Yesterday; we ran out of Deale and took a peek into Eastern Bay. Not much happening so we ran south keeping a keen eye for birds. They weren't cooperating
so we continued south. Got into the Middle Bay area and dropped lines and picked up some dink rock and some blues that are still hanging around. We noticed another charter boat anchored up and we saw him with bent poles. We pulled our trolling gear and drifted in his area. We broke out the jigging rods and jigged up a few nice rock to 23 inches.
We didn't have a charter, just a couple friends out on the boat having a good time. As we drifted alongside the other charter, the captain asked if we had any spot or bait. We didn't, so he put about a dozen in a plastic bag and tossed them to us
. He said he was done with the rock and was just playing with some blues on cut spot. He also said to anchor up as close to him as we wanted since his party was just playing.
We anchored about 30 ft to his port and cut up a few spot and immediatly started catching both rock and nice blues. We ended up with 11 rock (20-23) and about 30 blues (19-21 inches).
One thing I have been noticing over the last month, is that the fish are not everywhere. They seem to be concentrated in certain areas. I appreaciate the fact that a lot of us like to get away from the crowds and "find our own fish", but, if your time on the water is limited, head for a "pack" of boats.
Day two
Today, I took my personal boat out of Bodkin Creek decided I would head to virgin waters. My "home" waters of Rock Hall, Swan Point, Love Point, Podickory, Belvedear Schoals, and 7 ft knoll have not been producing the way I had hoped. So we headed north and the bay was flat. The Judge slid past the remaining crab pots (saw many crabbers with pots stacked on top of their boats) and sipped gas as we headed toward Pooles Island
. This is an area I rarely explore. It seems my wheel automaticly turns right and I head east or west out of Bodkin Creek.
We looked for birds, but saw none
. Found a decent amount of bait, but nothing harrassing it. This seems to be a common this year. We dropped lines and trolled some promising areas with the hope of seeing some action on the flat water. Eventually, we pulled lines and headed south
. It was like when you drive to work in the morning and when you arrive, you don't remember driving there
. The boat was on autopilot
.
I checked out red 10 by rock hall (nothing). Kicked her in the a$$ and ran to the triple buoys. Saw some nice marks and dropped lines. Bang; a rod goes off. A nice blue (19 in) swung over the side. I turned to starboard to get back to the "sweet spot". As I was mid turn, another rod goes down, then another, then another. Lou boated another nice blue, Bruce swung another blue over the gunnel, I was having a difficult time gaining ground on my rod, and as the spreader bar got close to the boat, I could see one blue running to the right and one running to the left. I reached down to grab the sinker in front of the spreader and swung two big blues into the cooler.
Every time I circled and got back into the strike zone, more rods went down. We had six of the biggest blues in the box and that's all my crew wanted
. We released more blues, but we were looking for rock
. I pulled lines and headed across the bay to Podickory. There were several boats working the area. Some were livelining, some trolling. As I passed another troller, I gave the universal "how you doing" sign, and he raised one finger (not the middle one either). That;s not a good sign, so we worked the area for a while, but pulled lines at 3pm and ran back to the dock.
Once I docked, a couple more boats came into the marina. We all compared notes, and found we did the best of all the poor fishermen who fish out of my marina.
The upper bay has been tough. I spend about 3 days on the water fishing south of Deale on the Charter, for every 1 day north of the bridge on my boat.
If anyone has info about where to catch nice 23-27 inch rock north of the bridge, I'm all ears
.
Best of luck,
5th (Marty)