Croakers at PLO

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The MKF monthly Meet & Greet was last Saturday.  I was looking forward to going to it, because it was going to be at Point Lookout State Park (PLO), and we were going to target croakers.  I have fond memories of catching tons of croakers in college, and enjoying them the next morning for breakfast.  It has been a long time since I've targeted them or even caught them.  However, I found out the week before last that I wasn't going to be able to make the Meet & Greet, and was real bummed out about it.  My wife tried to cheer me up by buying some croakers from the local asian market for dinner last week.  It just wasn't the same.  The fish she brought home must not have been fresh, because it had a real strong fishy smell and it tasted just like it smelled. That couldn't be the croaker that I loved to eat back in the day.  I had to catch some croakers to find out.

Since I was now busy on the day of the Meet & Greet, the only time I had available to fish was the evening before.  Last Friday I went in to work extra early so that I could make it out in time to get to PLO with some sunlight before it got dark.  This would be my first time fishing from my kayak at night so I was a little nervous.  However, it's been a while since I had gotten some pullage, and the thought of a cooler full of fish knocked any second thoughts out of my mind.

I got to the park around 7PM, and started unloading my kayak at the first "Pet Beach" that I saw.  I had heard from some of the members of the forum that they were launching from a pet beach and fishing the bay side.  During my rigging, an extra friendly park ranger stopped by and suggested some other places to launch.  "....potomac side...sandy launch....south....pet beach....." I didn't pay too much attention, because I was eager to get out on the water.  That was a big mistake, because as I wheeled my kayak over to the pet beach, I saw that there was no way I could get my kayak to the water - there were a bunch of boulders lining the shore!  Darnit!  It must have been the other pet beach that the others were launching from!  I quickly tore down my kayak, put it on my car and drove to the end of the causeway to the south side.  I looked over at the pet beach and saw the sandy shore.  Dang...wasted time.

Very calm bay side water.

I quickly re-rigged my kayak and wheeled over to the beach.  I had read the wind forecast, and the wind was supposed to be blowing from the west.  I hoped that the bay side would be calm, since it would be protected by land.  Luckily, the water didn't look too bad from the beach.  I also could see another kayaker fishing out in the water.  I quickly paddled over to find out who it was.  He was Dsmero from the MKF forums.  He had been fishing for a few hours, and was paddling in to put some fish on ice and to stretch his legs.  I asked what he caught, and he said he was doing real well catching 12-16 inch croakers in 18-20 feet of water.  Great! Croakers!  He was using squid for bait, and kindly offered one of his to me since I didn't have any squid.  I had only brought cooked salad shrimp from Costco and some nasty old bloodworms (note: don't ever buy bloodworms from the "rod & reel" gas station on the way to PLO).  We parted ways and I headed for the target water depth.

The first of many fish.

It didn't take long to get to water 18-20 feet deep, but it was still well out of range of the shore fishermen.  I'm glad to be able to get out this far from shore and be able to just drop my lines.  I baited some squid and shrimp on my two rods and put them out.  Within a couple minutes, I had a hit on one of the rods.  Fish on!  Then shortly after I had another one...then another...then another!  The croakers were hitting pretty fast.  I often had a fish on both rods at once, and often didn't have time to unhook a fish before reeling in the other line.  I hadn't had this much fish action in a long time, and these weren't all small fish either.  They were all good keeper sized fish that all went into my cooler.

Dsmero eventually came back out, and we drifted and fished together.  We were both getting some good fish with the squid, and some on the shrimp.  Then as night time set, the bite suddenly stopped.  I must be too used to my shore fishing technique of setting up camp in one place and sticking to it.  I kept putting out my lines in 18 - 20 feet of water waiting for the fish to start biting again.  Dsmero decided to head closer to shore instead and to fish in some shallower water.  He said he'd let me know if he found them, so I just stuck around.

Some small baitfish.

