September 15th, Five Species Day
Summary
Kate and I caught 36 fish total today, including spot, croaker, perch, blues, and rockfish. We caught fish bottom fishing, jigging, and live lining, and overall, there was a decent bite. Most of the fish were caught off of bloodworms and squid on the bottom. We were underway at around 11 am, and we headed back to the marina at 4:19 pm.
Many of the spot we landed were 9 to 10 inch jumbos. We caught only five perch today, but two of them were 10+ inch fatties. We landed about four blues bottom fishing between the two of us; I caught a double header of line-stripping blues including a 16-incher which was immediately iced down. Surprisingly, I did not land any blues on the jig, and we did not get any live-lining bite-offs. We caught a handful of small, spirited croakers, but none of them were big enough to keep.
We saw our share of working birds today, and they usually came to us while we were doing our bottom fishing drifts. There were some larger gulls mixed in with the terns, and when a melee got close enough, I would make a couple casts. I did fairly well with the birds, but would quit and resume bottom fishing once I saw what was biting: small rockfish. I landed four small rockfish on the jig. My old beat-up silver Gotcha and the 4-inch chartreuse Chug Bug both produced fish, and I got strikes on the 6-inch pearl-colored z-man with the ½ oz head as well as a Lil Jimmy (Specialized Baits) with a 3/8 oz head in a glass minnow pattern.
At about 2:30 pm, we moved a ways away, found some decent marks, anchored and set up for live lining. We bobbed in the waves and wind for over an hour in this exposed location near some other boats, and got two solid runoffs without a hookup, a third runoff resulting in a healthy 19½ inch rockfish, and several mauled spot for our efforts.
We kept one rockfish, one bluefish, four fat perch, and one mangled spot for use as cut bait at a future date. We arrived home, tired but happy, at about 7:45 pm.
Conditions
Low tide at Bloody Point was at 7:54 am, high tide was at 12:53 pm, and the following low tide was at 7:11 pm. The moon was 73% visible and waxing. The salinity at Annapolis was about 12 PSU and had been steady over the past seven days.
The water temperature was 76°, and the air temperatures on the water were steady most of the day, and were in the mid 70’s. The morning low temperature outside our house was 45°, but was around 60° on the bay. The humidity was low, and there were high, thin clouds.
It had been blowing pretty hard the previous several days as a cold front passed through after a hot spell. The winds today were forecast to be 3 to 7 knots and increasing to 10 to 12 knots by mid afternoon. In reality, winds were out of the south at 7 to 10 knots most of the day, and increased to 15 to 17 knots by the time we headed back to the marina at a little after 4 pm.
We Had a Good Meal of Perch in Store for Us
Fish On!
Working Birds
Angry Bluefish
We continued our drift, and soon the working birds were some distance away. The 1-mile-per-hour drift continued, aided by the 10 knot breeze out of the south, and the rhythm of my bouncing weight was suddenly broken by something hitting my bait with the force of a freight train. “Holy cow! I’m on in a big way!” I shouted with glee as my rod doubled over and some unknown force attempted to rip the rod out of my hands. We had already gotten some decent fights out of some of the large spot, but this was something decidedly different. This was no spot.
I started a pump and retrieve, and slowly fought the fish up the water column. The resistance came in strong surges, and line was stripped from my reel, a couple yards at a time. “Kate, I think I might have a bull croaker!” I announced as the rod twitched violently in my hands. Time seemed to slow down a bit, and I speculated to myself. “If this isn’t a big croaker, could it be a large rockfish? If it’s a striper, it has to go mid to high 20’s,” I thought to myself. While this was happening, Kate tied into her own fish and began a retrieve.
