Well today was much like the postal services motto, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”, though I think today that only applies to junk mail not letters or important items. But anyway, Scott and I decided to brave the elements of rain, cold, not fog but I was expecting a cloud to descend too low for comfort any time. It could have been miserable but leaving late (maybe 3:30) in the afternoon we knew we had precious time to waste so we stopped just at the entrance of Cockerells creek and started to troll with our last year’s most reliable baits.
We trolled out of the river into the Bay just a bit but the further we went out the warmer the water and the less bait we saw on the sonar. Even though it was mostly calm we did have a 1 foot swell that was headed in the wrong direction plus a lot of other factors we just decided to turn back to the river.
Overhead we could see a few birds gathering up high just inside the creek so we headed there. It was pretty close to the opening of the creek into the river where we had the first rod go down. Scott grabbed that one and you guessed it, the two other rods bent. “Panderlearim” was on, we had two fish per rod and it was such a good feeling to see the fish on. That happened multiple times from there to the end of the journey. We ended up catching 19 in pretty quick succession. We didn’t measure them all because we were far more interested in getting them back in the water but a few would have been 17 but the majority were likely 19 and a few over 20.
We did bring one back so I could have lunch tomorrow but it is such a good time to go out and grab a bunch of healthy fish and put them right back to grow.
Lures, I just need to go grab some pictures but this time of year I pull 4 or 6 arm umbrellas with varied color combinations. Check that link out and you will at least be close. The best color last year and seems great this year is purple head and blueish clear silver flecked 5 inch swim shad.
Water temp in the river was 60.1 and out in the bay was 61.5. Based on upcoming weather I expect it to drop quickly which should help the fishing pick up.
For me that day was Sat Oct. 9th even though the first day was Mon. I was working so this is the first report. I made a pact with myself to report everytime I fished regardless and this is one of the reports that did not have a big win for us but here it is regardless.
There have been loads of fish in our Whay’s creek and every “green light” has tons of fish around but I have heard of only one good Striper and that was our new neighbor Denny. He and Jennifer caught a 24 inch earlier in the week. Sharon had caught a good flounder and her dad Buddy caught a monster puppy drum (I’ll add the pic below).
Scott, Mitch, and I headed out to the 200 bridge to start our early morning run. Nothing, no hits, just nothing. Moved around to Glen’s creek then to the north side of the GW and then onto Warehouse creek. I finally picked up a nice speckle trout and Mitch added a spec and an undersized striper. Nothing really to show for our effort except laughing at all of the crazy that comes with fishing with friends. I’ll have to add wind direction to my article on 50 things that have to go right , 2, and 3 because the East and North winds are exceptionally difficult to fish and we had them both.
Finally, we went back to our Whay’s creek and just at the mouth there were a lot of birds working. We caught a bunch of speckles, flounder, snakeheads, etc. but no stripers. Anyway, a good day of fishing even if we threw everything back. The weather held out and we had a good day of fishing regardless of the fishbox.
Here is the puppy drum Buddy caught this week. Just two doors down from his house. We laugh but we often go all over the Bay and some of the very best fishing is in our backyard. Congrats Buddy, what a nice fish.
The goal of this post is to remove the politics of the fishery and “whose” fault it is and add a non-scientific but evidence based report from a lowly recreational fisherman who loves the bay and all it promises to us.
Current state of the bay. The water looks great to an untrained eye. I was out a couple of weeks ago now and it was just beautiful water. Even in the chop you could just look at the color and it looks great. Now visual observation is just one of many and maybe one of the least important factors but “I’m just saying”.
Well looks can be deceiving and based on every score card I can find online the health of the bay is a solid C. Now being a solid C student in grade school I can tell you that better is very possible. Only after I grew out of myself did I realize that I wasted a good portion of my life by not striving for greatness regardless of how many times I failed. The key to this obvious trouble, the answer is completely in our hands and our wheelhouse.
The answer to this and many other issues is to get people not the “other people” but simply you and I as individuals to take responsibility. Yes the government has a role to play but nothing significant in my life has ever happened because of a government mandate but rather me realizing that I, me, personally can have an impact. If you can get 300 million Americans really and truly caring about the environment in 300 million unique ways the impact is immediate. There is no government organization that can monitor the personal activities of that many people so this has to become core to you and not rely on the government to keep others in check.
