Hello Folks,
I have fished only twice since my last report. A few weeks ago, I took a very short trip with my good buddy, Dell Jackson. We launched from the Columbia ramp when the river was reading only 3.8' at the Harrisburg, Pa. gauge. Under these conditions, the water level at Columbia is low over the ledges and we scraped a few times when we went south over the main ledge into the rock garden.
The wind was blowing rather hard from the northwest and, along with the current, made it a bit difficult to see and run his trolling motor... The TM was toast after about half hour! We caught two smallmouth bass in less than thirty minutes and I felt had we been able to keep his trolling motor running, we may have had a pretty decent evening of fishing.
When the trolling motor dies on us, we headed back to the Columbia docks and checked out the 24 volt system's batteries. We found that one of the positive terminals was loose. This may have been the reason we lost power so quickly... It was tight enough to run, but the charge may not have been good from the night before... Oh well, we'll get 'em the next time, Dell.
This past Sunday, I met up with Josh at his home at 4:30 a.m. and we headed to the Mt. Joy Diner for an early breakfast... Cream Chip Beef with homefries taste awful good at that time of the morning! After breakfast, we headed up river and launched just below Harrisburg, Pa. The water temp was in the 70s and the air temperature was brisk 58 degrees... What a Beautiful Morning!
I caught a quick bass on a Black Neon colored tube and then Josh took over with several on his green pumpkin Chatterbait and trailer. The Chatterbait was the ticket... Even I caught one on a borrowed Chatterbait from Josh. I only had a white Chatterbait and the fish seemed to be attracted to green pumpkin... Slow rolled on the bottom.
I had tossed Chatterbaits for largemouth several years ago, but this was my first smallmouth bass on a Chatterbait. I was slow rolling it back to the boat and as I was winding my line up to the boat, I hesitated to talk with Josh. At the moment of stop and go, a bass was triggered to hit my lure.
We also tried some topwaters without success... A Sammy and a Buzzbait. Josh also tossed a plastic stickbait without a hit. We both tossed spinnerbaits, too.
Overall, it was a slow day and we probably only caught about twelve bass in six hours we were on the water.
Steve Halbleib and his partner were fishing further south than we were and had a slightly better day than we had by tossing spinnerbaits... I know there was one point in the day that Josh told me that Steve had contacted him and said he had about fourteen fish by himself... Good job, guys!
The river level at Harrisburg was 3.85' and the water was stained from the rain we had a few days earlier. Josh said that he and Steve were out on Saturday and caught over twenty bass. The water clarity was a bit better than what we faced on Sunday... But, that's okay. I think that fishing under tough conditions often makes one more patient and a better angler overall. One must have diversity in order to figure out what the smallies want under those conditions... And no matter what one throws on certain days, it can just be plain hard to catch a fish under certain circumstances.
Our Susquehanna River can be so forgiving and plentiful at times that we can become spoiled rather easily...
Thanks to Josh for offering me a trip in his Rock Proof boat with a Yamaha 115/80 jet drive... She's a beaut!
Take Care and Be Safe!
Dad
