Last year I posted about a successful trip wading a creek near the Frederick, MD area. This year, I brought my canoe on our annual trip to see the in-laws and made a 5 mile float on this same flow. It did not disappoint, except maybe on size.
I scouted a few bridges upstream of last year's wading area and found one that looked promising on satellite images. My wife was kind enough to drop me off fairly early and I launched around 8:30 to cool ambient temps and a nice breeze. In spite of the thunderstorms that blanketed the area the previous afternoon/evening, my chosen creek was not high and muddy as I expected, but instead running just above normal flow and had great clarity.
This flow is a fly fishers dream with a fairly shallow stream bed, wide banks, and lots of hungry fish. One of these days, I'm going to try fly fishing on this creek.
The smallmouth were very cooperative, biting various lures with the most productive being: 2" curly tail grub/jig, rebel minnow, Heddon tiny torpedo, and super fluke jr. I tried a buzzbait, rebel crawfish, jig n' craw, and a few others. Below is a picture of my preferred jig, a 1/4 oz white head with a Kalin's Lemon Merengue grub. I forgot to throw in my 4" lizards when packing and I bet those would have been a big hit. It didn't hurt my numbers as I probably landed 50 smallies, although most were 8"-10" long. Biggest landed were around 12". I did see a few larger fish chasing sunnies I'd caught or following the lure.
I also caught 4 large fallfish, here's an example. These guys were after the rebel minnow.
There was plenty of wildlife, including a family of water birds (not sure of the species) and two green herons that I chased for miles. The family could be cormorants, not sure. Here's a pic.
I got picked up around 2:30 to head back to MIL's house, grill up some of America's finest cuisine, and enjoy a few fireworks with family.