Since things slowed down a bit, I had time to fool around a bit.  All evening some small baitfish were splashing the water, and I could finally see them now.  They were 3-4 inches long, and weren't very shy.  I'd shine my head lamp at the water next to me, and the fish would come and bump my boat or swim next to it.  I wanted to get a closer look at one, so I swiped at it in the water to try to splash it into my kayak.  It actually worked, and I got to take a picture of it.  It turned out that I didn't even have to go through all that work.  Later I had 2 of these jump into my kayak on their own.  I had live baitfish in my boat now, so of course I put them on one of my rigs and cast them out to see if any bluefish or something would hit them.  I didn't get anything after about 15 minutes so I replaced them with shrimp.

Small crab.  He was released after his photo shoot.

The baitfish weren't the only ones floating by on the water.  I could see a lot of crabs - 2" to 6" swimming by.  I sure wished I had a crab net at this time.  I thought it might be fun to get a close look at one of the crabs too, so I found a small one swimming by and swiped at that one to get it in the boat.  Worked great just like the fish! haha.  He bit me during his photo shoot, but luckily he was only 1.5" long.  I am glad I didn't think to swipe at one of the bigger ones.  I just thought it was neat seeing these crabs swimming in the water from so close up.

I need a bigger cooler!  Or throw out some ice.

At around 10 or so, I heard Dsmero calling saying that he had found some fish.  I paddled over, and he was in about 12-13 feet of water.  He said he was catching fish pretty consistently there with bloodworms.  I put out some bloodworms and shrimp, and the fishing was hot again!  I was getting hits more frequently on my cooked salad shrimp.  In fact, I had 4 fish get deep-hooked with the salad shrimp.  I didn't have that problem with any of the other baits.  I anchored up this time because I was getting tired of paddling, and eventually the fishing slowed down again.  I could see Dsmero drifting further and further away.  At close to midnight I decided to call it a night and paddled over to Dsmero to say bye and to thank him for the tips.  I also asked how the fishing had been, and he said the fish were biting pretty consistently for him.  Again, I probably should have moved around looking for fish when things slowed.  I need to get rid of my habit of sticking to one spot.

By that time Dsmero was done for the night too.  He was planning on taking a short nap at a nearby hotel to return for the Meet & Greet by 4 or 5AM.  Crazy....  Anyway, we paddled in together and helped each other drag our kayaks to our cars and load them.  I opened up my cooler to gauge how many fish I had.  I looked in, and it didn't look like I met the 25 fish limit, so I thought "I'm good, I can take them home."  Dsmero and I packed our cars and went our separate ways.  The drive home was 2.5 hours, but it wasn't that bad...I was happy that my dream of a cooler full of fish had come true.

24 fish. Scaled.

Well, the happy feelings went away real quick the next morning when I had to scale and gut all the fish.  There were 24 fish in all, and I cleaned all of them.  I gave 19 of them away, and kept 5 to eat with my family. We had some fried fish Sunday evening, and my son Caleb loved it!  He kept asking for more.  The croaker this time tasted much better than the fish we had last week.  This is the great-tasting fish that I remember.

Father & Son Fishin'

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"I think it's time,"  I said to my wife last week.  "Caleb is ready for his first fishing rod."  For a while now my son, Caleb, has been learning to use a reel and hold a rod.  I took an old reel that I don't use and gave it to Caleb to play with as a toy.  He's gotten pretty good at cranking that reel, but has had no clue what it's supposed to do.  I've also taken him numerous times to Bass Pro to the reel section, where he's tried out almost every reel - from the light spinning reels, to the baitcasters, to the saltwater conventionals.  The rod?  He just likes carrying big sticks and swinging them around - he'll be a natural bass fisherman.

My son's fishing rod.

So we took a family trip out to Bass Pro shops last Friday and bought him his first fishing rod - a 2 ft ice fishing rod and reel combo.  It is perfect for his little arms and hands.  He wanted to hold it in the car on the way home, and wanted to play with it before going to bed.  I couldn't wait to see how he would react with a fish on the other end of the line.

