ogbudha  07/23/2008 - 06:22  Trip Reports  Impoundments  Roll Your Own    Hit Rocky Gap state park for a Md BASS fed tourney. Launched at 5am. I tossed buzzbaits until about 6:15am then switched to plastics. I landed 9 fish for the entire tourney and they were all fairly small. I had my limit of 5 keepers 35 minutes into the tourney on the buzzbait. The fish were small and I didnt think I had a chance to win. Well I was the only one to report a full limit for the entire tourney. I finished first. Ive fished many lakes in the st. this lake is horribly taken over with grass and the fishing is very tough. Only hit this lake in the spring or fall.......othe

ogbudha  07/22/2008 - 15:09  Trip Reports  River    Hit the river for a spell and did fairly well. Wet waded a stretch for a few hours and managed to get quite a few dozen fish. Smallies all associated to fast water with some depth of 3-4 feet or more. Heavy weighted tubes..1/4-3/8 ounce jigheads produced the best fish. Smaller grubs brought plenty of action but small fish.
Rivers dropping like my 401k account. Time to grab a cold beverage and wait for rain.

Steve826  07/13/2008 - 10:34  Trip Reports  Impoundments  Roll Your Own    My family went on a camping trip this weekend at one of the local state parks, and fished at the pond that is part of the park. It is a very small pond, so most of the fish are dinks but fun on light tackle. This pond is actually the first place I ever went fishing at, and the first place I caught a fish at. That was a year ago, we returned over the weekend with a year of experience with us. Friday night we fished 8-9:30 at night, I was dunking nightcrawlers and hooked two bass, both were dinks that threw the hook. My dad hooked a bass on a Hula Popper but it threw the hook as well. Our hooksets must not have been very good, I know I lost those 2 fish because I was using my ultralight rod w/ 4 lb test and the rod isnt very stiff so was struggling to get a good hookset. We returned Saturday night and fished from 7:45-9:15. I was dunking nightcrawlers again, I finally got a scrappy 10 inch bass. It was on 4 lb test so it was a fun fish. My dad and brother caught a few bluegills as well. I am not sure if there are any big fish in this pond, I have seen several large carp but I doubt there are any large bass in a pond this small but I really dont know. They are fun fish anyway especially on light tackle. Good luck to everyone else,

jackson  07/12/2008 - 12:18  Trip Reports   

Hit a small stream this morning and they were on fire! Not tubes, but small 1/5 oz. deep diving cranks and 3/8 0z buzzbaits. Most fish came off the flats well beyond the tail end of the riffles and/or holes.

muskalungee  07/10/2008 - 18:45  Trip Reports  River   

I took "Minnow" out for the first time in my jet last Sunday, and boy was it awesome. On the way to the car after church I asked her if she’d like to go to the “Big River”, and she got really excited and said, “Do you think we can catch some walleye?” I knew I better set expectations so I told her that we would try real hard, but I know we’ll catch something.

Before I opened my big mouth, I should have probably checked the weather. As we pulled out of the parking lot it started to look REAL cloudy and even started raining a bit. I started telling her that we may not be able to go, and she replied “But I have a rain jacket and boots Daddy, and I love playing in the rain.” Now how in the world can a Father say no to that? So I gave theDuder a call and he decided to come along. By the time I got everything all settled and all Minnow’s toys/trinkets/books/raingear/snacks/etc in the boat it was almost 4PM. So off we went.

At first I wasn’t sure how she was going to handle the boat and the motor, as she’s not a big fan of loud noises. But she didn’t skip a beat. As we motored up river she wanted to stop and fish right away, but we pushed forward. Once we got up to our spot…it was on and it didn’t take her long to hook up for the first time…..and it was a smallmouth! I decided to try something new this time and I let her use my 4ft Ultralight (trout) rod spooled up with 10/2 powerpro….what a blast to watch her reel those fish in on that thing. But she held on tight and fought them all the way in.

All in all she probably landed 10 fish on her own, and probably a dozen of mine as well. She caught (on her own) 3 real nice catfish, and a bunch of smallmouth. We thought one of them was a walleye for a bit, but we were disappointed when it ended up having whiskers.

