Been busy but managed to get out on the water quite a bit lately. 

 

First,

 

Friday, June 13, 2014 John C and I hit the Potomac in DC.  We received an insane amount of rain over the last few days basically decimating the Potomac river watershed.  But I had a plan and an idea that parts of DC would still be fishable.  There was a wall of mud mid channel but gravelly point at the boat ramp looked great.  The Main river had zero visibility.  Looked for mulberry trees but the ones I thought would be good were not ripe yet?  When others are almost done?  No carp but found clear water in the Anacostia River and one other place and bailed striped bass almost every cast up to 22 inches.  Most about 18".  Good fun in the final hour.  There's still fishable water when the main river is brown poo!

 

Took a break from fishing on Saturday.  I think… Gabe, my oldest left for boy scout summer camp.   

Sunday was father’s day and I convinced my wife and son to go on a float trip with me.  Except the local waters were too high and muddy but I thought Antietam Creek might be fishable with the USGS graph reading in the neighborhood of 350 cfs I think it was.  This was an exploratory trip.  We put in at Devils Back Bone and floated down to the Burnside Bridge take out.  The bridge where over 600 men died on in a single day during the civil war.  The picture shows the bridge in the back ground.  One would think there would be a better way to flank the Confederate solders at the top of the ridge than run everyone through the pinch point to certain death. The history was worth the trip even.  The float was over 8 miles and we didn’t start till mid day afternoon time.  The water was a little turbid but somewhat fishable still.  Ryan caught two fish at the put in at Devils Back bone.  The same area that is heavily stocked with trout in season.  He caught a rock bass and a fall fish in short order.  I thought the rest of the trip would be excellent.  The creek is full of life.  Mayfly nymphs and stone fly nymphs paint every rock in the riffles.  Water temps were in the low 60's.  Perfect.  Rather prolific stream.  It should be dynamite right?  Well we didn’t catch too many fish but with 8 miles to cover on a canoe and a wife who wanted to get home asap and only wanted to read her book in the front of the canoe meant I had to do most of the maneuvering.  It was still a good time.  It was remote as could be with very few people on the river.  I thought I heard banjos a few times.  Mayflies hatched most of the day, some fish responded too.  We caught a few small bass and even a small brown trout.  Stream bred maybe, miles from the stocked section.

 

 

 

The next day my wife took Ryan to the beach.  That meant I had a few days alone to work and fish of course.  On Monday after work I wanted to hit the bay bridge pilings.  Fought the worse traffic imaginable getting over Severn river.  Finally hit the water at 6pm. No current!! Thought tide chart showed strong incoming at 730?  Well at 730. It turned on.  Bailed mostly 17" fish on the pilings.   Found better grade of fish suspended on deeper pilings. Probably caught ten over 20", best 24".  Jigging 7 inch white zoom flukes on 3/4oz head did the trick.  The bite really came on at sunset.  Decent close by fishing… close as when there isn’t any traffic.  I didn’t see my bed till after 11pm because I washed the boat afterwards.  First time this spring.  It was growing things inside it. 

 

Tuesday… June 17, 2014 I hit the Potomac again with John C.  This time we opted for somewhere closer to home.  The temperatures broke heat records all over the place.  The sweat just poured out of us.  The kind of miserable Washingtonian summer heat with air thick enough to cut with a knife was upon us.  Probably my least favorite time of year.  Possibly the worse time of year to go fishing too except this is when most people want to go.  So be it.  It’s better than sitting on the couch.  What we found was one of the thickest, most numerous sulphur mayfly hatch I have probably ever seen!  Tens of thousands of bugs filled the air. We literally had hundreds laying on us while we drove the boat. It was almost dark and we still had to wear sunglasses or else we'd go blind! There were so many bugs on the water Id say there were 5 bugs per square foot from Virginia to MD! Pretty spectacular. We were after carp under mulberry trees and had a tough time.  We located three trees in close proximity to each other hanging over the water.  Probably the same tree where last year John had an excellent day on giant carp munching on berries and willingly taking dry flies.  The water is still very off color and more swift than we'd like. Didn't see any carp and only a few rises. I'd suspect the fishing might be better once the water comes down a hair and clears a little. We did have one giant blow up from a musky in an area where I’ve scored before.  This tiny scheduled spot is under the radar, tucked away where no one would notice it.  But it’s also a mine field of woody debris.  The last few years a log had completely cut off access unless you were in a kayak or a very low gunnel boat in low water.  But this tree has since washed away.  But there are other trees just as large littering the deep slow water making it nearly impossible to cast, yet alone pull a fish out of the area.  To make maters worse, the down trees back up a lot of other floating debris such as leaves, sticks, and other lure fouling crap.    There are not nearly the numbers down here as there are up river so any encounter with the top predator is always a welcome surprise. The lure I was using mimics a wood duck chick.  It has a prop on the rear like an out board and sounds almost similar.  I saw one female wood duck the other day with 14 chicks!!! Yes 14. Big bass and musky will cut that to less than half in a week or two. Throwing big top water to heart stopping surface explosions is about as good as it gets.  We each took turns casting, respectively allowing the other to get a cast in the same sequence as each other. But this one time maybe John pushed me just right into position.  The top raider was turning through the mine field between two enormous down trees when the fish hit.  It was like an alligator with gold and bronze sides smashing the lure.  No question it was what we were after.  I had a rod capable of throwing a cinder block so I stood a good chance of heaving the musky over the tree that was just a foot under the surface.  Or so I thought.  The fish thrashed once and turned.  Just then the top treble hook of the lure gets caught in the darn tree.  The fish rolled and was gone. Just like that.  John was next up to bat.  He was working a surface walk the dog type lure and another surface strike.  Then almost simultaneously another surface swirl happened three feet or more from his lure.  It was the same fish except that was its tail!  The fish was that big that it made the two swirls at the same time as it turned around.  This fish is no joke.  It was the only fish we encountered all evening but wow was it well worth it.   Till next time.