I have been fishing Lake Elkhorn lately with a co-worker during our lunch breaks, and on our last trip there, I could see that a bunch of sunfish were just hanging out by the docks.  I knew they would probably stick around, so I knew where I would take Caleb.

Saturday morning, we packed the car, Caleb's new rod, a bobber, some small hooks, and a pack of nightcrawlers I had leftover from my last trip.  I briefly thought about taking my ultralight rod with me to do some fishing myself, but resisted.  This trip was to be for the son, not for daddy.  So off we were, the family's first fishing trip.

When we got to the lake, Caleb immediately knew where to go.  It was as if he was instinctively drawn to the water.  We set up on the floating dock and I threw out the worm on the bobber for him.  He couldn't wait, and immediately wanted to reel it back in.  It took some time to teach him to wait for the bobber to go under...but I was glad to see that he was excited about it.  As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the 2 foot rod casted.  I was just using the line that came spooled on the reel, and it was decent.  I might have to get another one for myself. heh heh.

Caleb holding one of the fish we caught.

Well, after a few tries with the fish only stealing our night crawlers, mommy suggested we move to some place in the shade to stay cool.  So we relocated to the opposite side of the dock area and set up camp again.  This time I switched out the hook for a smaller one, and cast it out.  That turned out to be a good move, because within minutes Caleb had his first fish on!  It was a tiny 3" sunfish, and Caleb was happy to see it.  I tried to let him kiss it before releasing the fish, but my wife stopped us.  No love for that fish.

Caleb saying "bye" to the fish.

As we were fishing, another young boy came by and wanted to see the fish Caleb had caught.  He thought it was so cool, and wanted to stick around to see our next catch.  Well, within a couple minutes we had another fish on, but Caleb wasn't interested in reeling it in this time so I let the boy try reeling it in.  A 4" sunfish!  He had a blast, and was talking about how he would tell his dad about it when he got home.

We caught a few more sunfish, and each time Caleb would say in his gibberish "one more, one more". After a few more, we decided to head home.  My wife asked "Are you happy, Daddy?"  Yes I am!  My son's first fishing trip was a success, and he didn't get bored of it after just a couple minutes.  I can't wait for his next trip!

Occoquan River

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My sister-in-law is in town from St. Louis this week, and I thought it would be nice to have a fish fry this weekend.  I had plans to fish the lower potomac for some catfish and possibly some croakers, which people have been reporting.  When I found out that Ryan from the MKF forum was fishing for catfish this weekend too, I asked him if he wanted to meet up and fish together.  He had to be in Virginia today, so he was going to check out the Occoquan river.  Since I have not fished the Occoquan before, I was open to trying it out with him.

The area by the shore launch.

I got to the Occoquan Regional Park at 6:00AM, paid my $5 non-resident fee for launching, and started rigging up my kayak.  Ryan arrived shortly after, and we were in the water around 7.  We shared our plans for the day, and we were going to jig for some crappie by the docks of the marinas south of the 95 bridge, and then soak some bait to try for some catfish.

After passing the 95 bridge, we started casting along the shorelines on our way to the marina to see if we could hook up with a bass.  That was unfruitful for both of us, so we went to the docks and started jigging.  Within the first several minutes, I was getting nibbles on my shad dart rigged with a 2" gulp minnow.  I thought maybe the minnow might be too big, so I swapped it out with a 2" tube.  2 casts later, and I caught the first fish of the day.  A 15" largemouth bass.  I tried jigging some more in that row of docks, but I didn't get any more hits, so I moved on.

First fish of the day.

In the second row of docks, I went back to my gulp minnow and tried vertical jigging with it.  After several tries, I get a hit...and it turns out to be a big old channel catfish.  I was trying to catch crappie, not catfish!  Well, the catfish was a pretty good size, so I put it on my fish stringer and tried again.  Several minutes later, I get another hit...and it turns to be an even bigger channel catfish.  I never got to measure it, but I would say it was pushing 20 to 22 inches.  Again, it was not a crappie, but I did want to catch catfish today...on the stringer he went.  I was starting to think that my jigging technique was somehow only attractive to catfish and not crappie.  A few minutes later, and I hook up with another catfish!  Unbelievable!  Oh, and all this time, these fish were being caught on my ultralight rod with 5 lb test braid.  It was actually kind of fun catching these large fish on light tackle.  I really wanted to catch some crappie, so I decided to move on and try the next marina.

