Susquehanna Flats

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After I had my successful trip to the Susquehanna Flats last year, I told my friend Trey that he had to come and join me this year to catch some Chesapeake Bay Rockfish.  He's more of a freshwater angler, typically hooking up with Largemouth Bass in the local lakes by his home in western Virginia.  He has never fished for Striped Bass before, and I wanted to share the fun and excitement of reeling one in with him.

The calm Susky Flats

So for a whole year, we waited in eager anticipation for catch and release season to open on the Flats.  We  had a couple schedule conflicts in the beginning of the season, but finally settled on a date when both of us were free to make a trip to Havre de Grace to fish.  The year-long wait was finally over. Unfortunately, the weeks leading up to the trip only yielded poor reports of Rockfish in the Susquehanna Flats, and I was losing confidence that we would actually hook up with any Rockfish.  I let my friend know about the reports, and suggested some other alternatives like fishing for Catfish, or maybe even joining the Mid-Atlantic Kayak Bass Fishing tournament.  He was okay with the odds of not catching anything, so we stuck with our plan and made preparations to launch from Millard Tydings Memorial Park at sunrise on Saturday April 27th.


We got to the ramp at exactly 6:00AM, and met fellow MKF forum members DaveFX35 and Yak Fish.  They have had a couple trips under their belt already this year, so we chatted a little to talk about our plans for the day and to discuss what techniques we would try.  It seemed the name of the game for kayak fishing the Susquehanna Flats was trolling jerkbaits.  The Flats is a huge body of water, and the fish are typically schooled up in small areas, so trolling is just the easiest way to cover all that water to find them.

Trey's all set and ready to go.

Trey and I were lucky to get a parking spot immediately next to the ramp, so we just carried our kayaks and gear down to the floating dock and rigged up there.  Within the next hour we were on the water and ready to paddle into the big expanse of water known as the Susquehanna Flats.  We stuck with Yak Fish at first, and he suggested that we spread out to cover more water, and we could call each other up if we hooked up with any fish.  That sounded good, so Yak Fish went further north, and Trey and I headed straight east from the marina.

White Perch on a crankbait.

I trolled a Rapala XR-10 in black and white on one rod, and a silver Rattle Trap on a second rod.  Trey trolled 2 shallow-diving crankbaits that he uses for Largemouth Bass fishing.  We started zig-zagging across the water, while heading South when I saw a group of boats gathered together on the East side of the Flats.  I suggested to Trey that we check it out, so we started paddling over.  At one point we hit some water about 4 feet in depth, and Trey said he hooked up with a Shad on one of his crankbaits.  I don't think I've ever heard of Shad hitting crankbaits, so that was interesting.  Trey got the skunk off him early, and apparently the fish was pretty decent in size (I didn't get to see it) so he was happy to have caught a fish at all today.  He wanted to see if he could catch any more, so he started casting his crankbait and working it in that area, and he started hooking up with some small white perch!  I couldn't believe it...it hasn't even been an hour yet and he's out-fishing me 3-to-0! 

28 inch beauty.

After snapping some pictures of his micro-catches, we continued on toward the group of boats when....I heard my rod bouncing up and down!  A fish on my rod with the X-Rap!  I took hold of the fishing rod, and fought for a good couple minutes to get the fish in.  When I caught sight of it, I knew it was an active, decent sized Rockfish with 2 treble hooks on its lips.  I've watched videos showing how to extract hooks from your flesh, but I didn't want to ever have to try it out on myself or anyone I know...so I was in no hurry to get the fish on board.  After a couple good drag-pulling runs, the fish was calm enough to get on the boat.  A nice, fat, 28 inch Rockfish.  My biggest fish ever!  From shore, pier and boat.  I took a couple pictures of the beauty, and Trey also took a couple pics of me and her together, then back to the water she went.  Luckily the fight didn't wear her out too much - she swam right off as soon as she got wet.

17" Bass on an XR-10

Look at all those holes on its lips.  This guy does not learn....

 Excited about the catch, I called Yak Fish and DaveFX35 to let them know about the conditions of the catch.  4 feet of water, paddling east, on an XR-10.  Hopefully with those facts, they can catch some fish too.  Unfortunately, for the next 5 hours we trolled all over the flats from 4 feet to 10 feet and not another Rockfish was caught by anyone in our group.  However, it still was not a bust.  Trey and I actually hooked up with a combined 5 Largemouth Bass in the middle of the flats!  Each time I hooked up with one I was hopeful that it was a Striped Bass because of how hard the initial hits were.  Susquehanna Bass are very stocky and can give up a good fight.  What was interesting was that all 5 of them were 17 inches long.  No shorter, no longer.  With the non-existent Rockfish, the Largemouth Bass were welcome by-catches of the day.

