Mom-Mom's Double Header

One thing was made clear in early July, when Mom-Mom gets quiet, you might want to get the net. Mom caught two keepers in late June and early July. One was caught on the Get Sum and one on the Happy Ours. 

Going Pro in OC

Going to Ocean City with just the guys can mean only one thing: non stop hardcore fishing. At the end we had fished 14 hours in one day, hitting each tide as it came and went. Truly, if we hadn't fished so hard we might not have caught much at all. It was persistence and more advanced techniques that paid off. We started at 5 AM by the Rt. 50 but without much luck we moved to the inlet's south jetty. We spent much of the day and evening there as flounder were hard to come by (2 shorts) with seaweed everywhere we tried to drift.  The evening at sunset is when it really turned on. We ended the day with 20 Striped Bass and a nice sized keeper blue.  The Stripers were mostly over 18 inches with many over 20 up to Seth's 27 incher, one inch short of a keeper in Ocean City. Most were caught on white bucktails with curly tails. A few were caught on a fly and eel rig with one also came aboard from a rattletrap. Here's some of the action from the new Go Pro camera.

Captain Nick and the Great Buildup

 Is he a pirate? Does he have a mustache? Is he nice? Is he a big guy with a blue hat? All were questions from the new four year old, Tyler, when he was told we were going on a boat with a Captain.  Captain Nick didn't have on a hat but he was very nice with the kids as he put us on the fish. We took the trip hoping to pick up some new styles of fishing. Captain Nick had us using spec rigs and bucktails to get into some Blues and Shad. We ended the night with 5 nice sized Bluefish, over a dozen Hickory Shad, a Cownose Ray and 2 small Stripers. Working under birds in the inlet, south of the 50 bridge was the ticket. It was a great family night with everyone catching at least one fish.

My Biggest Fish

After a full afternoon evening of fishing we were starting to doubt our abilities. "Five more minutes," someone said as the sun was just about set. It wasn't but a moment later and Greg yelled,"we're on, we're on, we're on," as dragged ripped out of the back reel. It was finally my turn and I slow played the fish as I waited for the lines to get cleared since the fish was staying down and moving laterally. After we got the fish in it was clearly my biggest, weighing over 15 pounds and 36 inches. The striped bass was caught on a white umbrella roughly 22 feet deep just outside of the Magothy.

Holy Cow

We finally ran into a big fish this spring, after a few unsuccessful days. Our excitement turned to concern after seeing the fishes big belly. We worried that perhaps it was a female filled with eggs but realized it was too late to send the fish back. We were very excited to find out that the 35 inch fish was gorging itself with lots of baitfish. It looked to be almost a dozen 6-12 inch Menhaden that came from its full belly. The fish was caught deep on a white umbrella/tandem with a 6 inch shad. 

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.