On the way to the next marina, I trolled a small rattletrap crankbait to see if anything would hit it.  I was doubtful that it would work because of my failure to catch anything on a crankbait at the flats earlier this week.  However, halfway to the marina, I had a fish on my crankbait.  It turned out to be a small striper.  I forgot to snap a pic, but it was small...like 15 inches.

Ryan and I got to the next marina, and we tried jigging again for crappie.  Ryan was actually pretty successful - he was catching a lot of crappie on his small gulp minnows.  I asked about his technique, and it sounded like he was doing exactly what I was doing back at the previous marina where I was catching the catfish.  I thought maybe it was the location that turned me into a catfish magnet, so I tried the vertical jigging again....and...I caught another catfish.  Several catfish, actually.  I was getting a little frustrated at this point, because I wanted to catch crappie!  At one point, I hooked up with a BIG fish.  It wouldn't surface, and it actually dragged me out of the bay I was fishing in and into the next one before showing itself.  It was a huge blue catfish.  I was excited about catching such a large fish, so I went to stick my lip gripper in its mouth, and I guess his small teeth rubbed the line the wrong way, because the line broke.

I originally had a 6lb test mono leader on my 5lb braid main line.  I had snapped it somehow while landing one of the earlier catfish, and lazily just tied my jig head directly onto the braid.  I am pretty sure that abrasion from the rough surface on the blue catfish's mouth was what caused my line to fail.  Never again will I make that mistake.  He was huge...

Since it was time to retie, I thought of something else to try.  Last year, when I was perch fishing, I had some success using soft plastic grubs on a spinner arm.  I tried adding the spinner arm to the gulp minnow, and voila!  I was starting to catch me some crappie.  I went through several more of these docks to try to catch some crappie worth eating.  There were a couple white perch in the mix of fish that I caught too, which was a pleasant surprise.  Eventually (inevitably) I hooked into another catfish, and that was when I decided I was done fishing here.  Catfish are fun to catch on ultralight tackle, but it's also frustrating when you're not targeting them.

Ryan and I moved around, casting our lures to the shoreline to see if we could catch some more bass.  We both ended up catching a couple bass, but none that were impressive in size.  I caught mine on the gulp minnow, and on the rattle trap crankbait.  The gulp minnow is so versatile...it'll catch anything!

At this point, we slowly started making our way back to the launch and stopped by the 95 bridge to see if we could catch any catfish.  I didn't have any success there, so after a little while I parted with Ryan and I went back to the launch.  I was packed up and on my way home by 1.

My kayak and gear at the end of the day.

Fishing the Occoquan was interesting - it was a lot more fun that I thought it might be.  I also caught 6 species of fish today, which is pretty cool when you consider that they were all caught in the same body of water.  I brought home a few of the catfish, crappie, and white perch and cleaned them for tomorrow's fish fry!

Tomorrow's Dinner.

Susquehanna Flats

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All the reports on the hot fishing up in the Susquehanna flats had me wanting to try it out.  I have never fished the flats before, and I have never targeted stripers from my kayak before.  I had to give it a shot!  May 3 was the last day before the Catch & Release season ends for stripers in the Susquehanna, so I took the day off work and went to the Flats.

I arrived at Tydings Memorial Park in Havre de Grace, MD around 3:00PM, where I bumped into Cliff from the MKF forum.  He was just coming in from fishing for the day, and he had also been fishing the flats everyday for the past week or so.  He had some pointers to share, so I was all ears.  Use a long crankbait with silver and blue on it.  He was sharing how he caught several fish around 30", and lost his lure on a fish that almost spooled him.  After losing his crankbait - the only one he had of that color combo and style - he didn't get another hit the rest of his time out  there.  Well, I didn't have any crankbaits with blue on them, but I did have a long crankbait that I rigged up on one of my rods last night. It was silver and black, but close enough, I thought.

