Had to sneak up on the smallmouths today

Type: Nontidal
Region: Central
Location: Potomac River, Lander

Launched the kayak at Lander on the Potomac River Saturday Morning. Beautiful day to be out fishing the river, cool blue sky. Tried the main current down the center of the river with tubes, jigs and crankbaits with just one 10-inch smallmouth to show for my efforts. Then tried working the mid river current breaks (big rock formations) with tubes and jigs. Other than a couple of plump suicidal sunfish nothing doing there either. Drifted downstream to the Huffmans Rocks area to give the ledges a try. While I saw a several good sized channel catfish patrolling the ledges I was unable to get a rise out of any of the smallmouth bass.

I paddled over towards the Maryland shoreline and dropped my foot on a table sized rock to anchor the kayak while I pondered my next move. Absent minded I flicked a short cast into a small pool on the other side of that rock and the twister tail jig was almost instantly hammered by a twelve inch smallmouth bass. I landed that fish and got another smallie a little further back in that same pool. I thought I had stumbled across a viable pattern for the rest of the day and I proceeded to fan cast those small side pools off the main flow. However I soon found out that if I paddled the kayak into those pools I would not catch a thing. I was better off sneaking along with a low profile keeping a rock or a log between myself and the area I was fishing. The water was extremely clear (diminishing amount of daylight or the lower water temperatures this time of year have reduced the usual amount of suspended plankton in the water column?). The bright sunshine coupled with the clear water apparently made those smallies spooky. Made me feel like I was chasing trout in a crystal clear creek. The sun low on the horizon resulting in those long shadows was not helping matters either. Didn't take much to spook a pool. Before the day was over I managed to finagle a dozen smallmouths in the 10 to 12 inch range (green pumpkin 3-inch texas rigged tubes and pearl 3-inch curly tailed grubs on a plain 1/16th ounce jig head seemed to be the ticket). All bass were returned to the water to come back next year as slightly wiser 2-pounders for another angler to match wits with.

p.s. as an avid reader of the angler's log I must say reading the various reports from across the state has spurred me to trying out a bunch of new fishing locations this season. I've been up and down the Potomac from Williamsport to Seneca Breaks, made forays up the Monocacy and Conococheague Creek and I plan on running the kayak up to Deep Creek Lake in a couple of weeks. While it has not resulted in many big fish (bass in the 20-inch range) it has been a ton of fun and I've always managed to scratch out a few fish even on the toughest days to make the outing seem worth the effort.