Pacemaker Fishing Forum

River grass is a pain in the arse! More on that later...

John met me at the house and we took the long and winding road to White's Ferry (takes about an hour).

We splashed the boat with just a minor incident but had to maneuver around grass to get out of the ramp area.

It was a very nice (cool) morning with a promise of temps in the low 80's and no wind. All good!

We started at a creek mouth and worked our way down but I think we only got a few BG bites. Finally, I caught a small one but as was trying to lift it in like the pros, he came off. Do I get a half fish credit? At around 8a, I managed to take my skunk off.



We then made the decision to find more current and up river we went. Nope! We sucked in some grass and I couldn't shake it off. I had a plan but didn't tell john until the last second. As we neared a big, flat shore rock, I told John to hop off and I would back the boat to him using the trolling motor. He found a nice stick and was able to dislodge a load of sucked in grass! He kept the stick which turned out to be a very good decision.

So we went up river but it was really shallow so we dropped down a little and started fishing near the shoreline.

It took over an hour until we found the 1st fish...



...and John got his skunk off.

The fishing was slow but we did manage to hook 9 in total (8 landed).

Here is a nice one.



At some point, my remote control stopped working. Either I left it on by mistake or I out in bad batteries. Regardless, we ha no TM. But...I id have the foot pedal so I installed it but it was a PIA working it from the middle of the boat. I hate foot pedals so we managed.

Then I decided to throw out all the river arsenal to slow down our drift. First, it was the drift anchor but it was not behaving with all the grass. Then it was a twin set of drift socks but without wind or strong current, it just was not working. It was frustrating me but we made the best of it.  Finally, I brought in all of the gear and stayed with the foot pedal.

At this point we had each landed 3 fish and then John declared he got bit and had a nice one on. These river fish know how to use the current to their favor. After a nice fight, we got it in the net and in the boat!



A very nice, healthy and plump 16.25"er! Big fish of the day!

After noon, we got almost no bites until I was able to get a 10-11"er and tie up the game. Hey, it was a fish!

We called it shortly after that and started to run back to the ramp. Nope! More grass in the jet. So I grabbed John by the belt and he leaned over and got the grass off. So we thought! We could not get going so we tried the other side and John dislodged another clump of grass. Now we could go. Nope! We still had grass in the intake so John went back to work and finally got the last bit off. What a PIA!

On the way back, we could not avoid a field of grass but I was going fast enough that we didn't suck in more grass, thankfully.

We motored back to the ramp and carefully beached the boat. Once I got the trailer, I backed the boat up and got it on the trailer. Barely. It  was shallow and it's gonna get shallower. Bummer!

Lunch was at the WF Grill and it was good.

I had Al's burger and John had the fish and chips.





All good!

As we sat down to eat, this woman comes over and says, "Ernie"?. I was startled and could not quite remember her name (it's been 7-8 years since I saw her last) but she reminded me. It was great to see a former work colleague! Small world as she now lives in Michigan and was visiting a fried in Poolesville.

We got back on the road but we did make a necessary stop at the Roadhouse Jerk to get some Jamaican patties. The owner, Winston, is a 21 year Navy vet so we had a nice chat about our Navy escapades. His were more exiting as he had 6-7 deployments on a ship and included a deployment in Iraq where he helped the Army with some Top Secret stuff.

Good day out despite the kinda slow fishing.

Oh, the grass is a pain in the arse!!