Central Pennsylvania Fishing

I’ve been doing a ton of fishing this season so I haven’t had much time to write. Since the last part of May, I’ve been on the water at least four times a week! I like to tell people that I fish more than any man should be allowed unless he’s doing it for a living! I took a couple of my days of vacation in early July to hit the West Branch of the Susquehanna in the Montgomery area. The fishing was very slow. I didn’t feel too bad because other fisherman we talked to were struggling to put fish in the boat more than us . The two highlights of the trip were a 19.5 inch beautiful smallmouth bass caught by my buddy and a 16 inch tagged fish that I landed!

I have to be honest and say it was a very frustrating two days on the river in terms of numbers. We landed a few fish each day but most were small dink sized smallmouth. We threw everything at them but the kitchen sink. We fished bridge pilings, riffles, deep holes, wood, and a few other structures but we could not nail down a good pattern that would hold water, so to speak. It was a one fish here and one fish there kind of situation. We fished hard for every bite. It seemed like the fish were really scattered and not holding in large numbers in any one area. We did see big smallmouth “roaming” the open river where the bottom was featureless. I’m assuming there were chasing down baitfish.

We located one nice stretch of water where we picked up quite a few fish consistently including the “big boy” of the trip. It was a rocky drop off about 10 feet or so from the bank. The drop off contained some sparse bigger chunk rock but it was just enough to attract the smallmouth.

We pulled up on this spot and within a few casts my fishing buddy hooked a nice fish. I sited the fish and it looked in the range of about 17 inches. The fish came unbuttoned before he could land it. Fueled by the quick success, I was feverishly tossing a crawfish imitation and my fishing buddy kept tossing a 5 inch Yum Dinger.

We were talking about what our next move would be when by buddy started reeling in his line. He takes a couple of cranks and says “hey I think I got a hit”. He lowered his rod tip giving the fish some slack to eat the bait then reared back on him. He solidly connected! His six pound test line and his six foot medium action rod strained under the dogged runs of the fish. We still didn’t know how big the fish was yet.

The Smallmouth made a few more runs and then he hit the air. I see this fish jump and now I’m pumped. This thing is big and it’s doing flips! I said to my buddy “This ones going to be in the 20 inch range. Don’t loose him!” Ya, great words of wisdom, right? The fish hit the air a few more times and my buddie skillfully maneuvers him boat side so I can lip him. We take a few shots, measure the fish at 19.5 inches and release him to fight another day. What a fish! This is the biggest smallmouth my buddie has ever landed. His previous best is 17 inches. It’s a nice milestone!

Fueled by our first days success we started early the second day trying to find another similar area. This is the day I caught the tagged fish from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commissions study. We found a steep drop directly off the bank that bottomed out at about 10 feet deep. My buddy stuck with the Yum Dinger and I was still thinking that something would hit my Yum Crawbug so I decided to keep tossing it.

I added a little extra weight to the crawbug and cast it upstream of the deep hole and let it drift through. I could feel bottom so I knew I had added the right amount of weight and it was just a matter of making several drifts through the area which would hopefully entice a strike. It took 15 or so casts but I finally got bit.

I set the hook on what I thought was a huge smallmouth. I mean this thing was pulling hard and bull dogging for the bottom. I almost decided it wasn’t a smallmouth until it finally jumped revealing itself. As the fish got closer to the boat I noticed something orange hanging off the side of the fish. At first, I thought it was a lure of some type.

Once I boated the fish, I immediately knew what it was. It was one of the tagged fish. I clipped the tag which contained the tag number and the phone number to report the catch. I then quickly measured the fish at 16 inches and released the fish unharmed.

Once home, I phoned in the information. I was asked when and where I caught the fish and if I had released it. They also asked if I harvest smallmouth. On smallmouth, I’m strictly catch and release so that’s what I reported. What was really interesting was that fact that they could give me information about the fish I caught. As it turns out, the fish had not grown since they tagged it. What was most interesting is that it really hadn’t moved it’s position since being tagged. I can’t wait to see the results of the full study. It should yield some great information about a great fish, the smallmouth bass.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

---

Related Posts

• West Branch Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania Fishing Report
• Smallmouth Bass Assessment Underway
• Smallmouth Bass Research in Pennsylvania
• Fish and Boat Commission to Evaluate Walleye Stockings in Susquehanna, Lehigh and Allegheny Rivers

---