Wow; what a great day. For a while, I didn’t think I was going to be able to say that. Last night, my weather site was calling for cold overnight temperatures but winds to decrease to approximately 7 or 8 mph.
The Judge was all hooked up and waiting for a 4:30 am wakeup call. I was “juiced” and wide awake at 3am!! I sneaked around the house trying not to wake my sleeping wife (who was off for Election Day). Unfortunately, her two cats heard me and came running for some late night snacks. As you can imagine, with three of us up, it didn’t take long for us to wake her. This worked out pretty well, as she fixed me a great breakfast!!
The trip to Chesapeake Beach was uneventful. This is always a good thing when trailering. As we took the road into CB, it was cold and I almost expected to see the Christmas lights lit up along the road. As we topped the hill, we could see the big flag steadily waving and welcoming us to CB. Darn, what happened to 7mph?
We pulled into the marina, paid our fee in the envelope provided (they weren’t open yet), and as I made the turn to the ramp, the parking lot was full of individual cars!! There was only one spot large enough for a truck and trailer, so I put Lou to work as a security guard to hold the spot while Allan and I launched the boat. It appears that a polling place was close by and EVERONE was using the trailer parking lot to vote.
We cleared the bridge by 18 inches and headed out into stiff NE winds and three footers. The Judge ate them up at a reasonable speed of 15-18mph. We took our time crossing the bay looking for birds, crab pots, and debris (none seen). Our destination was the Choptank River. We would get some relief from the wind, and hopefully find some birds working. We saw lots of gannets flying and pelicans sitting on the way across. Not much happening under them.
The river did offer some protection and we ran until we found some “liar” birds. We had a 6 rod trolling spread out and picked up some dink rock (as expected). As I crossed the main portion of the river, I saw a familiar looking vessel. Could that be; why yes it is; it’s Jamie (Jumbo1). I called him on the phone and asked if he was having any better luck than us? He was on the same undersize fish that we had
I continued to troll and Jamie (who I swear must be ADHD because he never sits in one spot very long) was off and running.
About 15 minutes later, I got a call. He had keeper fish
. We pulled rods and ran. As we approached, we pulled the jigging rods from their holders and began jigging some just undersized rock. They were fun, especially for Allan who has never quite gotten the hang of LTJ. Now I’m certainly no expert, but I did give my Steve Fogle Jigging rod a workout. We did manage to pull a few keeper fish (21 inches) out of the school.
We put 3 in the box and looked for Jamie, but alas, he was gone again. We stayed in the area and perfected the ability to catch just undersized rock. We were using 6 inch bkd’s and 1 ½ ounce crippled herring with single hooks. The fish were all lip hooked, so we didn’t feel badly about staying with undersized fish.
Eventually, the time got away from us and I got hungry!! I looked at my watch and it was 11am. Let’s break out the lunch and then go find better fish. I ran for a couple minutes and saw some boats working 20 ft. of water. As we were headed into shallow water, we saw Charlie Schneider on the Big Will quickly LEAVING the area. Back to the cell phone again. Charlie said they were done, and to run into 20-28ft and troll. Charlie and I both use spreader bars this time of the year. He usually has his armed with Storm (or Calcutta) shads; mine have Captain John’s spoons.
We dropped lines and within three minutes we boated a 26 inch fish. As we fought the first one, a second rod went down!! It was another nice fish, (27 inches). I made a turn to avoid some 17ft water, and as we headed back into deeper water, the third rod goes off and takes some drag. Our last fish of the day was a 28 inch rock. All three of them were fat and healthy.
I called Jamie to try to reciprocate him helping us earlier. I don’t know if he found fish, but I did see him streak past us heading in the right direction.
A large portion of our success today goes to Jamie and Charlie. It’s nice to be able to share info when you get to an area someone has already “scouted” out for you!! Thanks guys.
5th (Marty)