Potomac River??

[Bill M]

This coming Friday(Oct 8-11) I will be fishing the river with some buds and a kid who graduated from the Naval academy(taking him out for some bassin), looking to slay a few good ones, any tips??

[bassboogieman]

Grass mats are everywhere. Frogs on the mats back in Mattawoman beyond Slavins was active (2 wks ago). Launching at Smallwood? Bass were on edge of mats around "trash point" (first green channel marker towards mouth). Chixamixon was all mats with exception of the channel - we did catch several bass in the channel, didn't toss any frogs up on the mats as there was a frog only tx on Sat and several boats had done the mats ahead of us, we fished the channel with chatterbaits. If you run out of Mattawoman watch the crab pots - they are everywhere to the south on the MD side. Salt line was up to Mattawoman, main river to south did nothing for us. North in Piscataway, a lot of grass, we caught bass there and in the Marina at Ft. Washington. ALL my fish over 2 days came on a white chatterbait w/fluke trailer (blue/black won the BFL there 3 weeks ago). 3rd day we only fished frogs, had a couple dozen blow ups, but didn't get any to the boat. Have fun!

[Bill M]

Yes we are launching from Smallwood, guy I am fishing with has never been there, I have been there once a few years back.

[3dkicker]

I had some nice blow ups on a 5.5" plastic swim bait on the edges of the grass mats in Mattawoman the last time on the river. Only stuck one but it was 4+. Any shad type bait (chatter, spinner, trap, crank, swim, etc) and craws/creatures would be the baits for me if I was going out. Water temps are dropping and the shad should be moving. Bass will start to feed and they'll prefer craws over shad. Much easier meal.

[XIntel007]

I'll be out there Saturday as well. If you see a Green and White Skeeter and a guy looking like he hasn't landed a fish all morning, wave.

[Captmikestarrett]

Tides are

10/08/2010 Fri 02:04AM LDT -0.1 L 08:34AM LDT 2.1 H 02:10PM LDT -0.1 L 08:53PM LDT 2.4 H

With high tide at 8:34AM minus 30 minutes for back of Mattawomen I would go backin Mattowomen far as possible at Sunrise.

In fact scrap going out of Smallwood Park.. Take rt 210 Indianhead hwy to the end and make a left at the Navy Base. Launch at the public ramp and go left till you run out of water.


It is all no wake zone so get used to the idea of slow running all day..

If you must go fast then Smallwood is your place..

The main river has some dirty water in it right now and few logs here and there. But it is fishable.

I suggest crome blue rattletrap out side the grass edges on the main river.. might get a big convict bass for dinner too.

Capt Mike

[3dkicker]

Got a mid week coming up. Can't wait since the past few times out haven't been that good for me. Got my prop fixed and my truck repaired......watch out bass I'll be back soon!!!

Hey Mike are the big convicts heading down stream?? or are they feeding up to make the exit? Caught two small ones, well one was legal, on Anna this weekend and they were in 2-3' of water chasing shad in the back of a creek.

[Captmikestarrett]

3d and the few eyes this will fall on..

At 62 degrees surface water temp the big ones make one push up the river and feed on the retreating shad white perch and menhaden. At that same time resident convict bass make a southern migration pushing the bait along. Early morning grass edges can erupt with schools of bait getting slaughtered by both classes of convict bass.

The big ones stay for a week and by first week of Nov they are gone. The resident under 24 inches will move down the bay and river putting on fat as they go.

So in conclusion YES they come up.. some will even have sea lice on them.


Capt Mike

[3dkicker]

If we have a good tide I may hit the Navy dock on the 21st first thing and see if I can find one or two.

[Bill M]

Be on the watch for a TR-196 with NJ tags(Black/silver), that will be me

[XIntel007]

Roger, Good luck. The cats have been hitting spinner baits like crazy if you let them fall for a few seconds. I know there not bass but it's still fun.

[3dkicker]

C'mon Bill give us a report!!! How'd ya do? Got a friend says they're tearing em up on the river.

[Bill M]

We stunk it up bad, only 5 bass between us in my boat and the other 2 boats landed 2 each, guess we did better then them, river was very tuff on these NJ guys for sure.

[XIntel007]

Well I put in about 6 hours and got nothing. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong.

[3dkicker]

Sorry you guys had it tough. I may be getting out on Sat. I'll post if I do anything worth passing along.