This is from last month when I thought I would give the Susquehanna River one more shot but nada, but I did get this pic. Shortly after I dropped the camera in the river's edge and it got wet. Took it home and opened everything up and put it on a sunny windowsill and thankfully it survived. On the right is Scovell Island with Campbell's Ledge in the background.
Absolutely gorgeous. I've done a lot of white water rafting in VA, PA and WVA. Also done a lot of river fishing. My favorite was a spot on the Shenandoah River where I could just manage to wade from bank-to-bank. I would get there pre-dawn where the mist was still hanging over the river. I couldn't see a thing, but I'd still wade halfway across and get my line in the water. As the sun came up, the mist would slowly burn off. At that point, I didn't care if I caught a single fish.
Everyone can be a fisherman. It's being a catcherman that's the trick. It's really all about not being at work.
Used to do a lot of wet wading wearing cut-offs in the Susquehanna in late summer when the river was low. Would pick hellgrammites called clippers locally and bounce them off the bottom in the current. The smallmouth would smack them and they felt twice their size in the current.
I was using an artificial minnow in the Shenandoah once and if felt like something massive hit it. I thought it was a smallmouth. As you know, catching a fish is a different experience when you're standing in it's environment and not in a boat or on the shore. Ended up being a 2# catfish!! I had no idea they would hit something like that...always thought of catfish as bottom feeders. Took it home and smoked it on the grill. Regarding that river...it was pretty heavily patrolled by the state game wardens. I was out there once and a friend and I were drinking bottled beverages. The warden paddled up and made us produce a bottle cap for every empty we had (so as to punish those who litter.) We were able to do it, but we're the types who take extra garbage bags with us and clean up whatever happens to have been left by others. I imagine you do the same.
I have caught channel cats in the river on twister tails and they smack it pretty hard and put up a good fight. Flathead catfish are an invasive species and have found their way into the watershed and some predict will do damage to the smallmouth population. Some see it as another gamefish. We will see. Have yet to catch one. Taking out trash in a garbage bag has been one of those things I have thought about and never done. I have to make it a habit but I hate following dumb-asses around picking up after them like their mother.
There are two reasons I take out the trash of others: 1-We used to vacation in campgrounds in a small Trotwood trailer my dad converted to sleep 8 (it was meant to sleep 4.) When we got there we policed the campground from the prior tenants. When we pulled up stakes we policed the campground, except this time we were mainly picking up dad's Lucky Strike butts. Now it's kind of a habit. (I was at the March on Washington in 2009. We left the grounds in a pristine state. I assumed everyone there had been raised in a similar manner.) 2-The place I fished at the Shenandoah was not really a public access spot. So I figured that was my way of paying the landowner back for not kicking me off...Good Uninvited Guest offsetting Bad Trespassers, so to speak.
Water is cooling now so the bite should be picking up. I went to the state park lake again, only 8 minutes away, and caught this little beauty who wanted his picture taken. For a cheap 4 megapixel camera by Vivitar, it takes a fair picture.