Trey's 17" Bass on a shallow-diving Crankbait.

We called it quits around noon, and spent about 30 minutes paddling back to the launch ramp.  We loaded up the gear and went to the outdoor grill that they have next to the park and marina.  The food was pretty good, and the atmosphere of being in the sun by the water with lots of people enjoying the day was great.  Though I wouldn't say the trip was a success in terms of catching loads of Rockfish, it was still a successful day in that neither of us got skunked, neither of us turtled, I got my personal best fish ever, and Trey is now a fan of Kayak Fishing.

I love pit beef, and I love hush puppies.

Kayak Son Fishin'

The weather's been getting warmer, the days have been getting longer, and I've been itching to try taking my 3 year-old son, Caleb, on my kayak with me.  I had plans to go kayak fishing on the Susquehanna Flats with a friend of mine this weekend, and he has never fished from a kayak before.  We thought it would be a good idea to get his feet wet by taking him to a small lake in my neighborhood the evening before.  Since it was going to be a quick trip to a small lake, and the weather has been nice, I thought it would also be a good opportunity to take my son out on the water with me.

Future Kayak Anglers

Right after work I hurried home to load up my kayaks and to pick up my son to go kayaking.  My friend arrived shortly after I finished loading up the 'yaks and we made our way to the lake.  He's a bigger guy than I am, so I gave him the Prowler 13 to fish in, and I took the Tarpon 100 with Caleb.  The Tarpon 100 is a great small water kayak!  It is light, quick to set up (the seat is permanently attached, so you don't have to rig it in when you are setting up), tracks decently well, and it is super stable.

Safety first!  Caleb in his brand new PFD.

I sat my son in front of me as I paddled along, and he had a great time.  He helped me paddle the boat, helped me reel in fish (a Crappie and a Largemouth Bass), and even took my picture for me.  As the sun started to set, we packed up and headed home for dinner and some nice rest for the big day that my friend and I had coming up the next morning.

Why is there a lemon juice bottle in the picture, you ask?  I'll explain in a later post...

A crappie!

You can always tell when Caleb takes the picture...his fingers show up on the edges.

Tuckahoe Creek

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My buddy Charles has been studying all during his Spring break, and he wanted to do some fishing today.  He hasn't been kayak fishing before, so I wanted to go somewhere that was a nice easy paddle with a high chance of catching fish.  I settled on going back to Tuckahoe Creek in Hillsboro for some yellow perch, crappie, or catfish.

First time taking both boats out at once!

Today was supposed to start out cold and warm up in the afternoon, so we weren't really in a hurry to get to the creek today.  We arrived at the boat ramp around 11:30AM and took our time getting ready.  We probably got on the water around noon to some light winds and decently warm temperatures.

A nice, quiet place.

We made our way upstream to where I had some success last year, but I was disappointed to see that the shoreline had changed a bit since then.  There were more downed trees, and the water seemed shallower than what I remembered.  Anyway, we sent down some live minnows on circle hooks for a while without so much as a nibble.  We spent pretty much the next 3 hours just paddling around and trying different spots without much success.  I was the only one to hook up today, with a 9.5" yellow perch that came home for dinner - it was barely enough for everyone in the family to taste it.  We also saw 2 other boats out there (1 jon boat and 1 canoe).  Neither of them were getting many bites today, so it seems the fish just weren't too active today.  My guess is that the water was still too cold...maybe in a couple more weeks the fishing should pick up here.

This was the clearest water I have paddled in this year.

Still, it was a good time of catching up with Charles during the 1 hour trip to and from Hillsboro, and he enjoyed his first kayak fishing  trip (though he almost turtled).

Charles doing some shore fishing after.

Catfishin' in the Mattawoman

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I guess it's officially a tradition now for me to catch some fresh fish whenever my mother-in-law visits.  I wanted to go fishing for keeps, and I was hoping for some blue catfish, since that is one of my wife's preferred fish to eat.  I thought about trying for them in the Occoquan, but the past 2 skunky trips I've had there didn't give me any confidence that I would be able to catch anything for the dinner table.  I knew people were catching blue catfish in the Mattawoman through the winter, so I settled on going there.

