MattL paddling across Pinchot Lake, Pennsylvania
My fishing vacation..fishapalooza is going great so far. Lots of twists and turns..just like you’d expect from an “unplanned” fishing vacation. At the moment I’m huddled around a post that’s providing electricity for my laptop. Luckily the campground has wireless! The only drawback right now is that I’m fighting off about 10 variety of biting bugs. They like my laptop screen. There will probably be lots of misspelling because I’m trying to finish this post pretty quick!
The first day of my fishing odyssey started at Pinchot Lake near Harrisburg PA. MattL from over at smallmouths.com and I were supposed to fish a tributary of the Susquehanna River but due to several days of heavy rain all the tribs and the Susquehanna are blown out and not safe to navigate right now.
It was actually great to fish new water and we didn’t have a half bad day of fishing. I left central PA at 3 a.m. so we could get on the water by 7 a.m. We fished most of the day and had to work hard for every fish. Our primary pattern was fishing wood and overhanging trees. Basically anything that created shade and cover for the fish.
I boated 3 largemouth and MattL boated two. I lost a really nice one after about three leaps. I had the line tight but the hook pulled loose. I’m not going to guess how big the fish was. You know how inaccurate that can be. They’re always bigger when you loose them!
We threw a lot of baits at them. Most of my bass came on a 5 inch soft jerkbait. Matt was doing well with a 1/8 oz. jig with a trailer. I switched over and got several bites with a jig and trailer. I ended up landing one largemouth on it.
After Matt and I finished up at Pinchot, I had to make a decision. My original plan was to fish the Susquehanna, the West Branch of the Susquahanna, and then slide over to the North Branch. Well, those waters are blown out from the recent rains so I checked the water gauges and made a decision to make a “B” line for the lower Juniata River. I just finished up a two hour stint on the river and landed three nice smallies with the biggest going 17 inches. All were caught on a Tiny Torpedo. I lost a couple of nice fish and missed a few as well. I’m camped at the Buttonwood campground and have arranged for a shuttle to do a 5 mile float on the lower section of the Juniata River. Wish me luck!
Nice report Juan. Pinchot can be a tough lake, especially after a heavy rain and during a sunny, high pressure system like we had. You didn’t mention that somehow we ended up paddling against the wind BOTH ways the entire distance we paddled. Ia was also surprised at the number of boats on the water for a Monday morning.
matt, I forgot about paddling up wind “both ways”. Like you said. It was kind of one of those stories that starts with..I walked to school up hill..both ways! We definitely encountered some weather and boat traffic that worked against us but that’s why the call it fishing..not catching. Hope to catch up with you one more time before the cold weather to do some fishing. I REALLY want a shot at the susquehanna now! Both times we’ve attempted have been thwarted by old mother nature!