Smoker Caliber Bluefish
Soon the mystery was solved, and two torpedo-shaped ghostly silver images came into view. “Blues! Kate I got two blues, and one of them is nice!” I squealed with joy as the two fish made a dash for freedom and disappeared from sight. Meanwhile, Kate finished her retrieve, and hoisted her own bluefish, a 12-incher, over the side. I asked Kate to grab the net, as I fought the fish back to within view. My heart was pounding, and I had a fleeting fear of losing one or both of these fish. I did not want the larger, perfect for harvesting fish to be spared from the smoker. Kate lowered the net into the water, and I guided the larger fish into it.
Kate hoisted my double header over the side, and we now had three angry fish with razor sharp teeth flopping on the deck. “Don, you should get rid of my fish first to get it back into the water, and then get rid of your own small one.” With that, I picked up Kate’s fish, and gingerly worked at the hook. “Be really careful Don, so you don’t get bit” Kate counseled, as I removed the hook from her snapper bluefish. I tossed Kate’s fish back into the water to fight again some day, and I went to work on my own 12-inch bluefish. Soon, my snapper was swimming free, and I gingerly removed my 16-inch smoker-grade bluefish from the net and removed the hook. After a couple quick photos, my blue was iced down, and we continued fishing.
We Caught Numerous Double headers
Live Lining in the Rollers
On my third bait, I finally felt that distinct “thunk”, and began counting aloud “a thousand one, a thousand two, a thousand three…”, and then nothing. I retrieved my line to find a bare hook. Whatever it was got a free meal.
A short while later while dumping line for Kate, the same thing occurred: I got a short run-off only to have the spool quit spinning prematurely. This time, when I retrieved the line we discovered a mangled spot. With fish still marking in much of the water column, we varied the length of line paid out. We first dumped about 20 feet of line and waited. If the bait remained docile, we dumped a few more feet and waited.
About 45 minutes after we arrived at this spot, I got my third runoff of the day, and this fish hit about a third of the way down and immediately after my initial line dump. The bait never had a chance to get nervous. As soon as I stopped dumping line, the reel started screaming. I made a full five count and made a solid hook set. “Kate, I’m on this time!” I shouted as my rod bowed in protest. The vessel continued to roll in the wind-driven waves as I fought the fish to the surface, and Kate was soon slipping the net under a health 19½ inch striper. The fish was put into the cooler alongside the perch and bluefish, and I deployed another spot.
A Strange Air Show
I saw one of the strangest things I have ever seen on the bay while we were live lining. At one point we heard a small motor starting, and Kate and I looked over to see an ultralight aircraft take flight from the water. There were not one, but two of these small aircraft, and they circled around us for about 20 minutes until we lost track of them. This unusual event compares in strangeness to something I witnessed in the mid 1970’s when I was trolling for blues with Pop. On that day many years ago, a seaplane started to circle the fleet, getting lower and lower on each pass. The plane eventually landed a short distance from the fleet where the crew promptly deployed a two-rod spread and joined the fleet!
Wrapping It Up
In about an hour’s time as the wind increased to 15 to 17 knots, we got several mangled spot in addition to the three runoffs. It was starting to get late, the wind was increasing, and it was time to wrap it up. One mangled jumbo spot was put into the cooler for use as bait at a future date, the final 5 spot were released, we stowed some gear, and we pulled the anchor.
With the wind howling out of the south and some nice fish in the cooler, I got a few last casts in with my pearl colored z-man with the ½ oz head. I got numerous strikes, but did not hook up, and I could not get my jig to sink to the bottom of the water column as I had hoped. The jig was too light, and we were being blown north at over 1 mile per hour. It was time to end it.
We packed it in at 4:19 pm, and surfed home across the channel on 2-foot rollers with a 16-knot wind at our backs. With Kate at the helm practicing some docking, we were pulling up at the ramp at about 5 pm. We were headed back home at a little after 7 pm after pulling the boat, cleaning and transferring gear, and cleaning the fish. We will return as soon as the weather and wind permit it.
The Trip Home Down Route-50
09/15 Five Species, Three Methods
Hybrid Mode