The Chesapeake watershed, defined as the body of land that if a drop of water hits, will eventually find its way to the bay. How many people in the farm lands of NY, PA, MD, WV, DE, and VA realize how much effect they have on the bay. My guess tells me they do the best they can but the bay and the effects of farming has on the bay is 15th on their list of priorities. How can we help these farmers out and is it possible to help them financially in managing their effect vs. a penalty if they don’t conform. Can environmental cleanup become a source of income for these farmers? If yes then fantastic and it will certainly go to a better curator of money than a PAC. I personally think the carrot is more effective than the stick when there is not enough resources to monitor the stick method.
Second in negative effect on the bay is urban street runoff and water treatment issues. Well if the government has a play in this cleanup the very best place to start is to with themselves as an individual contributor. This could be the first, best, and easiest choice to fix a grand portion of the problem. I would say this because rather than 10s of thousands of farmers there are just hundreds of cities and they have better ways to improve their facilities so the benefit vs time is just better here. I know, pass the infrastructure bill…well I hope that when it does pass this may actually get fixed but based on the last hundred years I would expect more of the same. Just like all churches have a building fund but the same door squeaks for eternity. I would love to be wrong for a change so time will tell.
I’ll leave the Omega Protein company out of this post while only adding that politics always beats evidence. I could care less if you are for or against commercial fishing but what I think we have to live with is the limits our legal entities set on bag limits. So I follow the rules because regardless if I fully understand the limits it is the only measure we have. I want a standard for all of us to live by and encourage all to follow the rules as if they matter because they do in fact matter. If these agencies tell me one fish per day that is what I live by or less. If they want me to report all of my catches I am fully in on the requirement. My goal is not to fill my freezer with fish but to enjoy fishing. Besides, the most expensive fish you will ever eat is the one you catch.
Moving on to how the bay has changed. Shrimp and in great numbers are being seen for at least the first time for me. Never did I imagine that shrimp would be a food source from the bay and at least I am hoping that it will become a new food for stripers, they certainly seem to love them. We have seen species in the bay that I would never have expected like sturgeon as an example. This could be climate change, or maybe they were here but in small numbers, I just don’t know.
Change seems to be the only constant but regardless of if this change is natural or man-made it is my responsibility to have the least impact on the bay as possible. One day we will stand in judgment and I don’t want to try to explain that I was anything other than caring for our great world. Caring for people, caring for the environment is one in the same for me.
Well I certainly didn’t add anything new to this conversation but if I have a goal here it is to get you to think of a way to change from being be part of the problem to more about how to be part of the solution. We all have a part in the process so think before you act.
I guess you can see why I don’t allow every idiot on the internet to comment on my blog, I just send them out in a bottle and you can read or not, either way is just fine by me. Anyway hopefully my next post will be more about fishing. We are just a couple of weeks away from my time of the year.
Have you ever heard this? I had not until a few years ago and now I can’t get it out of my head. As we come closer to striper season I am getting more excited to go through my baits of choice. Humpback and Baleen Whales eat krill (shrimp like critters) for just a couple of extreme examples. The notion is that just because there is a big fish does not directly correlate with the size of the lure. Sometimes and I would argue many times big fish love little baits.
One example of how you have to change from year to year is the size of the baits these guys are interested in biting. Years ago if you did not have at least an 8” bucktail on a 9 oz jig you were not going to land anything. Those days may return in the future and it may be this year but I don’t expect that to be true. So for the last few years I have run about 4” swim baits with great success so I will at least start off the year with those and change if I feel it necessary.
Match the hatch, that quote is synonymous with professional fisherman meaning investigate what the fish are eating and as much as possible match your bait to what is in the stomach of the fish you are catching.
I hope to be adding a few short but hopefully informative post leading up to striper season. And if you see me misspelling striper please send me an email, not intentional just a lack of ability. My wife trys (intended sp) her best with me but to no avail.
These are called Peanut BunkerThis is the elephant that was eating the peanuts
Well as many of you know, the boat engine died a while back and I have been relying on some of the best people in the world to take me fishing. Well as good as that is and as blessed as I am to have such friends I can say that I finally got my boat back and I am so thankful. Dave R at Coastal Marine did a great job and let me help to save some money and learn. Not that I want to do this again. It was (now looking back at it) a great experience.
I took the boat out most of this weekend to do all of the sea trials and to break the motor in properly. A fairly extensive procedure and the final leg was to go full throttle for 10 min. WOT turned out to be 4400 RPM and 43 mph. That is just too fast for me, the boat felt out of the water and not 100% under me so that will be the last of that maneuver.
Well to fishing, we got back from church this afternoon and decided to go Spanish Mackerel fishing. The water was too rough for Angelique (aka Chuck for those that know us well). We stayed out for about 30 min of fishing. Caught five threw one back but got enough for a good meal and lunch tomorrow. We are beyond blessed to have the best seafood at our fingertips in Reedville.
