PFBC has put an online reporting form to report distressed bass on the Susquehanna River.  Please report any instances of bass that show sores, fin rot, dead fish, or fish that are visibly distressed due to low oxygen or other factors.  I would recommend that anytime you catch or see two or more fish that are distressed or diseased please notify PFBC, not just a single fish unless it is covered in sores or the black spots.

Take pictures of sores or other visible distress.  If you need coordinates, use Google Earth and the latitude/longitude can be gathered from there.  Here is the link to the form:

www.fish.state.pa.us/promo/form/smb_reports.htm

Jim Steiner and Mike O’Hara finished in 6th place with 21.34 pounds and won $330. Dave Seemans and Mike Morris weighed 5 fish for 17.36 pounds to finish 5th and also pocket $330.

Keith Cowan and Zach Cowan continued their hot streak with a nice limit weighing 19.41 pounds, good for 4th place and $660.

Mike Sentore and Eric Danner also collected another cash finish with 19.61 pounds for 3rd place. they received $990.

George Short and Gary Bailey held on to 2nd place with 19.88 pounds. They received plaques courtesy of Susquehanna Fishing Tackle and a total of $1650.00. This included their lunker award for the big bass of the tournament, a largemouth weighing 5.66 pounds.

Today’s winners had a big payday. First, Dave Wilder and Matt Elliott won the tournament with 21.34 pounds. They were presented plaques from www.sfttackle.com and $2310 in prize money. Congratulations!

The top 3 teams with the 3 best finishes divided the Best Sticks On The Bay cash pot.

3rd Place with a score of 10 were George Short and Tommy Turner. They received $886 and 2 plaques.

In second place were Joe Booker and David Greenleaf with a total score of 9, good for $1330.

Dave Wilder and Matt Elliott won the Best Sticks on the Bay title with a score of 5. This earned them $2210 giving them a total payday of $4520.

The Nauti Goose Open Tournament Series paid back 100% this year.
See Nauti Goose #5 Final Results

1. If you are fishing a grass fishery, throw a 1-2 wire bait punch.  Start off with a buzzbait and match the blade size to the size of the baitfish. Don’t rule out a black buzzbait either as they can be very productive.  The Boogerman buzzbait has a great black one that is worth a try.   Follow up with a spinnerbait, especially if the wind gets going.
   Once again, make sure to match the blade size to the baitfish size.  Sometimes you need to do something out of your comfort zone so don’t be afraid to try some new things.  Snagler Tackle Spinnerbaits makes some awesome spinnerbaits that you can purchase on-line.
   

   Snagler Tackle Spinnerbait

2. Now is the time for topwater so don’t rule that out either.  A popper style bait such as a Splash-it can work well. Experiment with the amount of pause that you use between twitches.  In river systems with a good bit of current, you can let the popper float over ledges and a couple of gently pops is sometimes all you need to trigger strike after strike.  When choosing a walking style topwater bait you can go with a subtle presentation with something like a Lucky Craft Sammy or a more obvious look with a Super Spook or Strike King Sexy Dawg.  Try both approaches to see what the fish like better on any particular day.
   

   Strike King Sexy Dawg

3. It’s crankbait time!  Get on a shallow wind blown bank and crank a square bill crankbait.  Focus your cast towards rock or wood and pick apart the area with multiple casts all around your cover.  Two square bill crankbaits that do exceptionally well are the KVD Square Billand the Spro Little John.
   

   Strike King Square Bill Crankbait

4. When you are going for the smallies in the fall you can not forget about the jerkbait.  Make sure you have one that will suspend in the water when it is paused.  Fish it with the classic jerk-jerk-pause retrieve and vary the length of your pauses until you get dialed in to what is working.  Then hang on because jerkbait fishing can be some of the most exciting fishing second to none other than topwater fishing.  You never know exactly how the strike will be.  They may pick it up while it is being paused and you’ll suddenly see your line starting moving, or they may hit it right when you jerk the bait, giving you a nice little surprise.  If you see them follow your bait into the boat without striking or you are getting a lot of short strikes or catches on the back hook, try changing up the color.
   

   Lucky Craft Pointer 100 Jerkbait

5. No top 5 list would be complete without the Alabama Rig.  This newly introduced rig has been taking the fishing world by storm.  This rig allows you to rig 5 swimbaits in a schooling pattern to be fished on a single line.  Check your State’s regulations before fishing to see what regulations exist for the maximum amount of hooked baits you can fish on this rig.  If your State only allows for a maximum of 3 hooked baits, fish two of the swimbaits without hooks or with a spinnerbait blade.  Any baits without hooks should go on the top or higher part of the rig.  Bass tend to school up in the fall and this is a great presentation for schooling bass.
   