The marina by the boat ramp.

When I launched, I tried going straight out into the flats from the boat ramp, but quickly found myself in very shallow water (< 1') that I almost got stuck in.  I reversed outta there, and saw that the bigger boats were going through the marina out the entrance to enter the flats.  I followed them out, and when I got a look at the flats,  I thought to myself "so much water, where do I start?"  I could see that there were about 15-20 boats in an area south of where I was, so that was where I headed.  It was kind of unnerving paddling out into the open water for the first time.  But the other boaters were courteous the entire day, and I never felt unsafe in my kayak.

All the boaters...I need a better camera.

When I got near the other boats, I saw that there were a lot of people hooking up around me.  Every couple seconds you would hear someone's drag letting out line because of a fish.  I quickly brought in my crankbait that I had trolled the whole way out, and cast it out to retrieve it manually.  Within the first couple of minutes I hooked up with a nice 20" rockfish. He flopped out of my boat before I could snap a picture, so I don't have proof of that catch... A couple casts later, I hooked into another one that was a little bigger than the first one, but he spit the hook next to the boat.  Rats!

Lots of fish!

The first 30-40 minutes was probably the most exciting...the fishing slowed down a lot after that. I could tell that the fish were around, because they were surfacing everywhere and I could see them on my fish finder.  They just were not taking any of my lures - crankbaits, BKDs, bass assasins, etc.  Well, that's not entirely true, I was biased toward the crankbait because of what Cliff told me, and I caught a couple small stripers here and there on it.

One of the smaller stripers.

Around 7:00PM, my line snapped on a cast and I lost my lucky crankbait. I didn't have any more crankbaits in that style, and the sun was starting to set, so I headed in.  By the end of the night, I caught maybe 4 or 5 stipers, and lost about 8.  The treble hooks on my crankbait were mashed down, so I think I was having a hard time keeping the fish on the hooks.

Fishing the Susquehanna flats was a neat experience.  It was fun fishing among all the gas boats out there, and keeping up with them (most of them - there were a few anglers who were doing really well compared to the rest of us).  It was also neat to see the various techniques that people were using to catch the striped bass - cranking crankbaits, trolling crankbaits, soft plastics, fly fishing from a boat... I have already marked my calendar for fishing the "Susky Flats" again next spring, the last week of April.

I love kayak fishing...

Point Lookout State Park

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My father-in-law was in town from St. Louis, and I wanted to get a nice lunch with fish for him this weekend.  Up until the last minute, I wasn't really sure where I was going to go, or whether I'd fish from a kayak or shore.  After hearing about how strong the wind might be, I decided to keep the kayak in my garage, and I had 2 choices: Point Lookout for croakers, or the Choptank pier for perch and maybe croakers.  I am more familiar with the Choptank, and have caught at least something every time I've gone there.  However, it has been a couple years since I've gone down to Point Lookout, and I figured the long drive and the quiet environment there would be refreshing.  So, I had a quick dinner with my family and my father-in-law, and I made the 2 hour drive down to Point Lookout after work.

The menu for the evening (for the fish) included shrimp for croakers and nightcrawlers for perch.  I picked up some cooked shrimp from the grocery store, and the nightcrawlers were leftovers from the trip to Fletcher's a couple weeks ago.  During the drive I had visions of a cooler full of croakers and perch, and could taste the delicious fish lunch that I would have the next day. 

Unfortunately, things didn't work out the way that I had planned.  As I made my way through the park to the furthest point of the park, I asked everyone I saw how they were doing.  Nobody was catching fish....except for 1 person who was working the right-most end of the fishing pier.  It's pretty common-knowledge that the right side of the end of the pier is the most productive spot.  There were already several people at the end of the pier, and I didn't want to intrude, so I set up camp at the point facing the bay.

