I went out from the front street ramp and went up to the Juniata and fished down last week just before the entire width of the river turned to mud. The gauge in Harrisburg was running about 4.5 and was on the rise with chocolate milk coming from the Juniata. I’m surprised by the small flies being fished for susky bass. every rule has an occasional exception but my experience is big baits = big fish, little baits = little fish on the river. Where there are little bass there are big bass. We boated close to 60 and lost probably another 20 on big honking crayfish. Largest in the boat was 19.5” and many were 16” and above. It was a rarity to catch something under 12”. We could feel little ones pulling on our offerings but mostly they didn’t catch the business end of the hook. Lost a true trophy at the side of the boat but that’s fishing. They were in the grass. cast to the deep grass edges and watch them come out of the grass and grab it. Most times they grabbed it on the fall or not long after hitting bottom and taking a hop.
leave the baby fish stuff at home and gear up with bigger weighted flies, preferably crayfish patterns with enormous fluttering claws not made of feathers. That river is loaded with pig bass and they generally don’t waste time on cricket size baits when the crayfish are around. full disclosure, it was way to windy for the fly rods so we left them in the truck and opted for spinning gear. In fact it was so windy I wouldn’t have fished it at all if I didn’t drive so long to get there.