The day started with calm water

I arrived at the Slavin's ramp and was on the water by 7:30AM.  At this point in the day the wind was non-existent and the water was calm as glass.  The wind was forecasted to be 10-15 mph, so I was relieved by the conditions.  I headed upstream straight to a deep hole that I knew existed from the last time I went to the Mattawoman creek in the summer.  We had done well with blue catfish there.  Before anchoring up to soak my bottom rigs with nightcrawlers, I fished around some of the nearby structure to see if I could bring up some crappie.  I wasn't getting a single hit, and ended up losing a rig, so I gave up on that real soon.  The water clarity was pretty poor too, so I was doubtful that I would catch them anyway.

To give you an idea of the water clarity...

I then proceeded to paddle around the area, carefully watching my fish finder, to see if there might be any slimy creatures around.  As I approached the hole, I could see lots of marks starting from the edge of the channel on into the deeper part - they were in 8 to 13 feet of water.  I went on to the other side of the channel and let down my anchor to hold my position.  I had heard that catfish are real lazy, and don't like to chase around their food, so I made sure to bring an anchor with me today.

I put out two lines with nightcrawlers and immediately hooked up with a small white perch, which I kept around to use as cut bait (didn't do any good, as I didn't get any hits on it).  Soon after, I caught two 23" blue catfish back-to-back.  "This is going to be a great day!" I thought, as I started planning who I might give extra fillets to with the mess of fish I was going to catch.  Unfortunately, that was all the action that I got for the next 3 hours.  The forecasted 10-15 mph winds showed up around the time I got the last catfish, and it was COLD!  I guess that's the thing about soaking baits...you aren't moving around much, and if you've got wet hands, they're going to get cold.

I eventually tried another spot further upstream where I knew there was another deep hole, but I didn't even get a nibble for about an hour that I was there.  At least I was protected a bit from the wind at this location... Even though things were not looking good, I kept telling myself that I need to catch just one more fish before heading in.  However, the wind and cold got the better of me, and I headed in around 11:30 AM.  The paddle in was tough with the wind to my face and my fingers feeling like they were going to fall off.  I had some water proof, insulated gloves - but I had left them in the car when I saw the calm conditions in the morning.  I should have just taken them anyway...

The creek looks like a totally different place without all the summer-time foliage.

Well, even though it was a slow day, I achieved my goal of bringing home fresh fish, and we fried up the catfish for dinner.  I brought them home in my cooler without any ice, and they were still alive after the 1.5 hour drive home.  These are some hardy fish!

After I got home from fishing, we took my boys and mother-in-law to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space museum.  That was a neat place to visit.

An Almost Crappy Day

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What better way to spend the last day of 2012 than being on the water with some of your fishing buddies, right?  Well, Ryan and I were able to convince Mike to come out in the cold and join us for some crappie and possibly some catfish this New Year's Eve day.  The day before was super windy, so I thought "Whew!  We missed the bad weather, it should be a great day!"  But as I've seen on other occasions after windy days, the water was really low compared to the other times I had fished here in November.  It was so low that I was actually able to paddle under the docks at the marina across the river from the park.  I read a report from another angler on the Severn that the water was unusually low there too.  I'll have to keep that in mind next time I think about fishing after a windy day.

Low water level

It was cold, the water was low and muddy, and the fishing was slow.  However, all three of us were able to manage to catch at least one keeper crappie that day.  Ryan and Mike only had MD licenses, and the MD/VA reciprocity agreement starts at the route 95 bridge, so we started out by jigging the route 95 bridge pilings for some crappie, where we each caught our skunk saver fish.  However, none of us could manage to catch another after about an hour and a half of slowly moving around the pilings.  I tried the technique that worked for me last time, of dropping my jig down about 4 feet from the bottom and slowly paddling around the pilings.  I got a lot of hits this way, but only brought up one keeper crappie and a small one after that. 

Eventually, we moved on to try some of the other marinas that were out closer to the mouth of the river.  We all kind of split up and fished different areas.  Mike and I thoroughly fished different marina docks for a while, and Ryan tried soaking some minnows to wrestle up a monster flathead catfish.  Again, none of us had much success - except Mike did hook up with a 20 inch blue catfish on one of his gulp grubs.  We were split up, so I didn't get to grab a picture of him with the fish.  We then moved back to the bridge to see if things might have heated up, but I only managed one more keeper before we gave up.  Though the fishing was slow, and it was freezing, it was a great day on the water with my fishing buddies.

