Bass Fishing the Susquehanna River
Mike and I decided to make a trip to City Island in Harrisburg. We had been bass fishing there a few weeks earlier, but the numbers weren’t real high. However, we did catch a few nice-sized fish. We wanted to see if the fishing had changed.
It was an ugly morning. We’d planned on leaving at 5:30 a.m., but it was raining buckets. We delayed our departure time to 8 a.m. This put us at the ramp around 9 a.m. and on the water by 9:15, heading to our favorite spot.
We went to the area I call the “Rocks”. We didn’t even bother stopping around the bridges because on the previous trip, we found the fish far and few between at these locations and what we caught was small.
It started to rain again, so we put our rain suits on. The wind became a factor in trying to keep the boat positioned as we wanted. The current was nasty. We stayed there, going back and forth across the area, looking for eddies, hoping there would be fish in them.
After two hours or so of this, we debated about heading up river. Most the debate was whether we’d find fish there, since not many were biting where we were. Size varied. None were big, only one over 14 inches and a total of four fish.
Okay, we were both people who don’t give up and have competitive spirits. We want more numbers to go home with than this. So, off we go up river to an area within sight of the Statue of Liberty. (A replica of the Statue of Liberty is in the middle of the Susquehanna above Harrisburg. editor)
Would there be more fish? Or was this overcast, chilly, windy day going to also be a bummer day for fishing? Guess we’d see!
Once up river, we noticed the water looked a little clearer. I imagine some of you are wondering what bait we used. Since it was a cloudy day and the color of the water, we stayed with the green pumpkin copper flake smoked purple laminated Gitzit. We knew we had the right color when we caught a smallmouth with a crayfish resembling this color in its mouth.
The average water depth was 2 to 5 feet. Being on a jet boat, we get into a lot of places others can’t, and I love it.
The rain stopped and I thought there was going to be a break in the clouds, but no. The wind seemed to pick up, then settle down. The rainsuits really kept us warm. At times, it seemed impossible to fish because of the way the wind was coming at us. However, we were in for a surprise.
At first we started catching smallmouth on the average size of 12 to 14 inches. We caught a lot of chubby ones they looked like their stomachs were too full. Things were picking up and the excitement of catching fish began to hit us!
Then we moved to a hole that looked good like it should have fish in it. We were in for a treat. We pulled 5 smallmouth into the boat. This happened not just in this hole, but in the next as well. The bass ranged from 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 pounds and 16 to 18 inches long. This took place in a matter of 20 minutes.
It seemed that every time we threw in, we caught a fish. It had been a long time since we had gotten into fish like this. The fish weren’t there on the trip a few weeks earlier.
We continued going back and forth on the river for a while, and caught more good fish still in the 16 to 18 inch range. We knew it was time to think of heading home, but didn’t want to leave.
We edged the boat nearer to the bank on our way back down to the ramp. Only a few small ones were caught. The fish were obviously out in the open water.
In all, we had caught 40-plus smallmouths. What had started out as a gloomy day ended up a great day on the water.
As summer leaves us, there’s still a lot of fishing to do. Fall brings opportunity for some of the best fishing. We find ourselves out on the water in December with flurries flying around us, and even have made our way through ice.
But it’s not just the fishing, it’s the time of sharing the sport with my partner in life. He’s taught me all I know about fishing, and I’m so thankful when we got together that he included me. He’s one of the best fishermen I know. I will never be as good as him, but I feel I am as good as a lot of the fishermen out there. I have never seen anyone flip under a dock like he can!