Fished the tidal potomac on a high tide. With the recent rains the limbs of many overhanging trees were underwater. This combined with thick mats of floating debris made for difficult fishing. Once the water began to ebb I was able to skip baits into the trees. Stealthy approach and soft entry were important. 

 

 

On 4/20/2019 at 3:07 PM, Junger said:

Fishwizzard and I met up for an impromptu fishing session at Widewater in the AM. He first scouted out Swains Lock, but said the water was way too low, barely a trickle. Started at the water overflow structure around 9AM and walked up the towpath. Fishwizzard got the first one with a chunky 2.6lber on a 6" stick bait. We kept walking and looking for fishy spots, as our goal was to get up and cross over to the Berma road side and fish back down to Anglers. At the towpath bridge, I saw a good one around 4lbs at the first bridge piling. Threw a chatterbait, a swimjig, a paddle tail but nothing. Went with a finesse spinnerbait to try and coax a reaction strike but I only got the small male to chase for a moment. Water felt too cold for spawning, but I think they were in spawn mode or close to it. The female was not budging much from the piling. We finally crossed over to Berma road and stopped at a couple places but nothing. Then we finally saw some nice wood laydowns and I was on with my first on a shad spinnerbait with a rage menace trailer. A small one probably just over a lb. 

 

We kept going in and out of fishy looking nooks, ones with timber laydowns and then I stuck another one. I knew it was a good one, but had stuck it in about 8 feet of water, the laydown extended way out and the water is deep on that side. The bass had wrapped once around a log so I kept it pinned until it finally decided to swim to the left and miraculously it unwrapped and I hauled in a nice 3.6lber.

 

 

Fished a couple more fishy spots and then I called it because I am leaving for NJ for easter. Fishwizzard is probably going back this evening so hopefully he'll post some more pics of some monsters!

 

Happy Easter/Passover everyone!

Are you guys interested in fishing Widewater Saturday? I have never been there before, but was thinking of checking it out. Happy to check out other places too. 

1 hour ago, microotter said:

Are you guys interested in fishing Widewater Saturday? I have never been there before, but was thinking of checking it out. Happy to check out other places too. 

Unfortunately I’ll be out of town all weekend into next week.

 

It’s a great spot but a lot of it requires a little scrambling to get down the water, a lot of the bank an unreasonable height to lift and then release of fish from.  The side opposite the trail has a couple good spots but again will require a little bit of scrambling. It doesn’t seem obvious, but if you walk all the way past the most upriver part of Widewater there will eventually be a bridge letting you cross to the other side of the canal.  All that being said I can spend a full day of fishing just the “easy” parts of the bank as there is so much underwater cover and structure that your jig will never hit the same thing twice. 

 

Bottom is a pretty normal mixture of chunk rock and wood on top of mud or exposed bedrock.  There are a ton of carp in there along with numerous good size panfish.  

 

10 minutes ago, fishwizzard said:

Unfortunately I’ll be out of town all weekend into next week.

 

It’s a great spot but a lot of it requires a little scrambling to get down the water, a lot of the bank an unreasonable height to lift and then release of fish from.  The side opposite the trail has a couple good spots but again will require a little bit of scrambling. It doesn’t seem obvious, but if you walk all the way past the most upriver part of Widewater there will eventually be a bridge letting you cross to the other side of the canal.  All that being said I can spend a full day of fishing just the “easy” parts of the bank as there is so much underwater cover and structure that your jig will never hit the same thing twice. 

 

Bottom is a pretty normal mixture of chunk rock and wood on top of mud or exposed bedrock.  There are a ton of carp in there along with numerous good size panfish.  

 

Thanks for the tips and info! It sounds like a cool place for sure. 

FNG here. I’m in Westminster and always looking for a fishing buddy. I’m purchasing a kayak this week and can’t wait to get out on the water. Would love to meet some new friends that can show me around and I always hear you should never go out alone. I would be interested in doing, any lake, river or even the bay. I fished a lot as a kid and more recently surf fish every year at the beach but recently have gotten back into fresh water a lot more since it’s so much more accessible. I really want to catch and eat a snakehead and am also interested in learning to catch big cats on the Potomac. Nice to meet you all!

