What can I say? As you can see from the time of my post, it's the wee hours of the morning, and I'm still stoked
Because it's so early, I can't imagine anyone posting in between my posts, and interrupting my thread. So, I am going to post in short segments and put photo's at the end, so it's more of a timeline with photo's where they belong
Every year, I like to make a trip south to end the year. The fish tend to stack up in southern Maryland and feed heavily. Fish can still be had north of the bridge, but it's stupid simple fishing with birds showing you the way down south.
Most of the gannets, pelicans, and bigger gulls have followed the bait south, and they are a sight to see when working over feeding rockfish.
The information I received, was that the afternoon bite was the most predictable, so we didn't race to southern Maryland. I had Lou and Mike (Garlein) meet me at my house at 6am. This would put us in Solomon's around 8am, and with launching the boat, and the ride south to buoy 72, we should be dropping lines around 9 or 9:30am.
Winds were calling for "light and variable", but once outside the protected waters of the Patuxant, it was a tad bumpy. No problem, the Judge ran south as if she knew it might be her last trip
I am always amazed at how big the water is down that way. I sometimes think we have a lot of water to search up north when no other boats are around or no birds to show you the way
However, there really is a lot of water to search between Solomon's and Point Lookout.
I have always had success around buoy 72 when running out of Buzz's Marina, so that was my initial destination. I ran the western side of the bay south looking for signs of activity (birds, breaking fish). Every bird I saw was flying east. At one time, we had about 30-50 gannets flying high (real high) but steadily circling in an easterly pattern. A quick check under them found no bait or fish
They quickly vamoosed to the eastern shore as well.
There is a large flat of 35' water on the western shore before you get to the channel. Once across and into the channel, the eastern shore side is relatively skinnier water east of the channel. I told my crew that these birds were either headed to fish on the eastern side, or there was a Walmart parking lot over there that they all wanted to sit on
Of course, the other thought was a big landfill attracting birds also
.
We scooted across to the other side and soon found working birds..................