The spawn is on and the fish have arrived...

Today was a good day on the flats. I only know this because I'm currently an Internet expert fishermen.  Or in other words I can't personally confirm it unfortunately. But ever since late last week the fish have arrived.  Capt Pete Dahlberg or www.walleyepete.com put his clients on some huge fish today.  Two 50# fish in one day on artificial, while casting, is about as good as it gets. I'm still looking for my first 50.  Musky or striper, I don't care. Maybe this will be the year? For both?  Here are the two Capt Pete put his clients on today while fishing the Susquehanna Flats near Havre De Grace, MD today.  The larger fish was caught on the morning trip while jigging 6 inch chartreuse BKD's and the second fish was caught in the middle of the afternoon sun on a #17 tony Accetta Spoon.  They are about as simple a lure to use as they get.  Just cast and reel in, just not too fast as to make them come out of the water. If you stop reeling to drink your beer or scratch yourself, no worries.  The pulsating flutter drives them nuts.  That one lure has been around since before I was born and it still keeps on tallying up the big fish.  The perfect herring look a like over those shallow grassy silt laden flats. 


First the 50

 Then the tiny 49 inch

I will say again, these were on lures, not boring bait or trolling.  They were caught and released. Water temperature was low 60's but air temps soared into the high 80's and there were several reports of fish spawning on the Susky flats.   I also heard of excellent catches on fly gear with most guys even getting away with floating and intermediate lines with top water poppers and deceivers working well.  THE TIME IS NOW.  Quit your jobs, get sick, whatever it takes. 

Here's a link to real-time water quality data.
http://mddnr.chesapeakebay.net/newmontech/contmon/eotb_results_graphs.cfm?station=havredegrace


Below is a little info of what the river is doing right now.  I'm sure that spot John C and I like in the river is producing crazy numbers right now.  But you have to fish the river flows.  See below for tomorrows release schedule and fish those high water times. 

April 17, 2012

This has been pretty consistent the last few days, fro the Conowingo Hotline: 1888-457-4076

1200-0600: two small units at 10,000cfs

0600-0800-four small 3 large units at 50,000cfs

08-1000 -4 small one large unit at 32,000 cfs

1000-1800-2 small at 11k

1800-2200:  4 small and two large 41,000 cfs

2200-2400   2 small at 11,000cfs

479 American shad caught today all east lift

4300 were caught this season

On Saturday, April 14,2012 I made a quick trip to visit the Hanna's on Kent Island. I brought quite a few heavy trolling outfits and managed to rig Pete's sea pro up like a porcupine.  We trolled 6 lines with parachutes and one umbrella and brought a few light jigging rods in case we ever saw some gannets diving.  I don't think I saw the first gannet.  First we went out with the kids and tooled around without a bite.  But the kids seemed to enjoy themselves and I got some practice dragging a few baits while I manned the helm and ran the rods. 

Then Pete and I went out for a little over an hour on our own and found at least one fish out there.  It hit the 7 year old crusty, rusted chartreuse alien head parachute set about 200 feet back.  Pete man handled the rod, struggled some at first but got it done.  I think one of his quotes was, " I could get use to this."  He was shocked at the size of the fish.  But it wasn't really that big.  Kind of average, around 40 inch and full of eggs.  She fought well for a trolled fish and at the last second dove under the boat and almost wrapped in the two close in rods.  The fish was released unharmed. 

Counting back to Thursday...  April 12, 2012

I met legendary Dan Hodkinson on Route 70 to show him the Susquehanna flats.  Dan was the only Musky guide on the Potomac for a while so he's legendary in my eyes.  Then he decided to hang it up because of the added pressure and the time involved in planning for the perfect trip.  We met at 9am but made the call to fish the Potomac because of the wind and that I got a bad report from a guide just moments before I showed up.  Then later I read another reliable report that the flats did fish quite well that day and the day after.  Oh well.  Potomac is was after we wasted two hours running back to Dan's house to grab some other gear.  He was more than well stocked for the flats but not so much the Potomac.  His garage destroys mine with respect to fishing equipment.  Plus he was running an 18' G3, 2009 or so, with a 65/90HP jet, 4 stroke that had plenty of power. An upper river fishing machine. We worked the usual spots at fletchers, missing insane numbers of strikes and only landing small stripers.  I'm sure we hooked and lost some good ones though.  Even the catfish were kind of small.  Here's Dan with a decent 10 pounder just as the sun was setting and the tide was about slack.  It would have been nice to hit that spot with a little more tide. I have a feeling the fish are there.  Probably won't last another week though.  But this is the time for those crazy numbers. 

 

So, I've not only been busy fishing as you can see, although in the last week not as much as week's past, I've also been busy on the computer studying aerials, charts and river meanders preparing for the musky post spawn bite which last year we referred to as the musky blitz. I've done a lot of home work and figured out where those 50 inch musky were coming from in Virginia this past winter from the guys of New Angle Fishing Company. They reported, "From a river in Virginia." Well, I made a call to a popular shop, asked the where and got it down between two rivers. Then spent a great deal of time on google earth and maps. Me's thinks I's got it. AHAHAHAH



Okay, back to the stripers. Big winds and rains coming for this weekend. Could but a huge dent in the fishing from the Chesapeake opener this weekend to especially the rivers. Plus any major rise in water could wash away all those freshly spawned eggs from the walleye and the musky but it should help the striped bass to a degree. One day I'll go into the science behind water levels and fish recruitment, or larvae survival. Basically, the more water and sediment in Chesapeake Bay's tidal spawning areas the better the survival rate is for the striped bass young. However, move up river to non tidal areas where flash flooding is common and strong flows scour river bottoms and species that have spawned earlier this spring like Walleye, and Musky, the high water is detrimental to the young fish's survival. Same with bass too. We receive excellent recruitment years where there is low water like there is currently and terrible spawns up river when the rivers flood for much of the spring. The opposite occurs for the striped bass. The annual striped bass spawn survey results are usually better after high water springs and far worse during low water drought conditions like we are currently experiencing. But, like always, conditions can and do change.



So, if you own a fishing rod and enjoy world class fishing, the next few days might be the best of the season. Heck it might be the best the Chesapeake Bay has seen in years and in my opinion is some of the best in the world right now. I know the Susquehanna Flats catch and release fishery is fishing far better than it has in the last several years. So is the Potomac. So, like Kayak Kevin would say, "Get On'Em!"