CBAngler.com - Chesapeake Bay Angler - The Ultimate Fisherman's Resource - Great morning trolling spoons north of Poplar

Hadn't planned to fish with the windy forecast for Monday morning so I had no crew when I woke up at 5am with NE at 5-7mph.

Caught one 22" rockfish on first cast with a BKD in the shallows west of TPL before sunrise, but the shallow water bite never turned on, nor did I find any birds anywhere between Tolly and TPL so I headed across to GT. Nothing happening there either. Headed down past BPL and to the Hill and still found nothing... until I got into 18-20feet on north side of Poplar, I finally found some birds. Small pods of fish were coming up and drawing the attention of the birds, but by the time I would get there, I was only on the fish for a minute or two and could only get a few casts in. After only catching a few short rockfish, at about 9:15am, with a ripping outgoing current, I put out the trolling spread with planers and small clark spoons and spoonbrellas with Tony 17 and Drone 1. Spoonbrellas were back 3-4 bars, #1 and #2 planers were out 120-60-40-80 feet. I was still chasing small pods of fish, but scored with a 22.5" Spanish Mackerel at 9:30am. From then I got 1-3 fish, mostly blues on every pass when I caught up with the quickly moving pods of fish which the birds kept me following. The blues were 16-18" and the rockfish were 18-22". At 12:30 I had my limit of rock and blues with still one smack and decided to pull in the spoonbrellas and push up the speed to 8-9mph to get some more smacks. I immediately got the biggest rockfish of the day at 24" at 9mph and 3 more blues, all which had to go back and then I called it a day as the wind was now gusting to 25mph. It was a rough ride home as I realized that I hadn't seen a single other boat out all morning... sort of nice that the wind scared them away and I had the middle bay to myself!