USCG is conducting a survey about Potomac.  Mostly nav related, but it leaves room for most any suggestions.

https://wtop.com/local/2019/05/coast-guard-wants-public-feedback-on-stretch-of-potomac-river/

 

*I duplicated this post in the NOVA thread

For those frequenting the canal they seem to have completed maintenance and the water is up again. This should revitalize the sections above widewater. Lots of flooded cover looks very fishy. Anyone want to meet and hit these spots let me know.

26 minutes ago, Fried Lemons said:

For those frequenting the canal they seem to have completed maintenance and the water is up again. This should revitalize the sections above widewater. Lots of flooded cover looks very fishy. Anyone want to meet and hit these spots let me know.

Thanks, that is awesome. I’m down to meet up one day. 

1 hour ago, Fried Lemons said:

For those frequenting the canal they seem to have completed maintenance and the water is up again. This should revitalize the sections above widewater. Lots of flooded cover looks very fishy. Anyone want to meet and hit these spots let me know.

Amazing news!  

 

Of course it comes when I am about to start 15ish days of straight work. ?

I explored the canal this weekend without much luck. The water levels were really low (some places were just a trickle) and the water clarity was close to chocolate milk. I had one really hard bite and set the hook and my 8 lb leader instantly snapped. Not sure if it was a bass or not. 

16 hours ago, microotter said:

I explored the canal this weekend without much luck. The water levels were really low (some places were just a trickle) and the water clarity was close to chocolate milk. I had one really hard bite and set the hook and my 8 lb leader instantly snapped. Not sure if it was a bass or not. 

The canal sections closer to DC?

 

 

My dad wanted to fish for snakehead, so we went out Memorial Day morning. The plan was to get there early and leave before the holiday boaters arrived, so we got to the dock at 6AM, just past sunrise and were off. Lowtide was at 8:30AM, so my plan was to fish topwaters and the first stop was along the grass line before the bike wall. This was the section my dad got his snakehead last year. I was throwing my new favorite lure, the Pompadour Jr. It was cloudy with just a hair of wind, so it seemed perfect for me...and indeed it was. I caught 8 LMB, which all seemed like carbon copies of each other at just around 2lbs, and a nice 4.8lb snakehead. I kept this one for the grill for our afternoon festivities. The clouds went away and it was full sun at 8AM and then the wind picked up a little too, and the bite really died. I got one more small LMB on the Pompadour Jr, and then we tried bladed jigs, and spinnerbaits along the section with timber where we had success the last couple times. No bites and around 10AM, more boats and yakers started showing up so we headed back in.

 

23 minutes ago, Junger said:

The canal sections closer to DC?

 

Yeah, I checked out the areas between Fletcher’s and lock 5. 

I fished the refilled section of canal above lock 22 over the weekend. It was less than ideal as there were people paddling up and down the stretch but I managed to stick a 3lb largemouth on a frog in the flooded grass. The main difficulty aside from water traffic was the amount of flooded grass made it difficult to locate the fish which have spread out. 

 

Later I hit widewater in the evening. Caught 3 skinny fish on a glide jack off shallow rock piles. Fished a point and had a bigger one blow up on me three times without hooking up.

 

3 hours ago, Fried Lemons said:

I fished the refilled section of canal above lock 22 over the weekend. It was less than ideal as there were people paddling up and down the stretch but I managed to stick a 3lb largemouth on a frog in the flooded grass. The main difficulty aside from water traffic was the amount of flooded grass made it difficult to locate the fish which have spread out. 

 

Later I hit widewater in the evening. Caught 3 skinny fish on a glide jack off shallow rock piles. Fished a point and had a bigger one blow up on me three times without hooking up.

 

Awesome to hear.  I am thinking of heading up there in the afternoon on Friday and fishing until dusk.  

On 5/15/2019 at 2:42 PM, Fried Lemons said:

For those frequenting the canal they seem to have completed maintenance and the water is up again. This should revitalize the sections above widewater. Lots of flooded cover looks very fishy. Anyone want to meet and hit these spots let me know.

It hasn’t recovered yet. Biggest bass are shy of 3lb. There’s a ton of big carp tho. 

I have tomorrow afternoon off work so I am planning to fish as well. Still haven’t decided where. I need to catch something as I have been skunked my last three trips!

1 hour ago, microotter said:

I have tomorrow afternoon off work so I am planning to fish as well. Still haven’t decided where. I need to catch something as I have been skunked my last three trips!

They’re biting. What area are you in? 

8 hours ago, Joshua Vandamm said:

They’re biting. What area are you in? 

DC. To be fair my last two times out I only fished a couple hours in the canal at low muddy levels. 

