April 9th, 2016

When John Rogers and I arrived at the river the dam had just released several gates and the river was rising. The water was very dirty for 30 minutes or so. During that time I fished the current seam where the dirty water was pushed towards the bank, with no luck. Soon after the the river filled up and cleared out I hooked a very nice Smallmouth that broke the surface leaping out of the water more than 2 feet. At the top of it’s jump, gills flared wide it spit out my plug not 5 feet from shore… Whewwee! What great fish they are! I saw signs that the Hickory Shad had moved up stream, so I fished the Shad for awhile catching a dozen or so with a few doubles. Ange Harclerode met us to fish the low light period. As the shad bite dies down for the evening the Walleye bite picks up. I had something slam my little plug and the fight was on! With-in a few minutes I slid a 32” Striper into the shallows. Almost immediately after I released the Striper John landed a nice Walleye, maybe 21″ and very thick. Ange hooked up with something that came unbuttoned and then the dam shut down the flow and the bite was over… Damn-it!

No the camera had not been drinking! Poor lighting and old technology used by old men with bad eyes… LOL…We are lucky there is even a picture! This striper hit my tiny Walleye lure and mashed the hooks broke one off and lure doesn’t quite swim right now… 10 bucks down the drain. I assure you, on the size tackle we are using we are not trying to hook one of these, they wreck the tackle.

John with a nice Walleye caught plug casting tiny lures, fished slow in a current seam. Congrats!

April 11th, 2016

I had been talking with Phil Kerchner for awhile and today we went fishing. The Susquehanna River has had a dependable bite on just about everything… Today was not the case. The configuration of open gates put brown, sediment laden water in most of my spots. After a few hours we left that area and moved to Deer Creek nothing happening, then on down to Lapidum still foul conditions and no fish. We left there and headed to my hometown Creek and found a steady bite on Hickory Shad. My son Chris Brown was there ahead of us, accompanied by his son Braeden. They had already caught a few and Breaden had a Moby of a Hickory Shad. That little guy is pretty good with a spinning rod and a Tony spoon. Chris mashes down the barb so If Braeden sticks himself it won’t be a painful memory! I was a proud Pop-Pop this evening. 50 years ago, I was that little kid, catching Shad on the river bank and loving it. The overall size of the Hickory Shad this year is outstanding! We caught a few really large Hickories today. Fun times!

Phil Kerchner with one of the many Hickory Shad we caught this evening in a Cecil County Creek.

This is one of a few Hickories we caught today… some were very large! Tony spoons and Nunguesser spoons and double darts caught about the same.

Braeden Brown my grandson… mugging the Hickory Shad like a pro. fishing a Tony spoon with the barb mashed down. Great idea for kids! Easy on the fish too!