My unimpressive cooler of fish.  Thanks to Ryan and Mike for giving me their keepers!

Maybe I knew the day would be uneventful and needed something else to write about...or maybe the cold water did something to me...but while jigging the bridge I did something I thought that I would never do.  While starting my migration to the docks, I made some final attempts at jigging the bridge pilings in hopes of finally finding that huge school of slab crappies.  At some point I had a tangle at the end of my rod, so I tried to untangle it by shaking my rod to free the hook.  While shaking it over the side of my kayak, I just watched as my hand autonomously opened its grip on my rod and let it go...PLOP!  I let out a loud groan as I watched my less-than-a-year-old ultralight outfit go down into the depths of the river.

The last 2 times I fished the Occoquan I only brought my single ultralight rod with me to catch crappie.  By chance this trip, I brought a second rod with me to try for catfish if the crappie fishing was slow.  I didn't have a fishfinder with me, but I was familiar enough with the bridge area to know that I dropped it in the deeper part of the area.  It was going to be tough trying to somehow snag one of the guides of the rod or bail of my reel...but I had to try.  I was prepared to spend the rest of the day trying to snag it up - it was my favorite rod and reel combo!  I frantically dug through my tackle box to find the heaviest jig heads to use as a grapple to snag my rod.  I thought adding a treble hook to the ball of hooks might increase my chances of snagging my rod so I added an inline spinner to the end of my line.  I should have taken a picture of it, because it looked pretty ridiculous!

Jigging for my rod was proving to be difficult, and I was starting to lose hope.  Luckily, Ryan was nearby and offered to help find my rod.  He had some top-bottom rigs that he was using for catfish, and used a different technique to try to snag the rod.  He floated downstream a little, cast over the area where I made my stupid mistake, and reeled his rig in slowly to try to snag the rod.  After just a couple minutes, I saw him bring up a white and chartreuse grub - the same one I was using!  He had managed to snag my jighead and my rod along with it!  Wow, that was close!  Ryan saved my crappie day from being a crappy day....

Occoquan River Crappie

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Earlier this week, AbuMasgouf from the MKF forum suggested we try to coordinate our schedules to fish the Occoquan for some crappie together.  Since my trip earlier this week was not too successful, my wife was gracious to let me go once again.  My in-laws are arriving today too, so if I do well we can have fish for dinner - they would love that.

I took the OK Prowler today.

I met AbuMasgouf at the launch at 9AM and we were on the water by 9:30.  This was his first time fishing at the Occoquan, and also his first time fishing for crappie.  I'm only 2 trips ahead of him, so I didn't really have much insight to offer.  However, with all the knowledge we gathered from my past experience, some tips from other boaters, and from forum posts we wanted to see how we might do. 

First crappie of the day

We paddled across the river to the first marina we could find and hit up the docks to see what we might jig up.  I had my fishfinder today, so I was able to use it to determine the depths and kind of see where the fish are.  Within the first 10 minutes I hooked up with the first crappie of the day, and it wasn't a bad one at 10 inches.  I could tell today would be much better than my previous trip.

One of the large bluegills that were around

We stuck around the area for maybe and hour and a half or two hours.  We both hooked up with a couple more crappie and some monster bluegills.  AbuMasgouf caught the biggest bluegill I've ever seen...I think it was around 11 inches.  I also caught one that was almost as big.  Earlier in the morning the crappie seemed to hit the jig going sideways (cast and reel it in).  And the bluegills I caught were hooked when jigging vertically slowly near the bottom (Those bluegills seemed to give a better fight than the crappie).  However, after a while they stopped hitting the grubs and the fishing slowed.

I caught this guy at some point in the day

We decided to try some other areas, so we went off in search of more fish.  I paddled back and forth across the channel to try to find some fish on my fishfinder, but couldn't register any on the screen.  I later found out this was probably a bad way to find fish.  We paddled all the way to the last marina before the opening of the river, where I had had some success in the spring when I first tried for some crappie.  We still couldn't hook up with any there, and it was getting to be time for AbuMasgouf to head out so we went back to our original honey hole to give it one more shot before calling it quits.

