CBKA Tournament 2012

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The Chesapeake Bay Kayak Anglers tournament was last weekend.  It was my first time in a tournament, and I'm happy to say that it was a great experience.  The fishing was fun, the camaraderie was excellent, the stories told by fellow anglers were entertaining, I met a few new angling buddies and I had some neat experiences.  I look forward to attending next year's tournament, and also look forward to fishing again with some of the guys I met.

The story of the tournament really started several days before the tournament, where I was spending every evening after work studying NOAA maps of Kent island and preparing my tackle boxes and rigs.  I even read and re-read chapters of Chesapeake Light Tackle related to fishing the bay bridge.  I was going to jig up the biggest striper of my life!  Of course plans changed a few days before the tournament with the news that the weather was going to be less than ideal the day of the tournament.  With south winds blowing all over the bay, it looked like I would need to come up with a plan B. 

The wind forecast on tournament day

A few days before the tournament, I met Ernie from the pacemaker fishing forum, and I had a chance to ask him about any tips for fishing for the tournament.  He was very willing to share some of his experiences of fishing the bay, and generously offered some tips.  He gave me an idea to try to fish south of the launch point early in the morning, and to ride the south winds back up north to the put-in area when the wind picked up.  He pointed out that I should look for areas where current runs against points of land sticking out into the water.  I now had my plan B.

Friday rolled around, and I went to Camp Wright to attend the Captain's meeting where the tournament organizers went over the rules of the game.  I got there a little early, and was able to talk to some of the others about their plans.  It seemed like pretty much everyone was going to avoid the main stem of the bay due to the high winds.  I was still hopeful that the winds would stay low until at least mid-morning.  So maybe I could work plan B until mid-morning, and relocate to a more sheltered part of Kent island to finish the rest of the tournament.  

The first picture had to be of me with the tournament ruler.

The next morning came around, and I went to the Matapeake ramp a little early to check out the water.  By 5:45AM the wind was already strong, and the water was hitting against the pier pretty hard.  I thought, "I....don't think I'll be launching from here."  I decided to launch at Kent Narrows instead with Chexone.  I got there, unloaded and rigged my kayak with Chexone, and we were in the water by 6:30AM, just in time for the start of the tournament. 

As soon as we got in the water, we saw small stripers feeding on the surface so we had a little fun right by the ramp with some small micro-stripers.  They ranged from 6 to 9 inches in length.  Nothing that would get us a place in the striped bass division...but who knows? Maybe everyone else will get skunked.  I hadn't really planned on fishing at Kent Narrows, so  I had no idea what to expect and didn't really have a plan of attack.  

My unimpressive perch

 Chexone suggested that we head to the south side of the bridge, and try the concrete wall that's there.  When we got there, the conditions were just like what I had seen at Matapeake - windy with choppy water.  Still, we tried jigging around the wall for whatever might be there.  I thought maybe the far side of the concrete wall might be productive, since the wind and current is pushing the water against it.  I trolled a small rattle trap as I paddled over, and caught an 8" white perch - however, nothing wanted any of my lures at the end of the wall.  I stuck around for a bit, and after a while of getting nothing wondered how bad the water might be on the other side of the wall.  I paddled around the corner, and was surprised at how strong the water was.  It kind of felt like I was sitting on a boogie board riding waves at the beach.  I rode the waves in until the water got a little more manageable behind some other structure that was sticking out of the water.  Chexone and I then proceeded to explore the shoreline to see if we could get any large perch for the perch division of the tournament.  We both caught a few fish, but they weren't impressive at all.  Also, I was getting tired of fighting with the wind and current, so I left Chexone to go back toward the narrows where it was a bit more sheltered from the wind and waves.

My largest striper of the day.

When I got back to the narrows, I wondered if the pilings of the drawbridge there were similar to the bay bridge.  I had planned on jigging some BKDs at the bay bridge...why not try it at the Kent Narrows bridge?  I tucked in behind one of the huge pilings of the bridge, where I didn't have to fight the strong current funneling through the narrows, and practiced my vertical jigging using a 6" alewive BKD.  I didn't have much luck doing this - I don't know if I just don't have the technique down, or if there were no fish...but I never jigged up that monster striper that I had been hoping for.  However, I did catch a 12" striper (my largest of the day) by the pilings before I moved on to do some perching along the shorelines.

