'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The rains finally arrived, and even though we prayed for the wet stuff, a lot of anglers feared a lengthy downpour would raise and muddy water levels. It didn't happen.
In some parts of our region fishing could not be better, but biologists are concerned that the shortage of precipitation might affect spawning activities of certain fish, including smallmouth bass in such rivers as Virginia's Rappahannock and Maryland's Potomac.
April is a time of year when most fish species begin to think of reproducing. Piscatorial love is in the air, or rather in the water.
Earlier this week, there was snow — OK, it wasn't enough to make a snowball — but that was followed with May-like temperatures, which confused more than a few local anglers, but the fish didn't care. With the exception of some area waters that became discolored during recent rains, resulting in a slow "bite," as bass fishermen call it, there is plenty of catching being done near and far.
There's no way to hide it. March is here, and even if day and night temperatures still can be on the cold side, the numbers of fish species that local and distant anglers now go after are increasing daily.
Who could have guessed that additional rainstorms and wind would alter some parts of last week's fishing report, so for this week's outlook we'll stay on the side of caution.
We'll stick our neck way out and predict that the recent rain and wind (even tornado warnings) that visited the Washington area will not affect the weekend fishing.
For anglers who live in the nation's capital and the surrounding suburban counties of Maryland and Virginia, things are about to break wide open even though the weather hasn't been very cooperative.