We fished around R2 to 1GW and just around that area, it was too rough to go out further. Just a note, I didn’t see anything that I would take for stripers out there so early season for stripers will be in the river and creeks. I’ll let you know when that changes.
Ran my normal setup and as normal there was only one rod that continued to go off. It was the same green that I had in one of the previous posts. Chuck did a good job of getting the fish in while I drove the boat.
Weather:
Waves were two to three feet, from the south which meant we were in the ditch the whole time.
You catch the first fish before you can get the second rod out. Yep, Scott and I had an early morning Spanish fish scheduled and we did all the damage we needed in about an hour and a half.
The weather, waves, just about everything was settling in to be a great day. We left the dock at about 6:30 and went straight out to R4 just out of the Great Wicomico River. We started setting out the first number 2 planner with a green flash number 0 Clarkspoon. I had no more than picked up the second rod and that one hit. The bite was steady from that point on. There were a few times we got doubles but for the most part it was just a steady one then another. We did pick up about 5 that were really short, I would estimate maybe 10 inches which for me at least tends not to happen. Of course, sent them on their way and back to more fishing.
I may be wrong but I think we only lost three total the rest of the 15 and one blue came in without an issue. We have started to slow the boat dramatically after a strike to help increase the bag limit. Spanish are traditionally hard to get to the boat because they bounce on the water at high speeds. The line goes slack when they are in the air which risks the planner from setting again, this resetting is very difficult to keep the fish on the line.
Green was the color if you didn’t have this color go back to the dock. I would say about 70% were on this one rig.
Weather:
Waves were at most a foot but even then it continued to become more calm.
Air Temp 86
Water Temp 82
Pressure 29.74 (Hurricane Henri was in NY by this time)
Went out with Charlie, Katie, and Sarah for a quick morning Spanish Mackerel day. My gosh is it hot right now, the heat index is reaching 108 with a dew point of 80 deg and climbing. The water is the only place to be so we went trolling just outside our Whays Creek and headed east to the bay. It is amazing just how much cooler it is fishing than cutting grass 🙂
Well we had a very good day, we hooked a bunch and ended the very short two hour trip with 5 keepers. Spanish are notorious for getting off before they get to the boat and today was no exception. Charlie driving the boat with Katie and I trying our best to get them in. Sarah was just too relaxed in the front to go through all of the stress of reeling these guys in. She was a very good sport but was just content to smile and point to the rod as it hit.
We hooked I would estimate 10 but at the end we got 5 in but most were very good size. Maybe another time when they have more time we can get everyone in the game. The color of the day was silver and silver with green flashing. We teased Charlie that his leader was so long that we were fishing west of the mississippi. He just said it was working so there.
Always fun to get people out on the water and get a few fish in the boat. I had a good time laughing with everyone which is what the game is all about.
A typical day I run four rods, rig the weight (I am not sure that the shape matters here), I like to run something a little heavier than most, maybe up to say 8 – 10 oz and since I have many of them I just use an inline weight. From that weight I definitely like to run a true leader line just shy of my main line. So the rods I use for Cobia I have 60# mono so my leader I run 50#. Seems extreme but these are killer fish and I definitely like dedicated leader lines as opposed to just adding another length of mono. Dedicated leader tends to take the shock of a quick strike far better than regular mono. Mono is designed to stretch over a long run of line being out and leader is designed to stretch over just a short length.
The leader length I guess can be a few lengths but based on my bait I like to vary that length between about 3 feet to 8 feet depending on the water depth I am fishing. I do this because I use live bait and all of those baits swim and I try to cover the water column if possible.
Bait, I have two primary ones, live eels and live spot. I think both work well but maybe give the edge to eels but only slightly. Spot are generally free but you have to fish for them. I have a good spot for spot 🙂 so I go out in the afternoon before fishing to get a few.
Fish on: Good job, first things first give the rod a couple of good tugs to ensure the hook is set. Then I would not get too excited to pull the fish close to the boat. First thing is to get up every line or anything else that is hanging from the boat. This will hopefully keep the fish from getting tangled in other lines or chum bags, etc. After that keeping him away from the anchor line is most key. You will need to tire him out so bring him in and set the drag so he can swim away as he likes. Also if you have a lever drag reel (which I prefer for cobia) let the drag out more if he goes under the boat. The line is easily chaffed under the boat and you will be more likely to lose the fish. Walk around the boat if needed and do whatever you can to keep the boat, motor, etc. off the line.
