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There aren’t many critters in Chesapeake country that are hated as much as cownose rays. Mention them around Bay fishermen and you’re sure to hear a few four-letter words. It’s probably because they steal a lot of lures. Some rays are so big and strong that many anglers simply cut their lines instead of trying to land them to get their equipment back. Then, there’s the knowledge that one painful slap from a ray’s long spiny tail can put you in the hospital, or that some people believe they can devastate a shellfish bar overnight with their powerful crushing jaws.
Yeah, most people hate them. So, it might seem a little odd that some organizations have started promoting them as a food source. In fact, the Virginia Marine Products Board is working hard to develop a commercial market for Chesapeake ray meat. From what I hear, it’s catching on. A grocery store in Hunt Valley, Maryland recently cooked some in the aisle and gave away free samples. They sold all they had on hand. When it comes to culinary trends, I’m somewhat adventurous, and since I generally like seafood and didn’t grow up with prejudices against rays, I’ve been thinking about bringing one home to see what all the fuss is about. My buddy Rich hooked a twenty-pounder just before dark last Wednesday evening, and fought it to the edge of the boat. Here’s how things turned out.
It’s summer and you live in the land of pleasant living. I hope you’re enjoying it. If your idea of fun is sitting in the hot sun, live-lining, soaking bait, or trolling, this entry isn’t for you. But if you like blasting through the spray on a fast boat, swerving around hairpin turns, and stopping on a dime to cast top-water plugs & jigs toward screaming birds over frenzied fish, you’re in the right place to enjoy some of the most exciting action the Bay has to offer. On an average summer day, a knowledgeable light tackle angler will catch more fish by accident than most bait fishermen can catch on purpose in a year. It’s time for running and gunning beneath working birds on the Chesapeake Bay. Summer breakers are here, and it’s your mission to find them. In an earlier segment, I wrote about how important it is to stay as close as possible to hard bottoms when looking for open-water summer fish. In this entry, I’ll say a little about looking for breakers including some strategies for fishing beneath working birds. I’ll also mention some individual species and cover what they might tell us about the fish. Read More!
Have you been to the mouth of Eastern Bay looking for breakers lately? Find any? It will eventually get better, but so far they’ve been few and far between. If you think there are fewer breaking rockfish in the Chesapeake Bay this summer, you’re right. I believe it’s due to several factors including low salinity and less bait, but I’m afraid the primary reason is because there are fewer fish. The rockfish we normally see blitzing in the summer months are either juveniles too young to migrate up the coast, or residents that for whatever reason decide to stay in the Chesapeake year round. It’s not hard to figure out why there are so few resident fish this year. All it takes is a glance back to last February’s news reports when our Natural Resource Police pulled tons and tons of dead fish out of illegal gill nets. No one can say for sure how many illegal fish leave Maryland. It’s very possible that over a hundred thousand pounds of resident fish are stolen every winter from the Chesapeake Bay. Is it any surprise that the fish aren’t where they’ve always been this summer? It’s extremely frustrating, but since you’re probably here for a fishing report, let’s talk about how to find the few schools of breaking fish we have left. In this entry I’ll begin a series of tips for finding blitzing rockfish and bluefish in the Chesapeake. Read More!
Mmm, July on Kent Island: when the water is savory and smooth and salted with all manner of boats, when tourists flock to the Eastern Shore beaches and bridge traffic backs up for miles while drivers peek over the rail for a glimpse of the sparkling spectacle that is summertime on the Chesapeake Bay. Summer can be both sweet and sour to Chesapeake fishermen. Sometimes we wonder if it’s worth trying to fish in this Hell’s Kitchen of boats, everyone jockeying for the single best position from which to make the sweetest cast. But fish we must, so we line up like line cooks to join the fray, vowing to stay even-tempered when inevitable conflicts arise and deluding ourselves that, when we get there, we’ll have that delicious “top-secret” spot all to ourselves. Mmm, mmm, summertime, sweet summertime. Read More!
Okay, so this entry might be a little heavy on the fireworks and light on the rockfish. That’s because I’m not too good at fishing in crowds, so I spent most of last weekend doing chores around the house. That’s not to say I didn’t get some time in on the water. In fact, I don’t think I missed a day, but most of my time on Thunder Road was spent cruising to fireworks shows around Kent Island. Since this is a fishing website, I’ll start with a catching report. I met Rich at Sandy Point State Park Friday afternoon for a few minutes of piling picking onboard his 19′ Sea Hunt center console. There was very little wind but plenty of boat wakes, so we took our time getting to the our fishing spots. We had a ripping outgoing current so we rigged up soft plastic lures on three-quarter ounce jig heads. I was throwing a hotrodded white 6″ BKD and Rich had on some kind of chartreuse lure I didn’t recognize. I think we caught keeper size stripers on our first four casts, so we could have had a 5-minute limit. We stayed with it for two and a half hours and released 27 keepers with plenty of shorts. We caught on both the east and west sides of the bridge, even sneaking in downstream of some bored-looking live-liners who didn’t seem to share our amusement when we pulled nice fish right out from under the pilings where they were anchored. Read More!
Have you heard? Light tackle casting is producing big fish lately on the Chesapeake Bay. Some lucky anglers are catching fish over 30-inches on almost every trip. Sometimes they get three or four. Most of the fish I’m catching are coming off cover like rocks or bridge pilings, but some have been hooked while fishing submerged structure in open water. Both soft plastics and metal jigs are producing. If you’ve been out, I hope you’re enjoying some lucky days. 30-inch plus stripers in late June is something to celebrate, especially considering how tough fishing has been previously.
In my opinion, seasoned anglers make a lot of their own luck. Since the fish are more inclined to bite now, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss tips for hooking and landing bigger fish – just some little things that can move fishermen up from the usual summer schoolies to true summer trophies. You probably have a few tips as well, so feel free to share them in the comments section. I’ll start with the basics: Read More!