The wind started out kind of strong, but it was bearable through the night.  If you ever go to Point Lookout, and are not going to fish from the pier, take a lantern and a headlamp.  Without a full moon, you will need it to see anything.  Since I couldn't see my rods, I figured I'd try to use my sense of hearing to detect the fish.  I used fishfinder rigs with circle hooks, and loosened the drag all the way after I cast it out.  For a little while I tried casting out a small plastic worm and jigged it with little success.  The wind also was making it very difficult to feel anything, so I put my small jigging rod away, and stuck with my 2 surf rods.

There was a picnic table nearby, so I pulled it right next to my rods and took a nap with my head next to my reels.  I was hoping that I'd wake up to the sound of the drag on my reel screaming with a fish.  Well, the entire night there no buzzzzzzzzz came from my reels.  At one point, I reeled in one of my rods and found an eel at the end of my line.  It must have just stuck around after taking the shrimp, because it didn't pull any drag - it also didn't even fight me when I reeled it in.  I thought "Well, an eel counts as a fish.  I avoided a skunk!"

The eel that saved my night from a skunk.

The rest of the night I didn't catch a thing, and I was getting cold around 4AM, so I packed up and headed home.  I cleaned the eel in the morning, and we fried him up for lunch.  I keep hearing about how tasty eel can be, but I haven't yet found the right recipe for cooking them up.  This time, I sprinkled 2-3" pieces of the eel with flour, and marinated it in soy sauce, honey, and sesame oil.  It was okay, but I wouldn't really rave about it.  I get eels pretty often as by-catches, so I'll try something different next time.

I kind of wish I had gone to the Choptank, where I probably would have been able to fill at least half the cooler with perch or catfish.  However, I don't regret going to Point Lookout.  Being so far from any city lights, the night sky is pretty amazing out there.  A night fishing trip at Point Lookout is something that every angler in the Maryland/Virginia area should try at least once.

As a side, I got a Ford Focus hatchback last November, and on this trip I averaged 39 miles per gallon.  That's what the trip meter showed, but I might have gotten something slightly better...because I used only a quarter of a tank of gas on a 200 mile trip.  That was another awesome point from this outing.

Fletcher's Cove

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Today I fished the Potomac River by Washington, DC with several others from the Maryland Kayak Fishing forum.  We launched out of the free launching area at Fletcher’s Boat House.  I was hesitant to make the trip.  I like to keep the fish I catch for dinner, but the target species (shad) are illegal to keep, and the catfish out of these waters have a consumption advisory against them.  However, I figured that if I don’t go now with the forum members, I probably will never fish on the Potomac for shad.

Well, the day was perfect.  Low winds for most of the morning, a bit chilly at first, but went up to 70 or so degrees.  The water was around 58 degrees.  Sunny with very few clouds.

I got to the parking lot for Fletcher’s by 7:00AM.  I should have taken a picture of the entrance to the park, because it was so obscure and so dangerous.  I was able to catch it the first time I passed it, but the angle at which I had to turn was so sharp that I didn’t think I’d make it easily without upsetting the driver behind me.  I ended up taking a U-turn ahead and making a slight left into the parking lot.  Upon my arrival, I checked out the boathouse shop to get some shad darts and nightcrawlers.  I had read some reports that pink and green shad darts from the boat house were hot, so I picked up a pack of each, plus a pack of chartreuse darts.

With my ammo for the day, I unloaded my kayak from my car and started rigging it up.  During this time, Ictalurus, Chexone and BigFluke45 arrived.  We all launched together at the free launching area.  It was a shore launch area, at the far corner of the park.  While preparing for launch, I met a guy in a canoe from West Virginia who shared about his experience fishing for shad.  He mentioned that the pattern is to look for an area with current.  He suggested going upstream where the river is narrower and the water flows quicker. 

The launch was interesting.  There were Fletcher’s row boats everywhere.  The area right by the launch area was filled with fishermen anchored in their row boats.  When I went to pick up my bait at 7:00AM, I overheard the worker say that there were no more available rental boats.  No kidding!  Well, we paddled (and peddled) upstream past the crowd, to an area where you could see the Chain bridge.  A few of us stopped once on the way to try to see if we could pull up a shad, but Ictalurus kept going...and since Ictalurus had been shad fishing once before, I didn’t stick around long and followed Ictalurus. 