   Reeper Alabama Rig

The Custom Kicker 2K Reeper Alabama Rig is available on-line at Big Bass USA

19 teams were on hand for the 4th Nauti Goose Open of the season and we probably would have had a few more were it not for the forecast frightening them away. A cloudy morning gave way to a beautiful afternoon and it was a very comfortable day for a tournament. The bass were pretty eager to eat, too as 15 of 19 teams produced a 5-fish limit today. Some teams reported an early bite, then a slow afternoon while others had only one fish at noon and had them turn on in the final 2 or 3 hours.

Dave Wilder and Matt Elliott were presented a gift bag chocked full of sponsor product courtesy of John Shumate, James Bricker, and Donald Haskins, Jr.

17 of the 19 teams in the tournament entered the Option Pot which is paid back 100% to the first 2 teams out of the money who were in the Option Pot. Taking advantage of this were George Short and Tommy Turner who won $255 with 17.37 pounds and Donald Haskins, Jr and Todd Smith with17.49 pounds. They also pocketed $255.

Joe Dellavalle and Dan Hawley are having a great season this year with several top 5 finishes on the Bay including a few wins. They continued that trend today winning $485 for a 4th place finish. They weighed in 19.35 pounds. Nice job!

Jack Rinkers and Bill Gallagher finished in 3rd place today with 5 bass totaling 19.60 pounds. This allowed them to win $725. Good work!

Ken Wood, Jr and Willie Barrett had another quality finish today as they claimed second place with 20.71 pounds. They were presented with 2 plaques courtesy of Susquehanna Fishing Tackle and the Nauti Goose Restaurant. They also received $1140 in cold, hard cash. Way to go!

Joe Booker and David Greenleaf seem to be the team to beat this season on the Upper Chesapeake Bay. They have multiple victories in several circuits this year and obviously show no signs of giving in to their competition. They won again today with a limit that weighed 22.90 pounds. It would have been a much closer margin of victory had it not been for the 7.20 pound largemouth, the tournament lunker, that swam out of their bag at the scales. That bass was worth $285 in addition to first place prize money for an overall payday of $2285. They were also presented with 3 plaques. Congratulations!

Thanks to the many volunteers who helped make this a smooth event, including Willie and Julie Barrett, Ken Wood, Janette Knoop, Marcus Griffin and John Hansen. Forgive me if I omitted any names.

The final Nauti Goose Open of 2012 will be held on October 13th. At the conclusion of this tournament thousands of dollars will be paid out to the top three teams in the Best Sticks on the Bay contest. Only your top 3 teams count so there’s still time for you to sneak into the top 3. Remember, in case of a tie there will be a 1 hour fish-off at the conclusion of the 5th and final tournament.

I do remember catching them on the Conestoga river, along with catfish when we were kids. We would make up dough balls by wetting some bread and then kneading it for a few minutes until it could be formed into a pasty substance that could be balled around our hook. Or we would simply take a hook and thread on a couple kernels of corn. Dough balls and corn make great carp bait, but you’d have to be patient while they slowly played with your bait until they decided to take it. This picture startled me when I saw how these carp were attacking!

These days I spend more of my free time fishing for bass, but I have caught the occasional carp on a tube or other small soft plastic bait while bass fishing. If I do hook one it is when I am dragging my bait along very slowly. Never have I caught a carp on a fast or even moderately fast moving bait. Maybe it was because I wasn’t using fish pellets!

Call it carp bait or call it duck food, not sure who won this particular battle!

Credit for these pictures goes to Dave Keller. Dave is a long time friend, an avid photographer and he runs a blog site at davekellerblog.com

What a great picture. Got a caption? Leave it in the comments!

There is one other event that starts at this time, which is the groups of carp that begin to spawn in the grassy areas. These carp cause quite a commotion and many folks feel that they scare the bass out of the grass beds, but this is not true! The thrashing does cause a lot of noise and muddies the water, but don’t let that move you from the grass. From my experience I have found that the spawning carp can actually help the bass fishing. How can that be? Realize that having success when bass fishing means being able to follow the food chain and driving the food chain is exactly what these carp do. As the carp spawn a large amount of their eggs actually stick to the grass stalks and canopy. This will draw in all type of baitfish to feed on this abundance of eggs, such as perch, small catfish, crawfish and many other baitfish. In fact, if you are in water clear enough, you can sometimes see schools of small yellow perch following these groups of spawning carp. They feed on the eggs as soon as they are deposited.
The activity of the baitfish feeding on carp eggs in turn draws in the largemouth bass. Large numbers of bass move in as they have a smorgasbord of forage to feed on. This is why the bass fishing can be outstanding at this time.
Understanding the food chain is the first step in understanding the bass. An effective angler also needs to read the tides, understand different types of grass and realize what lures and techniques match to these conditions. It is a puzzle that you are always piecing together, but when it comes together, get ready for some amazing largemouth bass fishing on the Chesapeake Bay!

I made my way up to the Susquehanna River NorthEast area of the Chesapeake Bay to do some Yellow Perch Fishing. This was on January 12, and the water temperature was still around 41 or 42 degrees. The air temperature was 62, and this is still pretty mild conditions for this time of the year. In about a five hour time period we were able to land over 100 Yellow Perch, although they were in the 4 to 9 inch range. Because of these warmer temperatures I believe the bigger fish are still spread out in the shallow water areas, maybe out on the flats. Last year at this time we had to break ice to get out of the ramp.

The other thing that we have not seen in previous years is the amount of commercial fish traps. In fact we saw so many traps in the area that there was basically too many to count.

The fish that we were able to catch were in areas as shallow as 15 feet and as deep as 53 ft. We found the best location was along the Perryville side of the river. Start at the Amtrack bridge and follow the river up North to the North side of Garrett Island.

Yellow Perch Fishing Rigs

A common bottom rig or a drop shot rig is all you’ll need. Use a Pan Assissan, a small tube or a small twister tail (1 to 2 inch). As far as color try the chartreuse or a red and white color and you should just be fine. I have found that to maintain good bottom contact I needed to use a 1/2 oz. weight, and staying on the bottom was the key because these fish are hugging the bottom. That was evident by looking at my fish finder as well. As an added bonus we were able to get some keeper crappie in 30 feet of water using these same methods.

If you don’t have a boat, it is possible to have good success from the shore. A lot of the good access is at the Marina’s and they may charge you a fee. Also, keep in mind that you’ll want to have your license. The DNR is getting writer’s cramp these days!

Needless to say it’s been a gentle winter season (so far), but Jerry states that because of this the perch bite is still not in full swing. “The cooler water is ideal when reeling in yellow perch”, says Jerry, “and this season it’s taking a looking like it will take a little longer to have the best bite since there has been warmer than usual temps. Nonetheless the water temps are beginning to drop to noral levels. I believe our Perch catch will probably be amazing very soon. For that matter in a few days I will be further up on the Susquehanna where I have experienced days of catching a couple hundred perch within a single day.”

There’s no need for a large fishing boat or a lot of power. With this winter weather you will just use idle speeds. Just be certain you’ve got excellent protective cover, particularly during the breezy times. The following is Jerry’s most recent report while fishing in Joppatowne:

Crappie bass are hitting smaller plastic baits with a 1/16 oz. jig head dangling below a float.Generally these fish are located underneath the shady area of the docks but you need to keep moving till you discover them. There are plenty of docks for these guys to hang out, but fishing pressures and the movements of the baitfish means the crappie remain on the go as well.

Yellow perch are stacking up around the deep spots usually around the canals. I’m utilizing a dual rig to hook this delicious table fare. Fasten a drop loop around 18 inches down the end of the line. Cut one side in the loop to make a second line that hangs 4 to 6 inches farther down than the first line .Place a 1/32 ounce jig head onto this line as well as a 1/16 oz. on the other end. Rig the jig heads with Pan-Assassins. The natural colors are generally the most effective.

Bass are dining on 3 inch grubs rigged on a 1/16 oz. jig heads, needless to say using bigger hooks. Charlie Brewer Slider Heads are my choice and have decent hooks for this purpose. Green-pumpkin colors and smoke colors are the most productive for me. Most of my bass have been caught this way, but I’ve landed a number of bass fishing the additional approaches named above.

My bait was a Stillwater Lures Clatter Shad that weighed 1/2 oz and was finished in color number 31 which is a silver blueish color. It wasn’t long until I realized that this was the bait I needed. The lure needed to bounce off of the rocks and when it would bounce erractically they’d slam it. If there was no bounce in my bait, then I would not get any bites. The temperature of water was 50 degrees, but I have no idea that will last. The Striper fishing ought to be good until the water temps go down to 45 degrees. Keep in mind, you might need to slow up the retrieve as the water temps drop. Oh, furthermore the revolutionary Lowrance unit works great. Down-Side-Imaging is astounding!!!!!!!

Talk with you again soon.
Good Fishing and God’s Blessings’

Jerry