While waiting for a sore tendon to heal I've found myself with a fresh opportunity: what to do while I'm usually out running? Earlier this week, and tonight, I decided I'd head down to the Potomac river and do a bit of fishing. I've got less than an hour of time to play with, so I really consider this more of a scouting mission for when my Dad visits, our nieces and nephews are in town, or when my brother and I just want to play hooky. I figure any intel I can collect will be handy for a bigger adventure.
Between my lack of skill and time, I know I need to hit the water with a super simple setup. For now this consists of a Dock Daemon rod & reel, a ziplock bag with a few small floats, a cheap nail clipper used to trim line, and a panfish magnet kit. The 'kit' is a collection of 8 different colored tiny plastic thingamjigs and tiny hooks to hold said thingmajigs. Hey, Amazon gave them good reviews so I figured why not. I like that I can change up a number of variables (fishing depth, color) to see what does and doesn't work, but don't get lost in a sea of choices. And because I'm not relying on live bait, I can keep the gear in my car ready to be used.
Earlier this week I did manage to catch a little sunfish. Whoo! Mostly I learned that fishing along the Potomac Heritage Trail could work, even if I only had a short time to do it in.
And then last night all the variables lined up: sunfish were hungry for what I was throwing. I managed to pull 5 or 6 out of the water before I had to head back home. It was some of the most productive 20 minutes of fishing in my life. See, here's some proof:
When you're catching fish, this whole fishing thing is fun!
Actually, it was just nice to have a plan and then have that plan come together. It's almost like I knew what I was doing. Yeah, right. More importantly, I feel like I've got a setup I can build on.
Here's the two locations I fished from:
As I find other spots that work, I'll add to the map.
Here's a snapshot of tonight's fishing hole as well as a quickie of the gear I was using.
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