On the way over, I met the boater that I had talked to on Monday, and asked how he was doing.  He was jigging by the bridge pilings, and he said he was doing awesome - he even just caught 8 decent sized crappie in the past 10 minutes.  What the heck were we doing wrong????  He held up his red and chartreuse grub and told us that the fish aren't hitting anything else.  Well, that stinks because I don't have any grubs in that color combination.  We thanked him for his advice and went back to the honey hole.  We jigged around for a good half hour before AbuMasgouf headed home.  I was determined to catch some more crappie, so I paddled back to the bridge to see if I could catch some more fish.

The largest of the day

While paddling to the bridge, I checked my phone to see if my wife had tried to contact me, and to check my e-mail.  I noticed that someone had responded to my thread on the MKF forum with some tips.  Basically, it said "The crappie are around every structure in the river.  The hard part is finding where the big ones are schooled up."  Every structure huh....I had mainly been concentrating on the open areas in the lanes between docks in the marinas.  I didn't fish too much directly next to the docks and piers.  I took this advice and the boater's tip and jigged my white-chartreuse grub right up against the pilings of the bridge.  On my first try I pulled up the nice 12 incher pictured above.  It's working!  For the next hour or so I slowly jigged my grub up and down next to the piling.  I also let the current drift me around to get the horizontal action in the grub.  Doing this got me hooking up with fish pretty regularly.  I ended up putting a few more keepers in my cooler by doing this.

Packed a little more than last time, but still pretty light

Around 3:00, I was getting tired from paddling around so I decided to head back in.  While packing up I met the boater again, and we talked about our day.  He mentioned that most of the day he was getting his hits by jigging up and down slowly near the bottom, and that he wasn't getting any hits by swimming his jigs.  That is pretty close to the experience I had today.  I'm glad that the pattern I used was also what another angler had used too.  He also gave me some tips about some locations where he said he consistently caught some 12-14 inchers...but I'll keep that to myself this time =).

Today's catch scaled and gutted

At home I cleaned the fish and wrapped them in foil to put some of them on the grill.  It turned out okay - I did it this way to avoid having to pull out the frying pan...but I wish I had pan fried them instead.  With the foil they came out more like steamed fish and I didn't season it well enough.  My parents-in-law still finished all of their portions though!

This guy's bigger than my son's head!

It was a fun day fishing for these panfish, and I met a new angler friend in AbuMasgouf.  I'm looking forward to getting back to the Occoquan to hopefully figure out the pattern earlier in the day to get into more fish.

Occoquan River

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It's Thanksgiving week, and my sister-in-law is visiting.  Now that my wife has help with watching the boys, she suggested that I take a fishing trip.  Isn't she great?  I considered going back to Kiptopeke for some togs, but I don't want to make that drive again so soon after the last trip.  I also wanted a relatively short trip, so that I could still spend some time at home with my family.  So in the end I opted to try the Occoquan river for some crappie.

The kayak launch at Occoquan Regional Park

Don't forget to pay the launch fee.  I got a ticket last time because I put my deposit in the wrong box.

I took my time getting out of the house, so I arrived at the launch around 9:30AM and launched at 10.  The water was calm, but there was a slight breeze that made it chilly and hard to stay in place for most of the morning. 

I think this is the lightest I've ever packed on a kayak.

The focus today was strictly to catch crappie.  I wasn't going to even try to catch anything else, so I only took my ultralight fishing outfit with me with two tackle containers for grubs and jig heads.  Today was also my Tarpon 100's maiden voyage.  It's a fun little boat.  Very maneuverable, very stable, and it has decent speed.  At one point I caught my paddle in a crack on a floating dock which put me in a weird position that rocked me pretty hard in the boat.  Maybe its wide hull makes it super stable.  Oh, because it's a bit wider than my Prowler 13, I did have to adjust my grip on my paddle a bit to get good strokes. 

My go-to perch rig.  I figured it would work for crappie as well.

For the next 4 hours, I fished all sorts of fishy places hard.  Shorelines with submerged trees, floating docks, piers, and bridge pilings.  I used 1/16 and 1/32 oz jig heads with small grubs that I typically use for white perch.  I figured crappie in the Occoquan probably have similar habits as summertime perch in the Severn.  Many times I got small nibbles, which I suspect were smaller crappie or maybe bluegills.  I managed to catch one crappie at 5 or 6 inches, and a largemouth bass at 7 or 8 inches.  Not much pullage, but it was good to see that the fish were there.  I'm planning to go again later this week with another kayaker - hopefully we'll have better luck then.

The fish that saved me from a skunk.

All the various jigs that I tried today.  The darker ones seemed to get more nibbles than the lighter ones.