Double micro-stripers

On my way out away from the bridge, I saw that there was a surface feeding frenzy going on just north of the bridge.  I quickly grabbed my bucktail rig with a teaser, and caught a few of the fish that were feeding there.  They were all small though - these small rockfish are everywhere!  They were aggressive though...they were hitting on pretty much anything.  I got a double at one point, and also I had some hit a gotcha plug that was dangling off the kayak at the surface of the water.  After seeing small stripers everywhere, I remembered Shawn Kimbro's book where he said that if you see a bunch of small stripers, you might find some bigger ones underneath them....so I tried jigging some larger lures under the surface, but that proved to be unproductive.  Because this area was right by the bridge, the current was rather strong - every time I caught a small striper, I would drift way downstream while I unhooked him, and had to paddle back up against the wind and current to get back to the school of hungry fish.  This, too, got tiring after a while, so I left the school of frenzied juvenile stripers and proceeded to look for some areas sheltered from the wind.

I tucked in to the yacht marina just north of the ramp, and did some ultralight jigging along some fishy looking shoreline.  I was getting a lot of nibbles, but the fish just weren't hooking up.  I tried switching out my jig with small ones, long ones, different colors...nothing worked.  I did find that one of the small baitfish that the stripers were feeding on had gotten into my boat somehow, and was swimming by my feet.  I picked him up and baited him on my hook and down he went.  This time I was able to hook up with a fish - another 8" perch.  I thought "I don't think I'll be winning any largest fish divisions...maybe I should start trying to catch small fish to win the shortest fish prize."  

The award-winning fish! (I need a better camera...)

I switched up my tactics and rigged up the smallest jig I could find and put on a small plastic grub.  I worked some more shoreline, and finally caught what I thought had a chance at the shortest fish - a 4" sunfish!  That was unexpected...I didn't think I'd catch any sunfish around the Kent narrows bridge.  I continued trying for something smaller, and I think they were there,  because I kept getting small nibbles...but I just couldn't hook up with them.  It was around noon by this time, and I was tired of catching small fish, so Chexone and I thought we'd try the bridge again to see if the current has died down any.  The little stripers were still feeding on the surface when we arrived...Chexone and I had some fun catching a couple more of those, and decided to head back to camp to weigh in our fish.

We got back to camp around 1:00, and the weigh-in deadline was 3:30, so after I checked in my fish we had a lot of time to kill.  We grabbed some lunch from the Crab Deck, and sat around at the camp and talked to some other anglers about how we did that day.   As it got closer to the beginning of the awards ceremony, we got treated to some interesting weather.  The storm system that had given us all the wind that day had finally come by and it was pretty impressive...check out this video shot by one of the attendees. 

The storm's coming!  What are those crazy boaters thinking?!

After the storm blew through, we had the awards ceremony/raffle prizes.  This was a pretty fun time, as I watched others get all the cool prizes and I got a t-shirt.  I also ended up winning the shortest fish prize, which was a micro-lite fishing rod from bass pro, donated by one of the MKF forum members. Cool!  The raffle culminated with the coolest prize ever, a 2012 Hobie Revolution 11.  I didn't win it, but the nice thing is that the person who did win it didn't even own a kayak.  He had borrowed a friend's kayak for the tournament.  Pretty neat how that worked out.

Shawn Kimbro made an appearance during the awards ceremony, which was really neat.  He's a lot taller and thinner than I thought he would be.  I wish I could have sat by him to hear some tips about fishing.  Someone from make-a-wish was also there to thank the tournament attendees for the donation that the proceeds would be used for.  He shared a story about a local girl who had her wish granted to visit New York City and just go on a site-seeing, shopping spree.  The competition and prize aspects of the tournament were fun and nice, but it was also satisfying knowing that we were helping to grant a wish for a child out there.

So that was the CBKA tournament.  It was a fun experience, and I will definitely be doing it again next year.  A big thanks to those who coordinated the tournament, and also all the sponsors who donated all the cool prizes.

Mattawoman Creek

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We moved a couple weeks earlier, and it had been a stressful couple of weeks trying to get everything transported to the new place and unpacking.  It had also been over a month since I've seen the water, so I was eager to attend July's MKF Meet and Greet.  It was at the Mattawoman creek in Indian Head, Maryland.

Spatterdock, and hydrilla right in front.

The plan from several of the members was to hit the water before sunrise to try for some topwater bass, and then to target some snakehead or blue cats later in the morning.  So off I was at 4:30 in the morning to get to the ramp before sunrise.  I was on the water a little after 6:30AM and was surprised at the scenery.  The Mattawoman has acres and acres of spatterdock along the edges of the creek, and then in front of those, there are thick growths of hydrilla. It looked fishy to me.  It was going to be a good fishing day.

