Hide and Seek

[5th Tuition]

Before the full moon; we were consistantly catching 21-25 inch fish south of the Severn and 25-30 inch fish north of the bridge. On the weekend of the full moon; we lost our mojo and it was difficult to put fish in the box (for us anyway).
It's been a while since we tried north, but today, I left the slip at 2pm and headed for R... H... (oops did I burn the spot?). Anyway, dropped lines around 3 and found lots of bait and marks as well. I figured, game on. However, we trolled north, south, east, west (some of the charter captains say to "cut the pie" if you find bait and fish but they aren't hitting).
We picked up four fish 23-27 inches, but there had to be a heck of a lot that we drug our baits through without a hit. No birds working (and few flying). We saw a couple other boats working a little further to the north, but they didn't appear to be catching either.
Allan and Lou are making a trip tomorrow morning even further north to try to find some schools of fish. I don't know what happened to them? Two weeks ago, I could have caught 25 -30 fish per trip; today four. The water temp. was 58 degrees the skies were clear (I could see a long way looking for birds). No birds showed up at dusk either?
Seriously thinking about pulling the boat and putting it on the trailer to head out of Ches. Beach or points south.

I don't have to know "where"; but is anyone else doing considerably better?
5th (Marty)

[garlien]

Marty,

Not doing great but got a nice pair on the flats a couple of days ago and then headed back up a couple of rivers/creeks and hit a few mid to high 20's back there as well.

Has been a down year and I still have not seen the birds and bait consistently like the last few years but I cant bring myself to pull it...

I try to stay north, but I have to say the last 4 to 6 weeks has not really been horrible...They only thing is that the damned fish just are not staying in one spot more than a day or two...One day its LP, another RH, then the flats, the knolls, keeps changing and the birds are just not making it easy at all....The lack of birds makes the finding of the fish like a crap shoot....

Mike

[B-Faithful]

Marty, to do better I would have to be fishing. I havent fished in weeks due to the Annapolis boat show, a weekend sea trial, and family obligations. Fishing regularly is in the near future though...

Gonna try this morning with a mix big bait and small bait spread with my son for just a couple of hours close to SPSP. More so just to get some of the bigger stuff out and see if an early fish is around. I am trying to look for a big migratory fish instead of catching a bunch of keepers. I have a tournament this weekend and havent been fishing at all so I wanna see what is close to home before making the call to run further south. My buddy won the north div of the monster rockfish tourney this weekend with a 45". However he was a little bit south and it was the only fish they caught all day with a big bait spread. If you are only gonna catch one, it might as well be the winner.

[Skip]

Just when you think you have the fish figured out ......................

No doubt there are less Rock around then in last few years.
Takes more looking for the smaller schools.
Now that a lot of small bait has been pushed out of the creeks by cool temps. - the Rock have plenty to eat.

Tough to compete with 10,000 baitfish dragging 6 lures.

[5th Tuition]

You are so right about six lures; next time out it will be tandems with six inch shads on the bottom and smaller tony's up top. After that, it will be time to pull the boat from the slip and start heading south with boards and a large fall spread.
Four fish yesterday wasn't toooo bad, it's just that we really had to work for them. I love my hds 7 that now allows me to run back over the same trail to get back on the bait and fish.
I'm out of town for a few days (37th anniversery) so I'll check the board to see how everyone is doing on my return.
Please Post
5th (Marty)

[B-Faithful]

I trolled a 9 rod big bait spread for almost 3 hours without a hit. I worked East-west from 30' to 30'. I marked lots of bait but no takers. We saw tons of birds so after we pulled the spread we LTJed a bunch of fish. Half were undersized but the largest was in the low 20" range. Brennan jigged a 2oz stingsilver and I jigged a 1oz bucktail with a 6" BKD..

[crabby and son]

Originally Posted by 5th Tuition

Before the full moon; we were consistantly catching 21-25 inch fish south of the Severn and 25-30 inch fish north of the bridge. On the weekend of the full moon; we lost our mojo and it was difficult to put fish in the box (for us anyway).
It's been a while since we tried north, but today, I left the slip at 2pm and headed for R... H... (oops did I burn the spot?). Anyway, dropped lines around 3 and found lots of bait and marks as well. I figured, game on. However, we trolled north, south, east, west (some of the charter captains say to "cut the pie" if you find bait and fish but they aren't hitting).
We picked up four fish 23-27 inches, but there had to be a heck of a lot that we drug our baits through without a hit. No birds working (and few flying). We saw a couple other boats working a little further to the north, but they didn't appear to be catching either.
Allan and Lou are making a trip tomorrow morning even further north to try to find some schools of fish. I don't know what happened to them? Two weeks ago, I could have caught 25 -30 fish per trip; today four. The water temp. was 58 degrees the skies were clear (I could see a long way looking for birds). No birds showed up at dusk either?
Seriously thinking about pulling the boat and putting it on the trailer to head out of Ches. Beach or points south.

I don't have to know "where"; but is anyone else doing considerably better?
5th (Marty)

I'm doing much better Marty. I was at 18-20 feet and got two 90 pounders on Saturday.............Gary