Chesapeake Light Tackle

It’s not that hard, right?  You just open your mouth, close your eyes, and throw it back.  At least that’s how a lot of people eat oysters.  I wonder if they really like them, or just the idea of eating them?  I consider myself something of an oysterholic.  There’s only so long I can go without eating some.  I like them just about every way you can prepare them, but especially raw.  I have several friends who are also oysterholics. Since our problem is more than we can handle, we’ve developed a twelve-step-program.  Thank goodness they sell oysters by the dozen!

I remember the first oyster I ever tried.  It was spring break of my freshman year in college.  I visited a friend who lived on a boat along the Florida coast.  We were broke and hungry so he showed me how to wade out and catch oysters from the Apalachicola Bay. We shucked them with a screwdriver and ate them on the spot. They were delicious. I’ve since refined my techniques for finding and eating oysters, but I’ll never forget the first time. Read More!

Last December, I caught up with my friend Gaylon Thompson at one of my light tackle seminars in Severna Park, Maryland.  During the few minutes we had to talk, we wondered if we might be able to get in a fishing trip in early 2012.  I was very excited when Rich Jenkins called me last week to say he and Gaylon were heading down to Virginia to fish in the ocean Monday, and I was invited.  He also invited Jamie Clough.  We’ve been hearing about the coastline bite for a while now from Wild Bill and other fishermen who follow the migration.  Even though I’m turning up a few hard-to-catch but very big fish here in the Bay, we couldn’t resist giving it a go. Our first challenge was deciding whether to fish the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, or the ocean. We called, emailed, and Facebooked everyone we could think of seeking advice. Some of our friends came though, especially “Hillbilly Boater” Jack, and a couple of Jamie’s buddies. I also got some good info from some of Tattoo Charlie’s buds on Facebook. Read More!

I’ll get a fishing report up by the first of the week, but I need to do a little housekeeping first. Here’s where I’ll be the rest of this winter and spring. I’ll update this entry with more links and additional dates when they come available:

January 21 – Marty’s Sporting Goods, Edgewater, Maryland:  A book signing coupled with deep discounts on lures and fishing tackle.  I’ll be there from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM.  This shop has a great selection of light tackle essentials.

January 31 – Nick’s Fish House, Baltimore, Maryland:  This is the January chapter meeting for the CCA Baltimore Chapter.  I’m only signing books here, but my good friend and frequent fishing partner Dave Gobeli will have a presentation on lure making.  I can tell you first hand, Dave knows his stuff!  I hope you’ll come and plan to hang around awhile afterwards because this will be a fun meeting!

February 25 – Saltwater Fishing Expo, Annapolis, Maryland: I’ll have a table with books and I’m speaking at noon.  Light Tackle Strike Triggers including a brand new PowerPoint presentation with photos, lures, diagrams, and video. Read More!

If the next 51 weeks of 2012 go as well as the first one, this promises to be a very good year for light tackle fishing on the Chesapeake Bay. I’ve fished four times and caught a Diamond Jim qualifying citation fish on each trip including three rockfish in the mid 40-inch range. I’m chalking it up to a little experience, some insider information, and a lot of luck.  My son, “Big Fish Cory” has been visiting. Although he didn’t catch any trophies this time around, he still brought along his lucky horseshoe.  Chesapeake striped bass fishermen have two basic winter options.  One is to fish deep holes – either in the main stem of the Bay or up in the outside bends of the rivers – and the other is to work the warm water discharges. Since we’ve had a very mild winter so far, the warm water discharges have been inconsistent.  I decided to split the difference and fish the last four days close to home off Kent Island.

One of the best places I know of to jig up deep water rockfish is the Bay Bridge.  Two- and three-year-old-stripers and white perch survive the cold winter by stacking up around the Bay Bridge rock piles. They’ll stay there until the spring freshet washes out their warm water comfort zones. Even though they are readily apparent on a fish finder, they aren’t always easy to catch. To coax a strike out of deep-water stripers you just have to aggravate them until they bite.  You can jig for hours and not get a single strike, then, snap – the fish will turn on and you’re catching every cast. Read More!

“One last drift,” I called up. My son was casting from the bow while I piloted the boat. It was getting dark and we had New Year’s Eve dinner plans in Annapolis, so we had to go. The better fish were holding in a warm water pyconocline; a spot no bigger than a pickup truck bed, 40-feet deep. I pointed the bow of my 27 Judge CC into the swift current and idled us into a position just downstream from the rocky corner.  Daniel compensated for the strong flow and launched his hotrodded chartreuse BKD toward an imaginary spot 20-yards upstream from where he wanted his lure to touch the bottom. In water this swift, he’d be lucky if his jig bumped the rocks three times before it drifted downstream out of the strike zone.  A successful cast either caught a fish, or brought up a clump of the brown bryzoan moss that covers the bottom. The only other option was to hang up. He brought his elbows together beneath the low-profile baitcaster and followed the arc of his line with his extra-fast rod tip as he anticipated the slight bump that would tell him his lure had touched the rocks.

Bump. There it was. A quick snap of the wrist picked the jig back up before it had time to snag on the bottom. Again, he followed the line with his rod tip and waited for the bump as the lure fell. Watching the drop. Anticipating. Any moment now. Slam!  Daniel set the hook and fought another 24-inch football-shaped striper to the side of the boat.  That made seventeen in 90 minutes – a fun evening of catch & release fishing very close to home. Read More!

December brings my favorite day of the year. A day I look forward to so much that I can’t sleep. When that joyful morning arrives, I’m usually up before dawn, caught up in the magic of this time of year. If you’re like me, I know you’re looking forward to it too, and you’ve probably guessed that I’m not speaking of the joy of Christmas morning. The most wonderful time of the year for me and most of my light tackle friends is the opening of catch & release season. It started last week in the Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Gone are the fair-weather boaters with their blaring boom boxes. No more trollers claiming quarter-mile planer board right-of-ways, or obnoxious VHF broadcasters insulting everyone 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.  Now that I think about it, it’s better than Christmas!

Read More!