Jason,
Your not alone in noticing the deterioration of the Potomac as a smallmouth fishery. I've fished it for about a decade and typically do a half dozen trips to tribs like the mainstem, North and South Forks of the Shenandoah a year as well. It WAS different a decade ago. There are simply less smallmouth in the system for a number of reasons but namely climate change.
Recently, MD stocked 30K smallies to aide in spawn recruitment, but it won't stop the effects of climate change that has produced more high water events in the last few years that have resulted in dramatically lowering the fish population in the Potomac (not just smallies).
"Several consecutive years of high river flows during the spring have reduced spawning success, causing lower catch rates for anglers. Elevated spring flows experienced in 2016-2018 have resulted in consecutive years of poor recruitment and low year-class strength. While the number of larger adult smallmouth bass has remained steady, there are concerns about declining catch rates after multiple poor year-classes of young fish."
Furthermore, I'll bet that when you floated the Juniata the one thing that you saw quite a lot of (especially closer to the confluence of the Sus) was aquatic vegetation and including stargrass. Cast over stargrass on the Jun and you'll get bit by a juvenile during topwater season on every cast. Dead drift a hopper or popper over a deep hole and you'll move an old big smalljaw for sure...but not so on the Potomac. The successive flooding of the Potomac has not only kept the smallies from spawning very well in the last 5 years, it has also SCOURED the vegetation where smallie (and other fish eggs) get caught that become nurseries. Basically, the lower Juniata is a smallie nursery. The tribs to the Potomac are suffering from the same flooding closer to their confluences on the plains with the Potomac as well. Higher elevation areas on the North and South Fork of the Shenandoah drain quickly and gullywasher rain events do not always remove the vegetation, they also have more ledge to protect juveniles. That ledge on the forks runs perpendicular to the river across a smaller width. In addition, some smallmouth migrate (not all, not even most) during the winter a few miles and so under stress they may not be found in the same places as the previous year. They also AGE slowly... a 20" 4-5 lb smallie could be 15 - 20 years old.
When you add up the impacts of climate change and the rain events, the lack of vegetation and recruitment, length of time it takes for a smallie to reach maturity and trophy size, you can easily see it could be a DECADE before the Potomac fishes like it did a decade ago with heavy stocking (and providing the rain events don't get worse...and fat chance that won't happen).
Sadly, even the Juniata isn't free from these impacts.
On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 11:16:24 PM UTC-4, Jason Hanerfeld wrote:
I've spent a bunch of time fishing different sections of Seneca Creek and the Monocacy. Have done very well there in years past (my PB smallie is from the Monocacy) but it has been very slow this year. Fished the South Fork of the Shennandoah in early June but water was way way up. Hoping to try out the north fork some time soon.
On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 9:56:53 PM UTC-4, Jamie Carracher wrote:
From what I've read, your analysis of the upper Potomac is pretty common right now. Between floods and poor water quality, the smallie numbers are down seems to be the consensus. I personally find wading the Potomac frustrating because it is hard to find places that are safe and it's hard to cover water on foot. I feel like I spend more time trying to make sure I don't put myself in danger I hardly do any actually fishing.
Have you floated any of the Potomac tribs? I'm not sure you'd catch 25 fish in 4 miles on the tribs (I've never fished that much water at once on the tribs) but it'd be worth trying.
It sounds like the South Fork of the Shenandoah is fishing really good too and that's about 90 minutes away depending where you hit it.
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