Tight lines,

Jon Griffiths

 Here's John covered with mayflies.  The white stuff on his shirt is dried sweat.  haha

 The floor of the boat

My lap

The floor of the boat again

My lap again.  This was while flying down river on plane getting constantly pelted with bugs. 

 

A little more local trout stream scouting

Some people may know what this stream is and I'll give more than enough information without actually supplying the name.  It's a tailwater stream in suburban Maryland, less than 5 miles from my house.  Year round cool water, supports trout well, is stocked by trout in the class room with a few hundred fingerling rainbows every year and sometimes the state has an extra load of fingerling fish.  It was once a catch and release stream in the 90's but was "de-listed" because it did not amount to the quality of the other "famous" trout streams in the state.  Well, that's because it was never stocked with adult trout when it was a catch and release stream.  In the 80's it was a put and take stream and was stocked well.  The fish thrived year long, even after bait chunkers cleared the place out.  Anyway... it's often been said it does not have the habitat.  Which is true under low summer flows but there is a base flow of water to this stream and the trout know how to move to survive.  I've personally seen trout in the last few years to 18 inches, shocked up over 50 trout in a 75 meter stretch with MNCPPC and the DNR a few years ago including a 16.5" brown.  No one has stocked browns in years.  Last year, in the warmest part of the summer the state stocked browns and rainbows but they said the temperature in the stocking truck compared to the creek was near 30 degrees different and the trout didn't make it.  Yes, 30 degrees.  The water in the summer is often near 50 degrees even a mile from the dam. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of this poor habitat.  and yes, there are trout there.  This area hasn't been stocked in 20 plus years.  The trout have found a way.  Yesterday I caught a beautiful, hook jaw male rainbow that was as round as a k2 football and near 12 inches long underneath one of these boulders.  I was prepping the fish for a picture and it flopped out of my hands.  I even saw what I think was a March brown dancing over a riffle.  It was a large mayfly, with long anal antennae but unfortunately I only saw one.  If you look back a few reports you'll see the results of a fine afternoon of fishing in less than two hours effort I managed 5 trout what the DNR would consider adults.  And adult trout have not been stocked in 20 years!  Awesome fishery but it gets no respect or protection.  It's considered a natural trout stream with the standard two trout a day limit.  If someone planning on keeping trout fished this stream in a little over a week keeping two trout a day... it would ruin it.  The few fish that avoid the predators and each other could not take any harvest. 

Anyway, here's some "poor" habitat for a Piedmont stream.  Enjoy. 

 

 

Here's a shot from earlier this winter.

 

 

 

June is coming along well

So I stuck with the plan and hit the Potomac again this weekend in search of musky.  And it paid off.  First we fished most of the day on Saturday with little to show for it except for a few bass and one decent walleye on a tube while fishing the skinny riffles.  The walleye was a welcome surprise.  It's not like they can just vanish because it's summer.  These fish probably set up just like a smallmouth in the well oxygenated water of the riffles and rapids and ambush prey just like a bass.  Not only did we catch the walleye but we also saw a Lynx or Bob cat (lynx rufus rufus) come down to the waters edge for a drink in the mid day sun.  It was on the WV side of the river in steep topography at a near impassible riffle or series of ledges on the river.  We figured the spot where we saw the bobcat was as good as any to stop the boat and fish for bass in the fast water.  We were hitting ledges and rocks every few seconds in this area too.  This was also the spot the walleye turned up.  Go figure.  A lynx and a walleye... truly "Wild and Wonderful".  One would think we were in the deep north of Canada.  But we were merely an hour north of Washington DC. 

Anyway... on Saturday the sun was high, clear skies, temps pushing 80 plus degrees.  Water temps started off at 71 but climbed to above 75 by mid day.  We didn't even get a sighting of a musky.  No idea why.  Too nice a day probably.  We fished from approx 930am to 930pm.  We thought we'd have the energy to fish after sun down once we ate dinner but that didn't happen.  We were both exhausted and crashed harder than toddler after a play date. 