While she was taking "breaks" Minnow decided she wanted to be in charge of taking pictures, while she mastered the fishing rod in record time I'm still teaching her how to point the camera AT the subject. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Oh yeah, speaking of winning...I doubt I'll be winning any father of the year awards based on the looks I got from people when I brought minnow into McDonald's at 9PM on Sunday night. I promised her that I would buy her McDonalds and Ice Cream if she listened well on the boat....and Daddy never renigs on a promise. Mommy wasn't too happy about the whole thing....but Minnow was. :D

Another great day on the river, and now Minnow has her first smallmouth.
Muskalungeeeee!
-Mike

jackson  07/10/2008 - 15:57  Trip Reports  Impoundments   

Made a quick foray for green fish at a local reservoir.

spothogg  07/07/2008 - 19:00    Picked up my new river ride on Wed. 7/2/08. Thursday called in slick, I mean sick to work. Took the wife and son out for a ride. We were cruising along when the engine bogged down like it was out of gas. But it started right back up, so we idled around for a while. Wet the line for a couple of minutes with no luck. Probably had to do with trying to keep my son from throwing his spiderman rod in the water. Didn't have any luck with that either. So we loaded up and headed home. Everyone had a good time. I found out later that my gas line was being pinched, that was the cause of the problem.

jackson  07/05/2008 - 06:00  Trip Reports   

Was able to spend some much enjoyed and valuable time this 4th of July with my Son and Grandson, Jason & Alex. Since they moved to the Eastern Shore several years ago we do not see each other as much as I'd like. As with my other Grandson, Jacob, Alex also enjoys searching rivers and creeks for treasures. You know crawdads and such! My Son Jason, as I did with him, spends a lot of quality time introducing Alex to the Outdoors, fishing, deer, duck, & turkey hunting. You can tell Alex is from the eastern shore when he asked me if there were croakers or stripers in the small stream we were fishing! While his Poppy & Dad were busy fishing tubes, Alex spent his day drifting crayfish on circle hooks looking for the elusive channel cats. He did manage to land one cat and one smallmouth, which was his first, while his Dad and I landed approx. forty brown fish. This was truly one of the most enjoyable days spent fishing this year!

Steve826  07/04/2008 - 11:26  Trip Reports  Impoundments  Roll Your Own    Me and my dad headed over to a local pond this mornin to celebrate the holiday by doin some fishin. We brought 2 dozen nightcrawlers so we'd have our largemouth bait plus all our lures. Well it turned out that no matter what we did we could not get our worms past the bluegill. Every cast, literally, a bluegill would at least nibble down the worm. We caught and released a total of 9 bluegills. They werent big but they sure are fun to catch. I did get one hit right when we got there that hit like a freight train then let go..it was probably a bass but it didnt take the bait. Oh well, 9 bluegills isnt a bad day at all. We did try bass fishing for awhile, I was using a weightless rigged Watermelon Red Flake Senko and my dad was using a suspending jerkbait. Eventually I got frustrated because all the algae and slop got on the Senko so I just went back to bluegill fishing. Well we didnt get any bass but there's always next time, and like I said a day with 9 fish isnt bad no matter what kind of fish they were.

muskalungee  07/04/2008 - 09:44  Friends of MDfishing.org  River   

Support the Shenandoah River Keeper Rodeo, July 19th

Link to SRK Rodeo page

To be raffled off:

• Matt Dotts, owner of Susquehanna Rod & Fly, has agreed to build and donate a custom fishing rod (following the raffle)
  • Build Description: St. Croix SCIII, Avid 6’ or 6’6” blank, Fuji Alconite guides, Fuji Deluxe reel seat, custom cork grip and Matt’s amazing rod building skills. The design of the rod, ie: spinning, casting, split grip, full grip, guide set-up, thread color, custom decals, custom cork handle, will all be decided by the winner.

In addition to the custom fishing rod, we’re receiving products & gift cards from Case Plastics

• Appomattox River Company
• Dicks Sporting Goods (Thanks Ogbudha)
• Bass Pro Shops (Thanks Dave M)

If you’d like to participate, do one of the following:

1. Purchase at least one ticket for the event on July 19th. Included in your ticket price ($40) you get to enjoy the river, camp (if you choose), enjoy the music, eat, drink and be merry. You also receive a SRK membership and your name will be added to the raffle. This is certainly the best option. Jeff would like to see a horde of riversmallies.com members at this event. Stand up and be counted! Link to SRK Rodeo Sign up sheet
2. If you can’t make the event, please support the Shenandoah River Keeper through your $35 membership fee. Your name will be added to the raffle. Link to Join / Donate page of SRK
3. If you’re already a member of SRK but can not attend the event. Please support the organization with a $35 donation. Your name will be added to the raffle. Link to Join/Donate page of SRK

   Multiple tickets, memberships or donations get multiple chances to win.

   Names will be drawn at the party on July 19th but you DO NOT need to be present to win. Prizes will be shipped to you if you’re not there to claim it.

   Please get in touch with Ian Jenkins via the RiverSmallies Rodeo thread or Personal Message after you have purchased a ticket, joined the SRK, or made a donation.

   Thanks
   Ian Jenkins

   If you’d like to add a raffle item, please contact me ASAP so I can list the product.

   Thank you for your support.