Chesapeake Light Tackle

Tuesday was easily the best evening of my four fishing trips over the past six days. We had a flood incoming in the early afternoon, then kept outgoing current for over 5 hours past the predicted low. Outgoing has been the ticket in the area. Found some fish in the old haunts and also some new locations, all in shallow water, never over 20′ and usually 8-12′ Tuesday, it was keeper’s and up every cast, but Wednesday and Thursday we could only find little stripers with some snapper blues in the mix. There are more blues every day and there is a *lot* of bait in the area.

My fishing partners for two out of the three nights were Mitch and Rob. Mitch is my brother-in-law, an organic chemist from Michigan State, and he brought along a colleague. Mitch fished with me last summer, but Rob had never caught a fish before in his life. It didn’t take him long to learn.  He jigged up a mid-20 inch rockfish on his third cast.  We had a very nice evening filled with many fish.  The sunset pictures aren’t posed with fish out of the cooler, it’s when we caught the fish.  Everything we caught was released. Read More!

We’ve just had two of the most beautiful evenings of the year, and both were very unexpected. At 3:00 PM yesterday it was windy with pouring rain on Kent Island. Dave “Spynet” called and wanted to know if I was fishing. I looked out at the weather and said, “well, er, yeah, we can try it.” By 6:30 PM it was sunny skies and the Bay looked like glass. We didn’t have much time to fish, so we launched off Kent Island and risked the trip on a surgical strike to a nearby location that’s been holding fish. Dave had a new baitcasting rod & reel – dang, another carrot stix – and he was anxious to try it out.

He tied a hotrodded Mann’s Hardnose on to one of his custom jig heads and gave it a fling as soon as we came off plane. Boom, he hooked up on his first cast. Good initiation for an excellent outfit. He switched over to topwater after a while and was just as successful.  I was hoping to repeat past successes with the fly rod but I couldonly get small fish. I guess the big ones didn’t swim close enough to the boat last night.   Read More!

I fished off both sides of Kent Island yesterday and today, getting out in the late afternoons. Yesterday, I launched from the E. Bay side into a slack tide and had a tough time finding fish. I had a game plan but it wasn’t working out so well. Last week I lost my fly rod when I inadvertently left a fly in the water and took off. I looked back to see it going over the stern. I picked up another one over the weekend and wanted to try it out along with some new flies I tied up.

I pretty much suck at both fly tying and casting, but the fish have been active lately, so much so that even I can catch ’em with a long-rod. I finally found fish breaking in shallow water with no birds around to tip them off. Fortunately, they were a good class of fish and I was able to sneak right up on them and drift through as they were breaking. Here’s my nut and the blind squirrel that caught it. This is my first 30 inch class fish on a fly. Read More!

If you’ve been following my reports and articles you know I like to refer to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as Light Tackle University. It’s a fantastic area to learn the basics of light tackle fishing and an even better place to perfect advanced skills. Unfortunately, it’s been a slow spring at the bridge. Poor water quality has kept the fish farther south. Finally, things have changed enough for the usual early summer pattern to begin. Read More!

Memorial Day Weekend marks the start of summer for many Chesapeake boaters, but it means a slow-down in fishing for those of us who have been out all along. All the boat traffic on the Bay can put the fish in hiding, but it’s a tough time of year no matter what. Many anglers blame the slow fishing on may worms. May worms, also called clam worms, live on the shell bottoms of the bay and swarm during late May. The reddish worms can be up to 5 inches long and develop small swimming fins to propel them up from the bottom when they mate during the dark of the moon. I guess they are a tasty treat for rockfish. Some fish you catch this time of year area actually yellow or red tinged because of all the may worm gorging. Read More!

I’ve never fished for black drum and wanted to see it done so felt very fortunate that my friend Tim from Baltimore invited me along on a trip he had planned with one of my regular fishing partners Bill. Bill also invited his friend Ken. They went down Friday but I had to work so I planned to catch up with them for the Saturday part of their trip. I’d hoped to get an early start driving down the Eastern Shore but got another call and ended up fishing Friday in the Eastern Bay. After a couple of hours of a terrific striper bite, I pulled Crockett’s Reel out of the water at Shipping Creek at 5:30 PM and parked her back in my driveway. By 9:00 PM my butt was parked on a barstool at Kelly’s Pub in Cape Charles. Kelly’s just might be the best bar in the Mid-Atlantic. Read More!