I think I am going to hit the Canal this afternoon and fish until dark.  I am going to start at Swains and head north until I find bass. 

 

I fear that is gong to be the first time I have to apply mosquito spray this year, had a few in my yard last night so I assume America’s Most Historic Ditch is going to be full of them. 

Yeah, I haven't been out in a while either. I just got back from NYC and Fleet Week. I tied on a frog and popper, and gonna try somewhere for a bit this evening. I'm swamped with work for the next 2 weeks before I can hit anywhere seriously. I'm feeling like a crackhead needing a fix.

On 5/31/2019 at 8:25 AM, fishwizzard said:

I think I am going to hit the Canal this afternoon and fish until dark.  I am going to start at Swains and head north until I find bass.

How was the water? I went to Widewater and the water level was actually down about 2 feet from the already low level. Those wood pallets that are usually fishy spots were totally exposed. I got there around 6:30PM and the skies really opened up at 6:45PM. So I sat on one of the benches under some trees, lit a cigar and waited it out. My wife called and asked if I was OK...apparently, we had baseball size hail in our neighborhood, which was about 2 miles away. Rain stopped and it was a picture perfect evening by 7:15PM. I tied on the Pompadour Jr and proceeded to walk the towpath. The first one really smashed the lure as it walked over a laydown. First LMB I got to hit the Pompadour while moving, good to know that the noise and action doesn't put them off. Caught 1 more, but lost 2 trying to flip them up the embankment as they shook off. It was a picturesque evening, and I pretty much had the whole trail to myself because of the rain showers.

 

1 hour ago, Junger said:

How was the water?

Water looked great, like 1’ or so down from where I like it.  I walked from Pennyfield to Riley’s and other then a shallow area in the middle, it looks like the canal is back. 

 

The bass, on the other hand, Were not cooperating. While I saw a couple small ones, 4-5 inches, cruising in the shallows, the only bass I managed to catch was in what is technically in the Potomac. I caught it on a jig that I had dropped into the debris mat just on the river side of Inlet Lock 2. 

 

There is a tremendous amount of flooded grass and other cover, and I honestly could’ve spent all six hours just fishing the first half mile from where I parked. I have another free week in the middle of the month and I’m going to head back there at least once more as soon as I can and really start picking some of it apart to see if the bass survived the drawdown.  

Thanks for sharing info on the Canal around Swains.  I really like fishing there but when I saw in the winter on a walk that the water was nearly completely gone, I had kind of given up on it as a fishery..... I just did not see how it could come back within the next few years seeing it was basically dry in many spots. 

 

If fish and especially Bass are already back in there, that is great news. 

I bought a few different kinds of chatterbaits during TW’s Memorial Day sale and received them yesterday. Went out this evening after work for an hour or so excited to use them. Thought I had a pig on, but instead I had my first blue catfish haha. Still fun. 

My buddy was visiting us from out of town for the weekend. Weather reports varied as Accuweather had rain/showers starting at 6AM throughout the whole morning, and WeatherUnderground had light rain starting at 9AM. Well, we took the risk and got to the ramp at 5:30AM and were fishing by sunrise. Cloudy, about 4mph winds, with a couple gusts here and there. It was picture perfect with lowtide at 7:45AM. But suprisingly, the fish weren't cooperating much. I was throwing a chatterbait and my friend was throwing the pompadour. We started along the left grass edge before the bike trail wall, and we had one hit on topwater. Two weeks ago I had 8 LMB under similar conditions along that wall...difference was about 6 degree water temp drop down to 72. Then we motored past the wall to the timber side. Past the first beaver hut, I threw the chatterbait and immediately felt resistance and saw the gold flash, snakehead on. My friend wanted to cook up snakehead bites so we harvested it.

I let my friend throw the chatterbait, figuring that they weren't that interested in topwater, so I put on the Spro Rat to get my topwater fix. I threw it over a sunken log and paused it and it got smashed. This was probably a 2+lb'er, but it had a treble hooked into the gill, not a lot of blood but I wanted to get her back into the water ASAP.

I switched up to a paddletail underspin as the wind picked up, and in a narrower stretch of the creek, I felt a bump, then a tug...thought I had another snakehead but it was this little guy....

The rain started to pick up at 10AM, so we decided to head back in. 
 

It was a fun, trip and I'm glad we took the chance and went out because it was a nice window before 10AM.