Well, a friend and I went out to Triadelphia Reservoir here in MD to see if we could hook into a bass or two.

     We started off the day throwing tubes and shad raps along rocky banks in 48 degree water. Right away he had one pop off at the boat, and we boated a few small fish- one keeper largemouth, and a few small northern pike.

      We continued fishing this pattern for quite some time until finally he whacked a nice 1.5 pound smallmouth on a Standin Yabbie off of a submerged rockpile in 49 degree water off of a point. We then continued up the bank and headed downlake. My friend threw a variety of swimbaits and got to try out my lunker punker for the first time. We went on a dry spell for a while until I missed a nice fish right at the boat off of a small rocky point. On the next point I caught this 2.2 smallmouth on a SR5 in crawfish color.

       We then continued fishing a caught several dink fish on the same lures. I started to get the feeling that I should have been fishing deeper. I decided to change to a custom painted Luhr Jensen crankbait. It was a bluegill pattern from Jeremy Anderson of Black Dog Bait Company. After a few long casts fishing a drop off close to a flat, I leaned into this nice largemouth that weighed in at 3.9

      We fished hard on the drop off to try to catch some more quality fish, but nothing was biting. I contemplated going in due to the low battery from  the blowing wind, but I decided to stay out........why would I ever end my fishing day voluntarily? Usually my parents need to call and threaten me to get me off the water

     Anyway, after my friend had a fish pop off on a rattletrap, I decided to switch to a SWL spinnerbait. I took a chartreuse head, added a clear/chart. skirt and tandem willowleaf blades (#2.5 red front, #4.5 gold back). After a few casts I decided that I wanted more vibration due to the stained water so I switched out to a #2.5 front red colorado, and a #4.5 gold indiana blade. We worked our way up to a flat and worked our way into a small cove. I threw the spinnerbait back into the cove and slow rolled it back to the boat when WHAM! I got hit hard. The split second after she hit I knew what it was........a big northern pike........I had already caught a few that day and remember catching a nice 40+ incher earlier in the spring. I knew it was a northern pike, up until this beauty jumped 3 feet into the air and scared me and my bud to death......

She went 6.1. My friend eddie, and two other boats on the lake are my witnesses, the picture doesn't do the fish justice. It was tempting to keep the fish in a livewell to certify it so that I could get the "biggest smallmouth of the year" award for the lake.......but we decided to let the fish go in order to reduce stress levels.

Fun day....back at it again tomorrow!

Ben

God bless

Now thats a PIG!  ;D

Great Job!  

6.1 SM Way to go on the carrot stick  we want a review!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys up here are going nuts over them.

Now that's a beautiful fish! Nice job!

Nice looking football you are holding up there.  

Great fish man!    Glad you released it as fast as possible.

Beautiful fish! Congrats on a PB!

;D ;D ;D  DUDE!   ;D ;D ;D

That's a beauty. Great story and pics, too.

Congratulations!

8-)

Those are some nice fish

awesome fish! congratulations

Nice fish, beautiful smallie.  

Little bit of a change from Lake Hamilton.  

Dont I feel pathetic i saw that you caught a 2.2 pounder and i thought that was your pb smallmouth cuase i just caught my pb smallmouth of..........2.5 :-/ haha but great fish

Great job.  I think the picture looks pretty good.

Awsome fish man! Cool story too. 8-)

Oh man what a toad!

Nice Smallie...

awesome fish! congratulations

Ditto!

Congrats......That fish is an absolute toad !!!!   8-)

nice smallies 8-)

congrats man.  that's fantastic!