10-28-2011 (Combined Reports from Multiple Users)
 

Fri evening; left SP around 1pm and took a ride south looking for birds or bait. We rode past Tolly's down to the West River. Actually went into the West and looked for birds/bait. Came out and checked around #1 marker to no avail. Went across to Eastern bay and found birds but small fish (14 inches). We pulled a few out of eash bird show to check for a better size. We must have checked a dozen bird shows, all with the same result.

As we went deeper into Eastern Bay finding birds, I started looking for a 27 Judge CC named Thunder Road:eek:. All the birds were working small rock so I figured why not start looking for Shawn Kimbro instead:D.

My boat had never made the circle around Kent Island and through the Narrows, out the Chester and back to SP. So we did it:). Birds were working everywhere in Eastern Bay, all the way up to The condo's (Oyster Cove) just before the Narrows bridge.

Once out in the Chester, we didn't see any birds, but did mark a lot of bait near the Love Point light:rolleyes:.

Headed south toward the Bay Bridge and stopped at the Sewer Pipe just before dark, dark, dark. Saw some good marks, but Lou was cold and tired:mad:.

Loaded the boat and came home to eat soup and sandwich to warm up. A hot shower also felt great!!!!

Snow tomorrow:confused:. At least the batteries are charged and ready for next week.
5th (Marty)

10-28-2011 (Combined Reports from Multiple Users)
 

So Garlien and I went out yesterday around 11:30 or so and headed west over towards Love Point. Upon leaving the creek we were hit with 2'+ waves for a while as the wind and tide semed to be working against each other.

We headed for the channel and dropped over a plethora of different lures; spoons, umbrellas rigged differently throughout the day, bucktails in white and chartreuse. Went all the way over to Love Point and saw tons of bait on the screen, but nothing on top of the water. On the way across we saw a few birds, but nothing to get excited about. No birds at Love Point. Played around over there for a while with no action so we turned around and trolled back again.

With no takers still we decided to head back closer to home to a spot that's produced for us pretty regularly over the past few months. Trolled some crankbaits around in about 10' of water and finally got a fish on. 19" Striper.

About 2 minutes after I brought him in Mike's reel was making some noise and he brought in another19" Striper (albeit a little fatter and heavier than mine.)

About 10 minutes later I had another fish on, this time a 24" Striper. :cool:

About 10 minutes after that, I had another big hit and reeled in a 21" FAT Striper.

The two bigger fish both went back to fight another day and we took the 19's home for tonight's dinner.

Marty, your trip sounds a lot like ours except we were fortunate enough to pull out a save in the last 2 hours we were out.

We were probably in the same area within an hour of each other. I would've been mad if you said you were tearing them up over there around Love Point:eek:

Scott; we didn't even have lines in the water near Love Point. We trolled a little while near the mouth of the West River looking for birds or bait. If we had found a concentration of fish, we were going to pull in the trolling lines and jig them.
We spent soooo much time in Eastern Bay chasing birds that we spent toooo much time there. Eventually, we would run up on a group of birds, look for the size of the fish breaking and slowly motor through the group watching the downscan for better fish on the bottom:D. Unfortunately, everything looked small in the schools.
The run around Kent Island was two fold, one, I had never done it before, second, I wanted to charge the batteries really well for the coming cold snap. Best news was not a single bluefish in all the rock.
By the time we hit the love point area, it was nearing dark and Lou wanted to get in. One very important thing to report:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:. I always had a problem with my running lights for several years. The bulbs would only last a couple hours before going bad. Now when I say bad, they would not break the filament. The bulb would actually turn black. I always carried spares to replace all the time. Last year, I was told to buy some dielectric grease and put on the bulb. I bought something similar and greased the tips of the "Festoon" bulbs and have not had a problem since:D.
The downscan showed lots of bait near Love Point light as we were running in that area, but didn't have time to stop.

A p.s. to the above post. I love my down/side scan unit. When I have my fishfinder application on, the reading while running is crap. My screen goes virtually white. I still get bottom reading, but bait or fish are nearly impossible to distinguish. If I run over a large bait ball at 20 mph I may get a vertical line about 1/8 or 1/4 inch wide that I could reverse direction and slow down and at trolling speed go back and look at the bait for fish mixed in.

The downscan transducer is mounted lower on the hull and I don't know if that's the reason, or if it's just a benifit of the downscan mode that allows me to run (20 mph) and actually see bait balls as bait balls. Now, the bait ball is reduced in size because of going over it at speed, but it still shows a much improved picture on the screen. In downscan mode, I can actually tell what knd of bait is in the ball!!!! Rainminnows and menhaden look totally different in size and menhaden "light up" much darker. Those of you who don't have down/side scan will think I'm lying, but you can actually COUNT the number of menhaden in a school (if you were willing to do the screen capture and look at it later).
I have not perfected the sidescan portion of the unit as I don't use it very often. This fall, if the big fish come up the bay, I may try to use sidescan when trolling so I can see what side of the boat the fish are on. Of all the things I've added to the boat, this has to be the best and most productive thing for the money (around 600 bucks).
Now I need some gannets to show me where to begin looking for big menhaden/big fish. I understand they have not yet turned into the Chesapeake, but big fish are on the way:).
5th (Marty)

We were out by 3:30 or so and right away did well jigging structure out of SPSP with a number of fish to 24", most were in the 20" range though with a few dinks mixed in. As the it got closer to dusk, my boy and I attempted to eel for a larger fish at the channel edge without success. Neighbor had a 32"er eeling earlier in the week at the same area.

Was that you I saw coming down CSC rd about 6:30 tonight?

If so, whatcha' catch out there?

naa. I was at a fall festival with my family tonight. The guy across the street has a Maycraft and I know he fished today. My bet it was him.

You know....I'm sure you're right. I saw the front profile of the boat and it was definitely a Maycraft now that you mention it. Pretty distinctive look from the front.

I'm fairly night blind, so my priority was keeping the car on the road and not ogling over the pretty boat. :o

You should tell the guy to sign up here......more fishing reports from the same area I live and fish in would be fantastic. :cool: