Fishing report (Dunkin Shiners)

[5th Tuition]

Well; good news is Lou and I had a great day even though we got skunked.

Headed to Smithville lake after we bought 4 dozen shiners from Clydes (2 doz small, 2 doz large). Got to Smithville about 12:30 pm and hit the little store for some subs. Took them to the spillway and put out 5 rods (2 with large shiners, 3 with small shiners). The good news was that the shiners swam pretty well in the cold water. They didn't attract any hits, but we had fun watching them swim toward shore or log jams and relative safety. We changed them out frequently in order to attract either the bass, crappie, or chain pickeral that inhabit the spillway. Nothing we did (tried different spots, changed depths of the bait) worked. Gave it a good hour and a half try and decided to try another lake.

Headed to Tuckaho lake and the lake is frozen solid, but the spillway (and below are open). We fished the bridge pilings and the pool area. For some reason (water too cold) the shiners would die after only about 30 seconds in the water. It didn't matter if we used the large or small shiners.

After "twitching" dead shiners for about an hour, we called it quits and headed to Wye Mills to try that spilway. Good news was the shiners lived in the cold water, bad news was we didn't catch anything there either. There was a lot of open water here, but nothing biting. Since the shiners were staying alive in the water, we dumped out the rest of them and decided to call it a day.

As we left the lake, I told Lou to ride down to Wye Landind just for "chits and giggles" to see if it was open water or frozen. It was wide open. The commercial guys have been keeping it open. One commercial netter was at the end of the pier unloading a slew of white perch. He said it wasn't a very good day, the perch had gone deep in the colder water. We shot the breeze with his crew and him for a while and decided to finally hit the road.

All in all a fun day, looks like we need to wait about 10 days to 2 weeks for the water to warm up just a bit.
5th (Marty)

p.s. Looks like they are working on the new jetty at Sandy Point. The barge they are using looks like it is keeping the entrance open and ice free if you are carefull.

p.p.s. How did anyone esle do today.

[Skip]

Cool report - sounds like you gave it a great try.

This goes back some years but might be worth trying if you go in that area again.

I saw guys catching nice White and Yellow Perch from shore at Wye Landing around this time of year.
They were to the left of the ramp and casting straight out about 50 feet or so.
Live 2 inch minnows on top / bottom rig - then they reeled in slowly.

I was wondering if you went - beats my day. Had to insulate piping that was 250*.

[5th Tuition]

The commercial guys we talked to said if we had been there last week, we could have cought white perch off the ramp piers. However, with the cold snap, the perch have gone to deep water.
5th (Marty)

[garlien]

Marty,

Sounds like the same report I would have made right before Xmas, in just about the same places...

Still better to be fishin and not catchin than workin....(At least for those of us who still have to work ).....

I have to get out again soon...If we could just see a few 40+ degree days in a row with some sun it would help a ton...

Thanks for gettin out and lettin us know how it looks.

Mike

[Spot77]

Marty - that's almost the same trip Mike and I did around Christmas time.

With the same results.

Smithville had a HUGE fishkill there about a year and a half ago. I was there with a bunch of other guys fishing and as we got closer to the dam there were thousands of fish dead on the surface....bass, pickerel, shad, catfish....

We reported it to DNR but never heard anything back about it.

I don't know if this would have affected the spillway area but my guess is probably since whatever bacteria, virus or germ killed the fish in the lake would have drained into the spillway too.

In the summers there it's nearly impossible to fish there, and getting a boat through the grass is a major task. If it weren't for my gas motor I'd still be stuck in the middle almost two years later.

[Spot77]

Originally Posted by garlien

Marty,

Sounds like the same report I would have made right before Xmas, in just about the same places...

Still better to be fishin and not catchin than workin....(At least for those of us who still have to work ).....

I have to get out again soon...If we could just see a few 40+ degree days in a row with some sun it would help a ton...

Thanks for gettin out and lettin us know how it looks.

Mike

Damn....I get on here once in the past week and you post the same exact thing at the same time?

Damn you Mike!

[Shawn Kimbro]

Thanks for the report, Marty. Hopefully they'll be there soon.

[5th Tuition]

Originally Posted by Shawn Kimbro

Thanks for the report, Marty. Hopefully they'll be there soon.

Thanks Shawn; on the way back across the bridge, I was looking down at the pilings for your boat. Winds had diminished to 1-2 mph and the temps were still in the upper 30's to maybe 40*. If your ramps were open, I fiqured you would be out.

One dangerous thing I did see from the bridge, was where some ice appeared to have "broken off" from the western shore side and with the winds from the northwest, the floating ice was 2/3 of the way across the bay. Clear water surrounded it so you could be running at speed in clear water and suddenly be hitting an ice flow (think titanic).

I guess noone else fished yesterday, therefore, no posts.
5th (Marty)

[Shawn Kimbro]

Yeah, Mattapeake has been iced in, so I've been dodging ice while running around from Kent Narrows. Some of the flows are a mile long.