Chesapeake Light Tackle

Looks like we’re settled in to a pretty typical summer pattern of breaking fish over hard bottoms.  The action around the mouth of Eastern Bay has slowed somewhat, but there’s plenty of fish on the west side from Thomas Point Light all the way down Cove Point.  I haven’t seen any huge schools of fish yet, just roving bands of stripers and bluefish.  They’re up and down quickly, so you have to have a good eye and react quickly when you see birds close to the water.  Since bluefish will quickly devour soft plastics, I’m throwing mostly metal jigs but occasionally switching to some of the newer generation plastics that are resistant to being bitten off.  

I fished Wednesday evening with Mark on board Der Fischadler II.  We found fish right away, but lost our current and had some inactivity for a while.  We saved the day by looking around a little and finished the night with all the fish we could handle.  It gave me a chance to try out some new flies I’ve tied and experiment with other new lures.

Last night I fished with Dianne’s sister Judy and her friend Karen.  Neither of the girls have done much fishing, but they wanted to try.  We were fortunate to find dish-calm seas as we made the run across from Matapeake to Thomas Point.  Immediately after I showed them how to hold the line with their index finger and turn over the bell spring to cast, Karen hooked a cownose ray on her very first jig of her very first cast.   I guess that’s the Chesapeake Light Tackle version of a “baptism by fire.”

We chased breaking schools all the way down to Parkers Creek.  The water is stained considerably up by the rivers, but clears up once you get south of Chesapeake Beach.  My strategy for finding the fish was to run about a half-mile off the western shore and scan out toward the channel.  More often than not we popped right in on top of the fish.  None of our fish were very big, I may have had a couple of 26 inchers, but everyone onboard had fun and the action was fast and furious at times.

Some bigger fish have been showing up lately in this and other parts of the Bay, so I’m hoping to get in a couple of serious trips next week in search of those illusive summertime 30 inchers.