Nice surprise on the Susquehanna.

Type: Nontidal
Region: Northern
Location: Susquehanna at Lapidum

I was fishing with my wife Sunday July 11th on the river, we put in at the dam and floated to the lapidum area. We started fishing around 3 in the after noon and things started off slow with two hook-ups on feisty smallmouths that managed to go airborn and shake my crankbait loose. We were not able to get anything into the canoe until around 5 � 5:30 and when they started biting they kept biting. It started with a few small white perch breaking at the surface and we would cast to them and were successful in hooking up, I suspect that the commotion on the surface turned on the smallmouth because whenever we could find and catch the perch we would also get a smallmouth with them, nothing big but lots of fun, until around 6:30. There are lots of rocks and when there is little water running even more rocks, so lots of snags and on one particular snag, �Big Surprise�, it decides to take off and I set the hook, then the tell tale sign of a good smallie, the boil and what always comes next, the airshow, a good two feet out of the water, there is nothing like a river smallmouth. We got one picture and I was holding the fish in the water and trying to get my fish ruler out and the fish shook loose from my grip before I could measure it, I guess it was between 18 to 20 inches. We couldn�t fish too much longer and finished out the trip with four smallmouth, one channel cat and around fifteen white perch.

On the previous evening I fished at the dam from shore in hopes of catching a flathead catfish or two, but only caught a few small channel cats. There was a guy there that caught a blue catfish that bottomed out my 20lb. scale with ease, and also so a group of guys that had two flathead catfish that were around 5lbs. each.

I would like to end by thanking the DNR for this site, as I visit several times a day and enjoy the reports that other anglers post and encourage others to participate and share what they will, whether it be just a report or useful info that may help others enjoy just one aspect of the great outdoors. I personally would like any info that anyone could give on catching flathead catfish below the dam at conowingo, as catfish are one my favorite fish to catch and flatheads are definitely one of the best to eat.