My lovely wife had to work late tonight, so I was responsible for dinner; which means I missed the Menhaden meeting tonight. So I thought I'd post some observations from Monday's fishing.
Last Wed. I fished my boat mid bay. On Friday, we fished Lou's boat mid bay. However, with Mon. being a State Holiday, Allan suggested his boat. As my posts revealed, the mid bay is full of small 10-16 inch blues. They "cover up" the trolling lures before you even have a chance to get down to the rockfish. For this reason, we decided to check out the upper bay (Love Point to Poplar Island).
Allen splashed his 23 ProLine Express with 250 Verado at Sandy Point around 6:30 am and we headed north looking for birds, nervous water, or any other kind of activity. Nada
. We ran the shoreline north around Love Point into the Chester and saw nothing but muddy water (compared to south of Ches. Beach) and small debris (with a log or two mixed in). The outgoing tide brought more mud and debris. Trolling lines were continually cloged with grasses (great, even more bay grasses are being destroyed).
Allen and Lou's patience were wearing thin. When I asked if they wanted to go south looking for cleaner water and birds, they jumped at the idea. As we headed south, the debris cleared up just prior to the Bridge, and we found ourselves opening up Allen's boat somewhere near the Severn. At 3/4 throttle, we were pushing 35mph and slowed down enough to look at Tolly Point and Bar. Last year this area was good to me in Oct. No activity, so off across the bay to Gum Thickets. Again, last year blues, rock and spanish were all over this area. As we passed Bloody Point, we took a quick look inside. Through my watering eyes, boy that boat is fast, we didn't see anything worth stopping. As we neared the mouth of Eastern Bay and 84A we saw birds. Small terns=small fish and we were not disappointed. Small rock and blues were shaken off the hook.
We went as far as red 84 and hit several bird shows along the way. No bigger fish were found. We skirted the shoreline into Eastern Bay (which should have been exploding with activity) and found no birds working
.
Came back out of Eastern bay and headed North. Again, we scoped out Gum Thickets, Tolly's, Hacket's, and headed back to above the Bridge and then finally back to Sandy Point and the trailer.
We put some time in at each place, and were on the water until close to 4pm.
I was really surprised at the lack of bird action in the upper bay. It may have just been a poor day for the birds, but the mid bay has activity everywhere. The surface water temp was higher (near 65) and I can't wait for some cold nights to chase away the small blues. Bait and rock should be exiting the rivers and fishing should get better soon. I really worry about the upper bay water quality and it's implications on the environment. Sediment will be covering bay grasses, oysters, and sensitive areas supplying grass shrimp, minnows, soft crabs, and other food for smaller bait fish. The salinity is still not back to normal and we are getting another rain event this week. What this means to the bay remains to be seen. I hope the migratory fish make the turn and travel to the upper portion of the bay. While there are plenty of "rain minnows" in the bay, I don't know how many menhaden are here. Lets hope it's a good late fall run of stripers.
5th (Marty)
Dag nab it
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