The next morning I was up before sunrise.  The barred owls in the area were causing a ruckus but I just can't sleep in when I'm sleeping river side knowing that the best time of the day to have a line in the water is wasting away while I lay in a tent.  We set up the tents on a known musky hot spot on the inside of a sharp meander in one of the deepest pools around.  This spot once awarded me a fine musky of 42 inches one mid February a couple years ago.  It was possibly the ideal winter spot for a musky with deep water, current break but maybe not the best June or summer spot.  These fish will take up all habitat types this time of year.  The water temps are not too high where they must seek cool water.  Oxygen levels are probably optimal and therefore they can basically roam free.  One float last year about this time of year we even spotted a large musky in a shallow run just above a riffle that was less than 2 feet deep.  The fish spooked so it must have been hunting that area. So in other words, anywhere and everywhere could hold a fish right now.  and they should be feeding well.  Now is the time.  I know I've said that before. 

So... we worked a few decent looking areas along the shore.  Casting to likely current breaks.  Diego was using a lure similar to a "tornado" where the lure doubles as a spinner bait sub surface or a surface buzz bait depending upon how quickly you reeled it in.  It made more noise than your average buzz bait and it was rigged with a skirt and stinger hook, as well as with a tieable wire trace.  We had just fished a good looking eddy when we came to a large wood pile.  Behind it was another good looking eddy.  My lure fell a few feet short of it mark when Diego's was already in mid cast.  It was a dead calm, clear morning with fog coming off the river.  The silence was broken with the river just opened up and this large musky just annihilated the lure.  It was the kind of strike you dream about.  There was absolutely zero hesitation on this take.  The fish then proceeded to cartwheel and tail walk just like a steelhead or tarpon.  Gills fared, teeth showing... The most pissed off fish that swims but on an awesome show.  Diego did well fighting the fish and I immediately got the net ready.  Success.  Diego's first.  They say a musky is a fish of 10000 casts.... This fish was took a lot more than that.  But success is so sweet.  I was equally happy if not more that he caught one.  Finally.  this might be Diego's last extended fishing trip in quite a while.  Baby number two is on the way and knocking at the door.  It was a good farewell.  For now.  Couldn't have worked out better. 

The fish hit around 730am but we continued to fish till after 9.  By now Diego was getting nervous and insisted we leave.  We talked about hitting one last spot near the ramp on the way in.  We did and came up empty.  Diego took control of the trolling motor and started heading to the ramp.  Just then my line went tight and the storm giant flat stick got smashed.  This was another decent musky, maybe not as big, 32 inches or so but had plenty of attitude.  I caught this fish on the extra heavy musky mojo rod and beat him pretty quick but not before several jumps.  Doesn't get much better when two good friends score a nice fish each. 

 

Till next time. 

June 2014 -- What's going on

Well it's June.  Summer mode is setting in but there's still some excellent late spring action to take advantage of.  I often call this the Grande Finale.  Let's see, options right now;

1.  Schoolie stripers in downtown DC.  This is the time of year you can rack up some serious numbers.  Either fish the blue plains poop discharge for crazy numbers of fish, troll the Washington Channel or cast jigs in the fast water above Chain Bridge.  When the water levels get below 3.5 feet at little falls... LOOK OUT!  Some serious action awaits for the agile rock hopper.  Find the fastest water you can find and throw your favorite top water, jig, crank bait or fly and hold on.  You'll be shocked at the size of the striped bass that take refuge in the well oxygenated white water.

2. It's berry time!  Mulberries that is and they are dropping fast and furious.  The fish know now is the time to take advantage. What kind of fish you ask?  Well, 5 to 20 pound carp on dry flies.  Check out the roof of this barge on the C&O Canal!  There are quite a few berries there and at any given time a dozen or more giant princes of mud feeding on the bounty.  This spot is next to impossible to present a fly to a fish and even harder to land one but similar situations present themselves all over the canal and river. 

 

 

Ryan fought a fish I hooked the other day on a 6 wt fly rod rigged with a brown deer hair spun mulberry fly tied by John Hancock.  This is a small to average size fish.  The younger smaller fish are a lot less educated than their larger, smarter brothers. 

 



Then there's trout.  There is a small little hidden gem of a stream near me that produces natural trout.  it's a tailwater stream in suburban Maryland that only gets stocked with fingerling (2-3") trout every year or every other year.  But these fish survive well through the summer and grow incredibly fast.  Here are a few fish I managed in a single outing with just over an hour's effort.  Nymphing the fast runs works but swinging a bead head woolly bugger through the deeper pools almost always is the fool proof way to see who's home.  I cast the fly near perpendicular to the current but swing it through the prime lie at a 45 degree angle.  The hits almost always come at the end of the drift, even after I worked the pool over with nymphs moments before without so much as a take. 

Check out how fat these fish are!  and look how perfect their fins are!  I've fished this stream a half dozen times this year, winter through spring and not once have I see another angler. 

That's a size 14 boot.  Strong, well fed fish that are about as near natural trout as you can get around here.

 

 

 



There's more.  Pond fishing... is about at its peak for post spawn hungry largemout.  The Green Drakes on Penns, Little J, Fishing Creek in Pa are about at their peak.  Musky... yes, musky.  I'm off to go find out what they are doing.  Till next time.