A Funny Catch on an Otherwise Slow Day Near Poplar, September 20, 2012
Summary
Today, I caught one of the most whimsical looking striped bass that I have ever laid my eyes on. The fish was otherwise very healthy, but it had a totally engorged stomach due, no doubt, to it ingesting something almost as large as itself, as bass so often do. If one ever wondered what Santa Clause would look in jailhouse garb, this was it.
Otherwise, we’ve been in a bit of a funk this season, and that funk extended into last night. We searched high and low, but we found only dink rock with a smattering of perch mixed in. We covered a lot of ground and left fish biting in numerous locations, but all we could muster were sub-legal stripers and not so much as a snapper blue. The plan today, once again, was to put some bluefish in the cooler, and we were leaving the marina at 3:45 pm. We returned under cover of darkness at about 9:30 after eating our dinner. We put away the boat, and then fished the lighted ramp for about 20 minutes.
We found liar birds at The Hill, and a semblance of breakers in a number of locations, but the top water bite tonight was all but nonexistent. The hot lures for us tonight were our bronze rattletraps cast near shallow water structure. Norm and I caught 15 to 20 fish each, and could have caught more if we’d focused on the dinks. Later, we each caught about a half dozen more fish from land at the lighted ramp. The current never really got moving tonight, which could explain the slow day.
Conditions
Water temperature in front of the South River was 72°, and it was 74° near Poplar. Air temperatures were in the high 60’s to low 70’s, skies were clear, and the humidity was low. Winds were 3 to 5 knots out of the southeast, and there was a gentle chop on the bay that laid down a bit at times. The tide was down when we left the marina, and the current never really got going. Low tide at Poplar was at 1:11 pm, high tide was at 7:57 pm, and the moon was 18% visible and was waxing. The salinity at Annapolis was about 14 PSU, up from about 12 PSU over the past 30 days.
Tackle
I started out using my 4-inch chartreuse chug bug, but quickly moved to my old and beat-up silver Gotcha plug when the breakers that we initially found never really materialized. I also used my Lil Jimmy (Specialized Baits) in a glass minnow pattern and with a 3/8 oz head, but the most productive lure tonight was my bronze rattletrap which I used predominately in the shallows. In the shallower water, I also tossed my tiny chartreuse bucktail with the 1/8 oz head that I paired with a small chartreuse Berkley power grub.
I forgot to bring the rod with the 6-inch albino hot-rodded BKD with the ˝ oz head, but I had other BKD’s available in the box which I never used. I searched for my 6-inch chartreuse spook, which I wanted to swap in to try and weed out the smaller fish, but I couldn’t lay my hands on it right away. I quit looking for the larger plug when the breakers quickly dissipated, but I found it on Saturday buried at the bottom of my tackle box. At the lighted ramp at the marina, I tossed my white Beetle Spin. Norm threw a similar assortment of plugs, jigs, and crank baits, and he also used his lipless and suspended Yo-Zuri Edge Trembler Minnow. The trolling spread remained at home tonight and we focused exclusively on jigging.
A Mid-Bay Potbellied Rockfish, 9/20
Linear Mode