Netting these guys can get tricky especially as they approach 50 and over. My best advice is to be far more patient than you ever want to be and let the fish tire itself out. If you try to take it too early you can tell it bye for now. This patience takes practice and dedication, your first instinct is to get it in the boat as soon as possible, don’t do it.
Hooks: For me I like good quality 7/0 J hooks. I know plenty of people that use circle hooks but I just prefer the old J hooks. Make sure you have a good quality knot, I like the Uni-Knot but others work well.
Bait:
Eels: These guys are tough to rig, I always say they are like a rodeo bull, you have about 8 seconds to get the hook. One of the best ways is to cool them down on ice for about 10 min before you rig them. For how, I hook them about ⅓ up from the tail, hopefully center mass as possible. Put them in the water as soon as possible, they can tangle themselves up on their line if left to their own devices.
A typical day I run four rods, rig the front two rods with #2 planners and the rear two with #1 planners. As for how far back behind the boat you go you may just have to work that out but I try to do either odd or even runs. For me a run is the level wind full right or full left but not both. So one run is from full left to full right of the level wind device. I run the front two deeper but closer to the boat and the back to shallower and further back. For me it just works better, has less chance of having tangles and when you catch a fish I think it increases the chances of not having the fish cross a line. Overall, I think this is contrary to popular fishing technique but I have good success with this setup.
Certainly one very important aspect is to actually count the distance out every time. This is the most likely reason for people having tangles between the rods. This happens more after you catch a fish so definitely take time to count each and every time. Your day will go better.
Speed: Ok ready to rumble? I tend to go more like 7 knots and it seems to work best. There is an old fisherman’s tale that says that if you are catching blues, speed up as blues can’t swim that fast. Now I don’t believe that is the reason but the effect is the same. I believe that blues don’t find the bait attractive at higher speeds. I say that because I have pulled through a school of blues at 10 knots and caught plenty. If a blue wants the lure it will take it but yes you do tend to get less blues at higher speeds but up to 10 makes it more difficult in my opinion and I think 7 serves me fine.
What to do when you catch one? Seems obvious you should just reel it in but Spanish are notorious at getting off especially if you are trolling fast. I have some friends that slow down dramatically, maybe 3 knots and I do agree that is a very good way to get them in especially if you have a novice reeling in the fish. You may not hook another fish while you are going that slow but you are more likely to get that one fish in the boat. If you do keep the boat in at full trolling speed it is important to coach the person to keep the rod tip up and reel as smoothly as possible. The key here is to keep the planner out of the water, if the planner sticks back in the water it is very likely that you will lose the fish. Kids seem to do better than big strong men because they can only reel but so fast.
Rigging: Off the back of the planner I connect the leader by at least one to three snap swivels. I use 20# flouro carbon leader and I make two sections of about 8 feet each tied together with a swivel in the middle. Keeping the lure from spinning is a key feature.
Bait/Lure: Either Clark or Drone spoons, I like Drone better only because the Clark hook is far more likely to break and I just get tired of that “feature” of the clark. I tend to go with 0 as opposed to the 00 or ones but I am not confident that matters a lot.
Had a great time today with our neighbor Tim and his daughter Lolo. Went out hoping for some Spanish Mackerel and a good day on the water with good friends. We (Scott’s boat) knew the seas were going to be choppy but decided we would at least look around to see if we could fish at all. The winds were strong and from the north. As we got out it was mostly calm until the fish trap areas at the mouth of the Great Wicomico. Instantly it would go from almost no waves to 3-4 feet. I can’t remember such a dramatic change in really just a hundred yards or so. So keeping closer to shore on the GW from about Cockerell’s to our Whay’s Creek we trolled for a few hours.
Well we did catch some fish. Ended the short day with 4 in the boat. Lolo of course showed up her dad by catching the most and the first and the biggest (by far). We lost the first one at the boat, mainly because he was across another line and Tim and I were not in sync on the lines crossed. Well a few minutes later she landed her first ever Spanish and it was a nice 23”.
We got a few more during the morning even though we caught as much grass as we did fish but it was a very good day. Lolo learned everything there was about fishing for Spanish. She reeled them in, set the lines, pull one over the transom that I caught, and every other aspect of the day. She was a good sport when we teased her a bit and seriously was one of the few that took the advice to smoothly reel in the fish. Many people tend to pull them in too quickly and they get off.
Just another good day on the water in my books and I am sure we will be taking them out again. She has gotten the bug!
Me showing her how she can safely hold her fishI guess this says it all
