Susquehanna River Lancaster/Daulphin Counties 7/23/16

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Fished this hot fine day from 6am till 12. Of course the river was low but I find it more than suitable for great fishing. Saw bass crashing some minnows at the heads of riffles near ledge rocks but wasn't able to buy a bite along the entire east bank.

After having read many studies and a few books about smallmouth the past few weeks, I decided to try slack water out of the main channel currents along the West Bank. This proved to be the ticket. Landed a few whoppers and a bunch of 12" fish in about 2' of "stagnated" water. All the fish were clinging to boulders sticking out of the water. Lost the best fish of the day as it took and leaped out of the water the very second my fly landed. When the brute crashed back down he was off. Got to watch pods of smallmouth fight over my fly, it was sweet to watch. All my fish were caught on an articulated black stonecat. I couldn't get a bite on a popper.

Had my shot a some quillbacks too. No go there.
By noon it was too hot and I was spent, got a blister from all the fish fighting. Korker rock trax plus are my new favorite piece of equipment and don't know what I'd do without them.

It was a beautiful great day on the river and I'm already daydreaming of getting back. God help me and this WW addiction.

 

[afishinado]

It great to see a real trout guy with a real trout name going with the flow and enjoying fishing for smallies and other WW fish...you catch quillbacks?!

I don't consider WW fishing, SMB fishing in particular, a consolation prize or a plan B thing to do. I really love it and look forward to fishing for smallies every summer.

It's great to see other FFers discover WW fishin and begin to take it seriously.

I'll go back to trout when we have a stretch of cool crisp days and nights, but I quit fishing for them just before the spawn.....but that's when the stripers come on down and the steelies come on up....always fun to be had FFing 12 months a year!

Look forward the change of seasons and the great fishing opportunities they present...enjoy it all!

 

[Dave_W]

I'll second Afish's points above. ^

Neat report - and very interesting observation about the fish being on the other side of the river in slack areas. We'll have to give that one some thought; could be multiple explanations (I'm guessing forage). 🙂

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I totally agree. It's been refreshing to see others also taking up the WW game and loving it.

The West Bank was riddled with bait fish. I tried to net them to see exactly what kind (but those buggers were fast)obviously multiple species, but I did notice a lot of shiners and one that had a "glowing" green dorsal fin. I'm sure it was some kind of darter. Seemed to be a lot of those.

I tried this habitat based on a few studies, one afish noted in another thread, about larger adult SM preferring water 28-31 C. I'm guessing that it has less to do with SM bass actually liking the warmer water and following the available abundance of food as you noted. Whatever the case, it worked and saved me the skunk.
SM bass are an intriguing fish.

 

[149113]

There were millions of mayflies down near the river in Columbia last night. Those smaller white ones and the large ones called 'hex'. Wanted to fish but it was getting too late