p71600181Tonight’s fishing partners were Rich and James.  Rich and I have fished together frequently, and this is my third time on the water with James.  We launched into Eastern Bay at the Shipping Creek ramp and ran out toward the main Bay.  It took a little more looking around than it did Tuesday evening, but we eventually found fish in 33 feet.   We noticed a few bluefish on the surface here and there.  The sonar told a completely different story though, with fish stacked up top to bottom.

When I’m lucky enough to find breakers over deep water, I always reach for the bottom with my jig, even though it’s relatively easy to catch fish at lesser depths.  Bigger fish run deep beneath the breakers preferring to pick up the scraps left over by the more energetic younger fish.  Rich hooked up a pretty good fish right away on a hot-rodded Mann’s Hardnose bait and a one ounce jig head, and followed it right up with a bigger one that got off beside the boat.  James and I didn’t make it down fast enough with our metal jigs and ended up with a couple of bluefish which I decided to keep.

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The fish were moving fast, rounding up deep bait schools and chasing them up to the surface.  We lost them after about 30 minutes.  My feeling is that the schools headed south toward Sharps Island, but I didn’t want to get too far from home in the 15 knot winds.  Instead, I decided to run north near the channel edge.  That turned out to be a bust when we found nothing but a few terns diving here and there over isolated bait pods.  I pointed the boat back toward shallow water and ran straight down on birds and breakers in 10 feet.  We played around with them for a while in the strong incoming current.  James hooked up two cownose rays and Rich tied into one as well, but most of the fish we caught were small stripers.

p7160010We eventually abandoned the breakers and set up on a long northerly drift over a sandy bottom at sunset with an occasional decent fish to show for our efforts.  A good night of catching even if the fish weren’t trophies.  Dinner was fresh bluefish filets, homegrown tomatoes (delivered by Mark & Eva just before the fishing trip), and Eastern Shore lima beans which Dianne shelled as I cleaned the fish.  This will be my last trip until next week as we’re off to Nashville to hear my son Daniel play live on the Grand Ole Opry.  p7160008

Posted Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Filed Under Category: Fishing Reports
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Responses to “Eastside Story”

  1. James says:

    Was a great time on the water as always & nice meeting Rich. I don’t know why the rays love me so much.

    I’ll be sure the check out the TV and see if your son is on. Have a great trip.

    Thanks again Shawn!

  2. Kevin says:

    Shawn,

    I like the new format on your site. Have fun at the Grand Ole Opry. We’ll keep exercising the fish while your away.

  3. Shawn says:

    Thanks, Kevin.

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