Click the Book Covers Below to Buy the Books
Recommendations
I’ve mentioned in previous reports that there are an extraordinary number of striped bass in the Bay this winter. It’s never been unusual to find a few big fish here and there during cold weather, but each year there seem to be more nice fish wintering over. I’ve managed a couple of trips this week with very good results as you can see in the photos below. Curious about why there are so many January rockfish, I put the question to Maryland Department of Natural Resources Senior Fisheries Biologist “Rockfish” Rudy Lukacovic when I ran into him at the Boatyard Bar & Grill in Annapolis one evening this week. Rudy thinks it’s all a part of changing migration patterns. He also noted that there have been fewer fish in the usual wintering grounds off the coast of the Carolinas in recent years. Read More!
One of my favorite things about cold-weather fishing is seeing the many species of migratory waterfowl in the Chesapeake Bay. Although numbers have fallen in recent years, there are still plenty of sea ducks, tundra swans, and snow geese around. There seem to be more this year than I’ve seen in my previous four winters fishing the Bay. Today I joined my neighbor Mark for an early morning outing onboard his Parker 2520, Fischadler II. Protected from the sub-freezing temps by the shelter of the pilot house, we launched from Queen Anne Marina on Kent Island and turned south in the direction of Bloody Point Lighthouse. There was no chance to bird-watch in the pre-dawn darkness, so we put that off for later and set our sites on rockfish. After a little running we managed to find a fishing spot and catch and release some respectable winter stripers. Read More!
Gone are the fair-weather boaters with their blaring radios and boats bristling with broomsticks. No more planer-board trollers claiming 300 foot right-of- ways, or obnoxious broadcasters insulting everyone with a VHF radio within 50 miles. Catch & release season is the time of year when the one-man-one-rod concept reigns supreme. It’s when you can run on-plane for miles in the wide-open Bay and never see another fishing boat. A time when there’s very little competition for prime fishing spots, and a small but tight fraternity of hard-core fishermen brave the elements to jig the cold-weather hotspots. I anticipate the start of C&R season like a kid waits for Christmas.
My sons Jacob and Daniel are visiting from Tennessee this week. We’ve been trying to work a fishing trip into our schedule, but we couldn’t get it all together until today. Read More!
I hope to get in another fishing trip or two before the end of the year, but I want to take a few minutes to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Even though I’ve been off the water for a while, I haven’t been completely idle. I’m finally doing some serious boat shopping and narrowing my choices to what I hope will be the best possible light tackle fishing platform. I’ll keep you posted. 2010 promises some big changes for me and Chesapeake Light Tackle. I want to thank everyone who has visited this year. Since January we’ve seen over twenty thousand individual visitors, and many of you have come back time after time to read the latest fishing reports and articles. Out of over a hundred thousand page hits, we’ve had visitors from twenty countries and every state in the US. I was recently informed that CLT ranks as the second most visited Read More!
While I’m still stuck slogging through the DC sludge, some intrepid light-tackle fishermen are braving the cold conditions in the Chesapeake and lighting up the winter hotspots. My friends Nick & Shane got out in the Mid-Bay one morning this past week and found some nice fish including this 42 incher caught jigging structure with soft plastic baits. There are still some good fish in the area. Every year more and more rockfish winter over in the Bay. They sometimes hold semi-dormant in deep holes where the water is warmer, but actively feeding fish are found in areas of high turbulence. Although stripers love fast-moving water any time of year, in cold weather they are especially attracted to locations where downward agitation forces bait deep into the warmer layers of the thermo/pycnocline.
Winter fish prefer warm water layers even when there is more bait closer to the cooler surface. In other words, they’d rather eat a little in an area where they are comfortable than a lot in a place where they’re not. A perfect example of this is the wintertime fishery I call Light Tackle University. The Bay Bridge usually holds fish well into February, but the trick is knowing how to find them.
Perhaps not for me, but for some fishermen this has been one of the best Decembers on record. The mid-Chesapeake Bay has been red hot, especially at some of the more challenging jigging locations such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Check out this hawg. According to the report I got, it was jigged up at the bridge on November 29th. The fish was weighed in at Anglers Bait Shop and officially checked in at 53 inches weighing 63 pounds. That’s only 5 pounds short of the state record and easily the best fish caught on a jig I’ve heard of at the Bay Bridge. Unfortunately, like most truly monumental fish, the details are sketchy. No matter how it was caught, it’s obviously a fish of a lifetime for the angler who landed it. There have been some very nice fish caught on eels at the bridge recently, with some fishermen reporting 40 inch plus fish. They are few and far between with most requiring hours of patience to turn up one or two trophy size stripers. Due to a frantic work schedule, my fishing trips have been extremely limited, but I managed to get out Sunday afternoon for some light tackle fishing at the well-known location I frequently refer to as “light tackle university.”
