April 23, Practice, Potomac River, Maryland
Dan writes:
All night the cold north wind blew at 20 mph. At 5:30 this morning Annie very sweetly asked if she could be excused from fishing today. Of course I said yes.
Craig and I met at the launch ramp a few miles below D.C. We put the boats in and immediately crossed over to the lee side, where we could fish a little out of the wind and make a plan for the rest of the day. We decided to work our way north, up into D.C.
The first stop we made was at the lighthouse, at old Fort Washington. This is a small rock point, jutting out into the current flow, with a backwater area on either side. This is a community hole, and probably gets hit by a dozen boats on weekends and tournament days. There is a reason for that though, and today I experienced it. I had been throwing a Terminator Jig, and a Gambler tube, black & blue and black & red, and never had a bite. Today I switched to green pumpkin on the Terminator jig, and immediately got these results: I caught a limit of fish at the lighthouse, all fifteen-plus inches, in about fifteen minutes. Craig, in the boat right next to me, never got a bite. Wow!
We left the lighthouse and headed on up towards D.C. The wind never slacked off though, and that effectively kept us on one side of the river all day. We eventually gave up here, and ran back down to the protection of Mattawoman Creek, where the tournament is going out of. That was a mistake, for everyone else who was trying to escape the wind was hiding in here also. After leaving the lighthouse this morning, I don’t think we caught another keeper all day.
With only one day of practice remaining, we decided to fish the D.C. area again tomorrow. Having never fished there before, there is a lot of water to cover and to eliminate. The success we experienced at the lighthouse though will do us no good come tournament time if we have no other fish to go to in that area.