There really isn't much of an exciting story to tell this time.  It was 7 hours of pretty much nothing.  I was casting plastic worms, a jitterbug, chatterbait, small grubs, a firetiger rapala crankbait, an electric chicken bass assassin shad, and cut bunker for catfish.  I did have some hits on the cut bunker from what I think were probably smaller catfish, but I never did hook up with them.  I did spent the last hour on the water targeting blue catfish with some nightcrawlers that one of the other members graciously gave to me.  I had a little bit of success with 2 blue catfish and a channel catfish.

Someone else's snakehead.  26 inches!

Luckily most of the other members at the Meet and Greet did better than I did.  Several people caught some really good sized snakeheads, and others caught several lunker bass, yellow perch, white perch, and sunfish. After seeing those snakeheads, though, I have caught the fever...I need to catch a snakehead sometime in my life.

The fish that saved me from a skunk.  Yes, there's a fish in my hand.

I brought home the 2 blue catfish that I caught, along with another one that another member gave to me.  This was my first time trying blue catfish, and I had heard that they were tasty, so I came home not entirely defeated.  I filleted them that night and fried them with some corn meal mixed with old bay and they were really good.  My wife even asked me to bring some more of those home.

The Mattawoman.

Tuckahoe Creek

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3 friends and I were looking for a place to fish today, and I asked a friend from the MKF forum about where he had gone last week. He gave me some details about the Tuckahoe Creek in Hillsboro, so my friends and I decided to give it a shot.

We arrived in Hillsboro around 8:30AM, and pulled in front of the sportshop to get some bait. It hadn't opened yet, and there wasn't even a sign with store hours. We decided to check out the creek first, set up and come back for bait. When we arrived at the creek (the downstream side of the bridge), there were a few bank fishermen. No one had any luck this morning, which was bad news for us. I asked around about the sportshop, and apparently the owner is inconsistent in the time that he arrives at the shop to open. They suggested trying a gas station nearby. I tried 2 of the nearest gas stations and neither had any live bait. We ended up going into Ridgley to a gas station that had some nightcrawlers. I was hoping to use some live minnows, but that was all that we could get. On the way back to the creek we saw that the sportshop was open so we went in and got some live minnows and grass shrimp. Now that we had all our bait we headed back to the creek.

We set up on the bank next to the wooded area by the boat ramp. I took my kayak so that we could rotate and paddle around to fish. One of my goals for this trip was to introduce them to kayak fishing. I was the first to paddle out so that I could scope out the area and give the others (who had never kayaked before) some tips on where to go. The current drifted me downstream, so I let the kayak float down while I tried casting a shad dart toward the shore to see if I could catch anything. I got a couple nibbles, but didn't hook into anything. As I was drifting, I saw one area that looked particularly fishy - there were even fish coming up and eating stuff from the surface. I paddled up to it, and it was pretty deep compared to the other parts of the creek. I knew it had to be a good spot. I let down some minnows and hooked an undersized YP. I tried again a few more times and ended up with about 5, with 3 keepers. It seemed to be a good spot to direct my friends to. I paddled back toward the launch ramp and thought I'd try fishing under the bridge a little bit before switching off. I caught a couple undersized YP and some small sunfish there.



After lunch my friend tried the kayak, and he said it felt too tippy, so he got off after a couple minutes. It was disappointing that he didn't try it out more, but I told him that there are other kayaks out there that are more stable that he could try out sometime if he wanted to. Next my other friend wanted to try it out, so he hopped in, and he kind of just paddled around near the bank where we were fishing for a while. I told him to go back down to where I had been fishing earlier and to try it out. He went down, and came back a little later with a nice 12" YP. He also said he hooked into something really big in 10 feet of water. He fought it for about 5 minutes before it snapped the line. I guess it could have been a catfish... But he said he had a blast fishing from the kayak. The big fish that snapped his line was the highlight of his day.



When fishing from shore, I tested out my new ultralight outfit that I got from BPS's sales. I was using a green 1/32oz feather jig that the small fish seemed to love. I tipped it with some grass shrimp, and I was catching small sunfish and small YP pretty much every other cast. Even though they were small, it was fun on the UL outfit, and it was also better than sitting in my chair waiting for a fish to hit my bottom rigged minnows in the middle of the creek. One YP that hit my jig was just barely larger than some of the minnows we were using for bait.



By the end of the day, we ended up with 5 YP and 1 sunfish to take home. I taught the guys the 10 second method of cleaning YP. It was kind of fun watching them clean the fish haha. They timed me, and it took me 2 minutes instead of 10 seconds. We had a fish fry and ordered some pizza to satisfy the rest of our appetites.



The weather was perfect today, we caught fish, had a good time with friends, got one of them hooked on kayak fishing...couldn't have been better.