I said getting dark but this is only accurate to a point: Washington DC has some very bad light pollution and it never got very dark. One thing about the tidal basin is there are a lot of people and they like to take picture of you fishing and often like to ask you questions, but after it starts getting dark even this diversion came to an end, and it seemed like this might yet again be a short story summed up with “we fished the tidal basin and blanked”. It started to get dark and other than a few catfish things were rather dead. The tide kept coming in, and had I left my pod in this location it would have been fully underwater in short order! I had counted wraps so I could feel confident that I was hitting more or less the same spot in the dark, and I had to remember to keep adding line as we moved farther and farther away from the bait. The tide (it is called the tidal basin after all) kept pushing us up until we were a good 20+ feet farther back than when we started.
The location where we first set up seemed high and dry when we got there but it became evident that this was not the case. Small PVA sticks of liquidized bread did the trick and all baits that got runs had them. A small PVA bog of boilies did not end up producing anything. Catfish are okay for some things, but they were not the target here so their activity was only good in is as much as there was some feeding going on. One thing that became evident right away was that the catfish really enjoyed the corn soaked in Betalin and as soon as the first rod with this on the hair hit the water a catfish was on the hook. We tried a variety of baits ranging from small boilies, to pop-ups, to plastic and real corn.
#FREE WIFI TIDAL BASIN DC FREE#
Our free offerings were mostly sweet corn with added sugar, and a few other particles and small boilies. We stuck with smaller baits as the water was very cold. We had seen a few fish roll out towards the middle of the basin and one closer in, so we baited two spots: one at around 85yds and one right next to the wall. After that formality she wished us luck and we were free to continue our quest for a DC carp. The officer was very nice and took Joe not having a printed version in stride. We always buy licenses and it is actually nice to have them checked as it makes buying them seem more worthwhile.
We finally made it and first thing we got our licenses checked. No sooner than we collapsed from our walk then our licenses were checked – always buy a license!
Even with a drastically reduced amount of gear we were still way overloaded and the walk seemed to be miles…I am sure it was not but when your head feels like it is going to pop off due to a countless number of straps being slung around it and blood flow to the brain is being cut off, walks seem longer. So, we found a spot that did not have any signs that indicated that our vehicles would be sent to prison, but this required a major amount of walking. This was not easy with most parking being for only 3hrs and/or not past 1am. We were not sure how long we were going to fish so we wanted to find a place to park that was okay over night. Our final choice of swims basically on the steps of the Jefferson MemorialĪfter a short-lived attempt to fish in an another area, we ended up right in front of the Jefferson Memorial. We got booted out of the spot by some construction workers so decided to look at some other areas. Our first stop was at the upper end of the basin and we spent some time watching the water. My fishing buddy Joe had gotten there a few minutes before, and since neither of us had fished here before we decided to do some scouting and see if there were any fish showing. I started out at around 2am and arrived in DC just before sunup. While no big fish have come out of this area (that I know of) recently, there are still plenty of fish to be caught, and the unique opportunity of fishing in the nation’s capital was well worth the trip. The view across the basin, showing the Jefferson Memorial. Some very large fish (50+) have been caught there, but not in some time. It has a number of fish species in it, and is known to have a good population of carp most of the year. For those of you that might not know what the tidal basin is, it is a ~107 acre reservoir that connects the Potomac River with the original purpose of providing water to flush the Washington Channel. There are lots of places to fish in the USA, but perhaps none so iconic as the tidal basin in Washington DC.
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