Paddling to our destination

When we got to the area we were fishing, I hadn’t really paid much attention to the depth until someone from shore asked me for the depth.  35 feet.  Which went up to 15 feet a little further up.  “So you’re telling me there’s a deep hole there” said the shore fisherman.  I guess that was one part of the puzzle in catching shad...because these shore fishermen were absolutely slaying the shad.  Every time I looked over, they were pulling in a shad (sometimes two at once).  After 10 or 15 minutes of trying out a tandem-rigged shad darts and not catching anything, I swallowed my pride and paddled over to the shore fishermen and asked them for some tips.

1. The green and pink colors I had were good.
2. Cast into the river and let the darts sink to the bottom.  They said this was key.  They also expressed concern that the shad darts I had were too small/light to reach the bottom of the 35-foot hole.
3. Reel in the darts steadily and jerk it periodically.

The area we fished at.  Those are the shore fishermen who kicked my butt.

Sounds simple enough!  Well, for the next several hours, I could only catch 6 shad.  And this was while the shore fishermen next to me were catching one every other cast.  I think it had to do with where I was casting my shad darts, and the fact that I probably wasn’t able to reach the bottom with my shad darts.  I was fishing upstream from the shore fishermen (beyond the deep hole) so that I wouldn’t cross their lines.  All of the shad I caught were from the deep hole that the shore fishermen were fishing in.  I cast into it while they were re-rigging.  They really must have been fishing the bottom because they lost several rigs throughout the morning.  Conversely, I must not have been on the bottom, because I didn’t lose a single shad dart rig.

First shad of the day

The first shad I caught was exciting.  Mainly because it was my first one ever. It was kind of caught by accident, because I had casted my lure out and was drifting into other people’s lines.  As I was paddling away, I saw my rod tip shake – fish on!  The shad seem to always jump when they get caught.  The first fish I caught jumped 2 or 3 feet in the air right next to me and Chexone.  I can see why people enjoy fishing for them.  They are so energetic when you catch them!

Another Shad

At one point, I wanted to see if I really wasn’t getting down to the fish, so I rigged up a half-ounce jig head with a 2” curly tail grub.  I didn’t rig it tandem – just a single curly tail.  I think I got more frequent hits with this rig than with the shad darts.  I missed a few, and caught 2 shad with the grub in about 30 minutes.  Compare that to my 4 shad in the earlier 2 or 3 hours.  I wished I had thought of this earlier in the morning!

Chexone's first catfish that got away.

During all this time that I was fishing for shad, I saw that Chexone and Shadyfisher85 had pulled up some nice-sized catfish.  Having never caught a catfish on my kayak before, I decided to put a line out with the nightcrawlers I had.  It was a top-bottom rig with a 1oz sinker.  Since I knew where the deeper water was in this section of the river, I tried to cast into that area. 

21" Blue Cat

~18" Channel Cat

24" Blue Cat

The nightcrawlers were a hit with the catfish.  I caught 2 blue cats (21” and 24”) and a channel cat (around 18” – I didn’t measure him because he wasn’t that impressive).  The larger blue cat was a blast!  He had his way for the first 30 seconds or so...ripping out drag and bending my rod.  That was a good fight, and got some congrats from the shore fishermen who were kicking my butt in the shad count.

My anchor

I had read that Fletcher’s uses large flat rocks as anchors in their row boats, because of all the boulders on the bottom of the river to snag on.  I didn’t want to risk losing my anchor to the bottom of the river, so I found a good rock that was kind of in the river, and tied off to it.  It worked very well.  I stayed in one position the entire time.  If my rig got snagged, I was able to untie quickly and unsnag my line and return to my rock. 

Around noon, the wind started picking up, so I went around and said bye to the guys before starting my paddle back to the launch area.  Looked like everyone caught fish today.  That was fun!

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.