Meet Penrod’s Guides: One of the most knowledgeable smallmouth bass anglers in the region, Mike Breeding spends more time on the Susquehanna River than any guide today. By Ken Penrod

Like many of my guides, Mike came to me as a client. His enthusiasm and need-to-know was intense and annoying at times but there was no denying this man’s desire to become a first class fisherman. Mike had grown up in Baltimore, in a bad part of town, where his options for survival didn’t include casting tubes for smallmouth bass yet he was absolutely enthralled in the angling arts. His friend Charlie bought a jet boat and neither one of them had a clue as to navigating a rock-strewn, springtime-savage, free flowing, cold water river let alone the “mastering” of the 36-volt, Minn Kota trolling motor. More>>>

Cast & Blast
By Ken Penrod

Canada geese, especially very large groups of geese on water, are very noisy just before they choose to move on in the morning. If you are where you are supposed to be before dawn, the cackle and trumpeting begins slowly, building in volume and decibel—and then you hear the wing flaps and webbed feet beating water as they lift off. I don’t care who you are, if that doesn’t excite you, save a bullet for yourself. It’s still grey dawn and you wonder how they could he so noisy yet remain unseen.  Someone in the boat, attempting to be a calming factor, whispers; “stay still guys and wait until they are upon us.” Suddenly there they are. The sky is black again and some of the birds are no more than six feet above the river and in some instances, 10-feet from the muzzle of your shotgun. The shooting is deafening and you try to keep count of the birds you hit. No need to worry though, especially for the first “fly” because the creel limit is 8 In September, particularly on the Potomac  River above Great Falls, and you don’t have to have a plug in your gun. Load her to the max—and it’s a bad goose hunt when you have shells to take home. More>>>

Structure Scan
By Captain Alan Mullis



I can’t begin to talk about Structure Scan without first touching on the HDS units themselves. Lowrance HDS units are available in a 5”, 7”, 8”, and 10” screen size. The five and seven inch screens only split in two panes while the eight and ten inch will give a four panel view. The eight and ten inch screens also have convenience buttons and a zoom wheel behind the cursor control. However, the five inch unit will do anything the ten inch unit will do; you just have to menu through until you find the adjustment you are looking to change. One of the most prolific complaints I hear is “I just bought my Lowrance unit four or five years ago and now it’s out dated.” Well, I believe that Navico has helped to solve that problem with the Plug & Play head features of their Lowrance and Simrad units. More>>>

Ken Penrod’s 10 Seasons For Tidal Potomac Largemouth Bass Best How-to Article in Fisherman Magazine, 2009 By Ken Penrod

Like many of you, in my early years, I drove to the river with preconceived plans based on our seasons. Wow, was I wrong much of the time. I’ve been obsessed with tidal Potomac River largemouth bass for about 40-years, the last 26 as a full time professional guide. Forty years sounds like a lot of time but “thousands” of days are more credential-worthy. I chose not to believe generally accepted bass behavior because the “written and documented accounts of bass” were of impoundment fish.” There were no reliable studies of tidal water bass—so I assumed the challenge For about 30-years I have been keeping day to day fishing logs, most in the form of fishing reports, and I have learned that it’s water temperature, not air temperature and human-season that dictates fish behavior, thus, their seasons. More>>>