Pete Robbins fishing the Potomac River in 1997

Despite being raised in Maryland, I did not fish the tidal portion of the Potomac River until June of 1995, when I was 25 years old. I showed up for that first trip with a pistol grip baitcasting rod, a medium-action spinning rod, and a three-tray hard tackle box and figured I had the world by the balls. Nearly three decades later, I shudder to think about just how unprepared I was.

I joined a Federation bass club that fall, but did not buy my first used bass boat until November of 1996, and continued to fish tournaments as a non-boater through 1997. That gave me opportunities to fish with anglers of a wide range of fishing styles and varied experience levels, but any time we were on the Potomac you could be sure that they had at least three of the following six lures tied on:

Firetiger Bomber 7A crankbait — **Bomber Model A**

**Firetiger**

7-inch Berkley Red Shad Power Worm — **Berkley 7” Power Worm**

**Red Shad**

Chrome Blue original Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap lipless crankbait — **Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap**

**Chrome with Blue Back**

Rebel Pop-R Chrome with black back — **Rebel Pop-R**

**Bone or Chrome/Black**

old school Mann's Baby 1- tennessee shad — **Mann’s Baby 1-**

**Various colors, including Lemon Shad and Tennessee Shad**

Lee Bailey Jr. Megastrike Cavitron Buzzbait with gold blade — **Cavitron Buzzbait**

**White or Chartreuse/White with a Gold Blade**

It was uncanny. While all of them didn’t fish them equally, they were staples in just about every boat. Now that it’s a quarter-century in the rearview mirror, I don’t remember the details all that clearly. I’m sure we were fishing mono (maybe there were a few early braid converts), but I don’t recall anyone fishing hollow body frogs over the grass, and certainly not buzz toads. I remember feeling like I had a secret weapon when I started fishing a Baby Brush Hog a lot.

The colors listed above weren’t the only ones I saw (I distinctly recall a bubble gum Pop-R), but they were the most common (at least as far as my aging brain can remember).

What Other Lures Played a Role?

Of course, those weren’t the only lures my tournament boaters fished on the river. A lot of the better anglers in my club fished a jig, and while black and blue was popular, two of the perennial AOY contenders liked a Stanley flipping jig in black/brown/amber (often with a pork chunk). One also fished a little Storm Short Wart crankbait a lot but wouldn’t tell me what it was – I had to outsleuth him.

Another lure that was a standard then as it is now was the Silver Buddy blade bait, particularly in winter. Diehards fished them in places like The Spoils, Blue Plains and the Occoquan and claimed that when the fish were ganged up it was possible to catch big numbers and true trophies. I’ve caught a few bass on them over the years, but not many, possibly because I tend to fish elsewhere in the winter.

Finally, as far as I know, no one was fishing a Chatterbait or swim jig back then, so a spinnerbait was still in heavy rotation. There was a great little tackle store called Delta Tackle (not to be confused with the one in California) that sat on what is now super-expensive real estate that carried all of the hot baits, and they had several high-quality models, including one they called the “Golden Eagle.”

Why Don’t I Fish Them Today

Of the lures listed above, all are still readily available but I rarely fish five of them on the Potomac anymore. In most cases, they’ve been replaced by newer (although not necessarily better) options:

I own a bunch of Bomber A’s, from the 2A up to the hard-to-find 9A, but I’m not sure that I typically carry any in the boat. I rarely crank anything deeper than 5- or 6-feet out there, and when I do it’s almost always some sort of square bill.
I’m much more likely to pitch a Senko, Baby Brush Hog or beaver-style bait than I am a traditional worm on the Potomac. When I do throw a worm it’s often a Speed Worm, which I swim rather than pitch. I still fish the 10” Power Worm quite a bit on our trips to El Salto, but generally in black and blue – I don’t own any in Red Shad.
Ever since I first invested in a Rico, probably around 1998 or 1999, I’ve rarely thrown a Pop-R, but I still own a bunch of them.
The Baby 1- (and the Mid 1-) is the only one of these that still gets a substantial workout for me on the Potomac. Any time I’m out there I have one tied on, especially in the spring. A while back they changed the formulation of the plastic and the older ones are more than worth their weight in gold. I think I have enough to last me until we move.
The Cavitron was the brainchild of Foxwoods pro Lee Bailey Jr. and it was a good bait but eventually I found other buzzbaits I liked, including my friend Ben Richardson’s double-buzzer, and moved on. I bought a few of the newer ones and need to throw them at some point. I suppose it was also a matter of braided line, frogs and buzz toads becoming more popular that made the buzzbait a slightly less prominent player.

Every one of those lures will still produce bass on the Potomac, and in some cases they’ve been improved with better hardware, especially hooks. I’m sure that others are still using them, but between the internet and the growing popularity of bass fishing, there are more options in each category than ever before.

The Tournament Influence

Then, as now, the Bassmaster tournament results had a large influence on regional anglers’ acceptance of particular styles and brands of lures. That applies directly to three of the ones mentioned above. By the time I got into fishing the pros had been visiting the Nation’s River for nearly a decade, so few of the places were secrets, but many of the ways to catch the bass were still developing.

While Paul Elias had won a major tournament on Okeechobee with the 1- a few years earlier, it really came into its own when Dan Morehead used it (along with a spinnerbait) to claim victory on the Potomac in 1997. That seared a hole in my brain because it was my second full year of fishing tournaments.

In 1994, Larry Lazoen won on the Potomac using the lone 1/8 ounce Cavitron buzzbait that he owned, joking that his lure was so beaten up that the bass were attacking it “so it won’t reproduce.”

The most memorable win, however, may have been the one earned by Jim Bitter in 1992. Not only was it a slight make-up for his Classic disaster a few hours down the road in 1989, but he dominated on a little known spot – a pile of old ballast rock with a ditch around it, which is now known on maps as “Bitter’s Rocks.” He didn’t want to disturb the area, so when he’d hang up his firetiger Bomber 7A he’d just break it off and tie on another. He reportedly went through a box of them that day.