Where's the stop sign?

[5th Tuition]

Holy Crap!!! Been doing real well south of Deal on both the charter and on friends private boats. Today, it was my turn to use my boat in a wet slip on Bodkin Creek. I have been out several evenings scouting a couple areas north of the bridge and not finding much. Today I left Bodkin Creek at 6am and headed for Rock Hall. Got to RH and not a boat to be seen. I hit a few humps and break lines and saw little bait and caught zero fish. I was fortunate enough to hang a crab pot with one of my spreader bars and lose it and the two lures.
Pulled what was left of the spread and headed south. Off Swan Point Bar there was the RH fleet. Must have been twenty boats in one section and twenty more south of them. This MUST be the spot. I put out the spread and trolled around the fleet and marked very little. We saw that they were bait fishing (can't find any spot in any quantity) and catching small throwbacks. We worked our way through them looking for better fish and still nothing of any size. Just caught some unders and snagged a big perch.
Tried the fleet south and the same thing was happening there.
I pulled lines and headed west to Podickery Point. Using the new downscan, I snaked my way down the cut formed by the tides running in and out of the Magothy. Nothing worth dropping lines over.
Made a beeline to the sewer pipe and saw a couple boats fishing, not catching. Wind and tide were against one another so it was a slow drift. We broke out the jigging rods and jigged the pipe. I caught several nice mustaches (grass and crap that covers the pipe) and had one nice hookup. Lou wondered if I needed the net (ha,ha); it was a foul hooked big perch that attempted to eat a 6 in BKD. After several drifts, we left for the bridge.
Now I can liveline the bridge, but jigging is a real challenge for me. We hoped to get lucky. Needless to say, we weren't lucky. Saw the Becky Dee jumping pilings (not a good sign).
Cranked the motor up and headed toward home. There is one spot I always hit before I hit the creek and again it produced one 20 inch rockfish for Lou to take home for dinner.
After 6 hours on the water, we saw maybe three legal fish caught north of the bridge.
It was a beautiful day with nice temps and a cool breeze. The boat got a good run and performed flawlessly. We put a few small fish in the boat, and had one for dinner. I guess I shouldn't complain. However, if there is a huge "stop sign" posted at the bridge; please take it down so the larger rock can fill the northern bay.
We are headed to Ches. Beach tomorrow to play bumper boats with the Saturday crowd. At least we know the fish will be there also.

Not many reports on the board, so I thought I'd post even a poor report for you to read.
5th (Marty)

[5th Tuition]

Unfrigginbelievable. Towed the boat south and went out of Ches. Beach and hit our "normal" area. Bait and fish stacked up everywhere.

We had a high tide at CB at 5:19 this morning and we launched at 6am and watched the charter boats just sneek under the bridge. We cleared with no problem.

With the full moon and water near the tops of the piers; we figured we would have to wait until around 8:30 for the tide to be moving south.

Just about 8:30, the tide and the fish started. We had our limit by 10:30 and played CR for a couple more fish.

Bait and fish took up 1/3 to 1/2 the screen on some occaissions. We decided to rack the trolling rods and break out the jigging rods. We drifted some nice water and watched piles of bait slip under the transducer. After about a half hour, Lou says "Man I'm glad I don't do this all day". Which meant, I am ready to call it a day.

Ran back to CB to clean the fish and just walked in the door at 2:30 pm.

What a difference 20 or 25 miles makes for fishing (Bodkin Creeek to CB). We would have had our fish earlier, except Lou had a hard time with the HDS 7 gps. I run mine in "North Up" configuration and he kept running us into shallow water and we hung up rods three times. I switched it over to "Heads Up" and then he figured out which way to turn the boat for deeper water.

All in all, a great day on the water; especially for a Saturday. When we came back in; a State Medivack Copter had landed in the park next to the CB waterslide. I hope it was'nt a boater in distress that got flown out.

Later;
5th (Marty)

[garlien]

Marty,

I have been seeing the same thing...Been to RH, LP, Pod, the bridge, and a couple of other nice spots...and although the perch have been great, the stripers have just not caught on....

Beleive it or not I have had more success close to home and even in the Creek that I have had where "I should be finding fish".....

A year where I can catch channel cats in the middle of the bay, get nice croakers at the end of May and cant find one since...., no blue fish in July, and stripers just hard as heck, not only to catch but to find....

Hopefully, I can have a better week this week in Hatteras than I would have back home....

Good luck to all the "North" guys, lets hope that he salt water comes in strong, temps stay high, and the birds start following good bait pods with lots of big fish.....

[1morecast]

Thanks for the post Marty.I allways enjoy the read.

[Spot77]

"mustaches"


Yup, north of the bridge has been a huge bag of SUCK this year.

As a reminder folks, be extra careful north of, and around the bridge this weekend. The infamous Dobbins Island Bumper Bash is back again this Sat and that means hundreds more boats than usual, and the increased DNR and CG patrols that will accompany the event.

Make sure your safety gear is 100%