Finding Nemo

Good anglers fish a lot.  They are out on the water enough to know the seasonal patterns as well as the small changes that move fish around from week to week. Three weeks ago we limited out in the Patapsco in an hour, fish were everywhere, bait was everywhere. Things seemed different today as we had to work to find the fish. It seemed that the bait was much more sparse and the Stripers were more spread out. The only Rockfish we saw grouped together seemed to lay on the bottom in 50 feet of water. Its great to have a quality fish finder (we use a Lowrance Hds) that is dialed in ( thanks to Captain Tom Hughes). It's also important to have a network of anglers to call and read reports from so when you can't get out as regularly as you'd like to you can stay on top of the ever moving fish.  Using the information gained from sources was helpful but nothing replaces time on the water.  Thanks to being able to pick up and run though we were able to find a keeper each in a few hours on both sides of low tide. 

First Light, First Bite

Saturday November 2cd, was the perfect fall fishing day. We hit the boat ramp in the dark and navigated a couple hundred yards from our ideal fishing spot in the Upper Bay, giving us enough time to set out our trolling setup-or so we thought. The water was flat as a lake and the light was just starting to paint the horizon, when our first set rod hit, as we worked to get out a tandem rig. It was a tony 17, (thanks to the TFers for help in how to run these) that brought the 19 plus fish aboard.  Greg commented that he felt like he couldn't relax as we quickly had a two man limit within one hour while he struggled to get out our six rod spread. We decided to use a "boca style" grip to take care in de-hooking, while leaving the fish in the water and released several fish. This is a great tool to have in your arsenal.  In just a few hours we caught 9 Rock, all over 18 and up to around 24 inches.