My good fishing partner, Josh Kreider, took on a new job since last fishing season. He is now an over-the-road trucker and has his weekends free... Yes! If you recall, we used to always fish during the week and not on the weekends over the past few years. Well, now Josh gets back home by Thursday night and we can hit the water on Friday mornings... Cool Beans!
Josh gave me a call yesterday when I was on the water with Jeff. He asked me if I wanted to head north of Harrisburg, Pa. and try our luck on Friday. "Well, heck yeah!"
We had a few chores to do prior to putting in this morning. After breakfast, we headed to Lakeside Marine to pick up Josh's G3 that was in for maintenance (oil change, water/fuel separator filter change, etc.). Lakeside was having their 2011 Open House and I wanted to pick up a Manual Inflatable PFD that I had seen there when I picked my rig up a few weeks ago. The PFD was on sale for $74.00!! The cheapest price I have ever seen for one of these lightweight and comfortable vests.
After we picked up Josh's rig, we headed to "Dick's" so that Josh could buy his 2011 Pa. Fishing License.
By the time we got on the water and fishing, it was 11:00 am. Steveinpa and his fishing partner, Rick, had been on the water for a few hours and already had 3 smallmouth in the boat. We had some catching up to do!
Despite giving it our best effort, we were only able to land three smallies in five hours of fishing. Of the three bass, two were quality fish.
Josh with a 17.5" smallmouth caught on a 3.5" Green Pumpkin with Orange Flake. Josh was tossing it on a 1/98th oz. tube head jig with a weed guard.
Just 10 yds. downstream, I played this beautiful 19 1/8" smallie into the boat. I was using a 2.5" Green Pumpkin tube with a 1/8th oz. tube head jig with weed guard.
Josh caught one more feisty bass and had two decent hits without a taker.
Kudos to Steve and Rick who had ended their day of fishing with 15 bass on a 1/8th oz. hair jigs. I had also used hair jigs for quite sometime without a single bite. So, I retired it for the plastic tube.
We tossed several lures today, but only the tubes were successful. Lures that we tossed included tubes (2.5" and 3.5"), Lucky Craft Jerkbaits (DD and XD), and hair jigs.
What a gorgeous day, folks! When we left Josh's apartment, it was sunny and 44 degrees. After breakfast and on the way to Lakeside Marine, the air temperature had risen to 55 degrees. And by the time we arrived at the ramp, the temperature was 70 degrees and still rising. In fact, the air temperature reading on Josh's truck thermometer read 80 degrees while we were driving down the highway towards home at 4:30 pm.!!!
The water in the area we fished was so much nicer in clarity than the water Jeff and I had fished yesterday on the Lower Susquehanna River.
The water temperature was 47.5 to 48 degrees today at most places we stopped to fish.
We had wind W/WNW wind most of the day. In fact, the wind definitely increased in the afternoon to 15 mph with even greater gusts. The skies were mostly sunny at the beginning of our trip with some clouds moving in by mid-afternoon.
Take Care and Be Safe!
Dad
