying direct. I've done it in a pinch with braid and did not notice a decrease in bites. IMO you only need the leader if you are expecting big fish (not bass) or are fishing rocks. Or you could fish straight fluoro/mono. To me braid is for spinning gear or heavy cover fishing.

From my experience a complete novice has a fairly short attention span and will do better with a moving bait, particularly with trebles. They can practice and get comfortable with casting while any fish that happens to bite will probably get hooked. When trying to get someone into fishing the most important thing is to put them on fish. Once (if) they develop some interest then I'd introduce texas rigs, which require more patience and the ability to detect strikes.

New toy just came in. It’s a lot smaller than I expected and I love how well it palms. It also has the least amount of backplay that I have seen in a Shimano baitcaster. It’s also the first I-DC5 reel I’ve held so it will be interesting to see how it behaves next to my older 2012 Exsence.

Had a blue heron dive bomb a soft swimbait multiple times. I would walk 50 yards to try and get away but the bird kept following me. He got within 10ft of me to try and ****** it at the end of the cast. He was not afraid of me at all.

If I was going to make a lineup of just one brand of rods it would be shimano. I’m a big fan of their tapers and if you find a particular model you like you can find the same model in their flagship lines. There is a rod at every price point. For example if you like the 6’10 medium Zodias(awesome jerkbait rod) and want to upgrade at some point you can find a rod with the same length and taper in the expride, poison adrena, poison glorious and poison ultima series. The rods get lighter with nicer components the higher up you go. Technically G Loomis rods are also Shimano rods and the conquest blank is a shimano blank so if you prefer simpler USDM styling you have options.

Fished a local river looking for smallies and walleye. Tossed paddle tails, under spins and jerkbaits without a hit. The problem was the fish were hugging the bottom and my baits were catching too much current and not getting down. Tied on a blade bait which was able to slice through the current straight down. My first cast the blade got thumped on the initial fall. I set the hook and immediately knew it was something big. I played tug of war with the fish for 15 minutes before I was able to get a glimpse of a blue cat pushing 50lbs. Unfortunately my 8lb leader couldn’t handle the punishment and broke as the fish made a last ditch run. I caught numerous smaller fish over the next hour and a half. The catfish were an absolute menace.

Widewater is all about deep structure. It’s difficult now because the water is down 3-4ft from usual so most of the near shore structure is too shallow now. The Berma Road side has deep drop offs which are probably still holding fish but access is sketchy and timing is important. The place is also pretty pressured so to succeed you should try fishing a little out of the box. I can guarantee you those fish have seen hundreds of worms, crankbaits and spinnerbaits. So in short: Fish spots with poor access Fish baits you don’t see others throwing Fish deep structure. Every visible target has been cast at thousands of times per season.

Daiwa reel on a Shimano rod? Blasphemy!

Missed the first half of the prespawn this year but made some exciting catches. Caught a few personal bests which unforunately were all incidentally caught invasives. Personal best snakehead (8lbs) Personal best flathead catfish (27lbs) First time/season fishing large swimbaits First time getting to fish Mattawoman by boat (thanks @Junger) Still looking for a pb largemouth and maybe a muskie before the year ends.

3-5 hours if I'm dialed on a bite. 8-10 hours if I'm not. Typically late morning to afternoon when fishing pressure is lowest.

That's a cl8bait baby possum.

Not surprising. They somehow spread from one little pond to almost every major water body in MD. What I wonder is how much of it was intentional stocking. At this rate within 10 years they will have colonized most if not all of the eastern seaboard.