G-Man Fishing

Last weekend, H and I went on a new kind of fishing trip. It involved taking our mountain bikes, putting the rods into backpacks, and biking around Burke lake to the less crowded part of the shoreline. Burke Lake is a really busy park being that it is in the DC suburbs. There is a gravel trail that circles the entire lake (approximately 4 miles or so). The trail can be crowded with runners, bikers, and hikers. But few shoreline anglers venture to the opposite side of the lake given that it would require some walking. Most stay near the marina, on the fishing pier, or near the dam where there is parking. Boating is the way to do it but on hot sweltering July days it can be miserable. Renting a boat for an entire day is about 40 bucks or so.We arrived at the lake around 6:30am on a Sunday and it was very cool and comfortable underneath the canopy of trees. I strapped the tacklebox onto the back of my mountain bike with bungee cords. The trails were a little wet so we took our time to ride to the side of the lake opposite the fishing pier. When we got there we fished along the bank and actually realized that its hard to cast when you are surrounded by trees. I think I lost a couple of moderately expensive lures. :-(We moved to a more open part of the lake to try our luck. Using nightcrawlers we must have caught about 20-30 small bluegill, shad, and perch. This became rather annoying since the moment the bait hits the water you get immediate strikes and then have to unhook and release. I switched to a jig and suprisingly caught a 10 inch catfish which I released. Even more surpising was that I caught 3-4 small shad using a jig with a plastic grub body. At the end of the day, we had caught 3 catfish in the 8-10 inch range. All of which we released. It was a great time and my hope for next time is to skip using the nightcrawlers and go directly with the bass lures. Although we’d give up the constant action, we may be rewarded with more highly prized fish.