May 14, 2015
The End of an Era
My fishing partner and I have a theory that when we break
something while fishing or lose something valuable, we often have a pretty good
day. We are or I am very hard on my
fishing equipment. I have friends that
say it’s Griffithsized, or basically just destroyed by the time I touch
something. I like to think I just use my
equipment. I fish something like 5 days
a week in the spring. Spring for me is
March 1st through May 15th give or take. But really the best fishing for the true
giants is winter until opening day of the striped bass season. Well, I’m about to tell a story of the last
day of the catch and release Susquehanna Flats Fishery on May 3, 2015. This is an area that the DNR made an
exception to allow fishing in a spawning area because many businesses,
fishermen and fishing guides rallied together to allow fishing to continue. The MD DNR made an exception to allow catch
and release fishing for striped bass in an area known as a spawning ground. Money talks, screw the fish it’s for the
money. But hey, I’ll play. These fish sometimes gather in incredible numbers
in the spring on the flats. However, the
last few years the fishing has been less than stellar. Many guides have given up and headed
home. The “fleet” of aluminum and
fiberglass boats has vanished. Most people
now a days are largemouth bass or perch fishing out on the area
known to Chesapeake Bay fisherman as the “flats.” But one has to believe. If they show up there historically, then they
will show up there again. That was my
friend John and my thought anyway.
So, what broke or what did we lose do you ask? Well, I’ve had an SUV since a year after I
graduated college. I bought my first new
car in July of 2002. I wanted 4 wheel
drive, something that could tow, something manly and tough to help me feed my
fishing addiction. I bought a
trailblazer that has fit the bill well.
It has gone through 3 boats.
Towed much of its life, driven all over Assateguge island on the days I
did not own a boat. Still has sand under
the skid plates to this day…. It’s basically been slimed by every fish species
in the North America and has served me well, over 218k miles. Lately however the Transmission has been
slipping. Lately like the last 4 months. I just keep driving it. The differential is just about toast
also. But it was April, hands down the
best month of the year to fish for everything that swims. I need to get out there. I just figured if it died I’d catch a cab to
a dealer or enterprise for the day. But
when you are towing a boat everywhere every other day, that could get
complicated. Well, on Sunday afternoon,
May 3, 2015 I was set to meet John at a park and ride along I-70 with boat in
tow to head 80 miles north to fish the top of the bay. To find the last of the spring run. The Susquehanna usually runs about a week or
two behind the Potomac, my home river.
Even though it was near the end of the run, it should be about prime on the
flats. Except all the reports were dismal. Every report I read was that the fish are not
there, the water is too muddy, too cold…. But there was still hope. We can check live NOAA bouy data and get
accurate turbidity (water clarity) and temperature readings. Sure we could fish the Potomac. It served me well this year. Two fish over 50 pounds on my beloved river
this spring, a day in mid April that only lives in your dreams when your best
friend visits and we stumble across a giant school of lure eating spring
spawners. But there were a few skunks
too. Just a few days before this trip I
was skunked when it came to fish with stripes.
Sure I caught dozens of American shad on the fly rod and a few 30 pound
catfish on artificial lures.. anyone anywhere would call that an epic day but
for me at the beginning of May on the Potomac, I should have had double digit
striped bass all day long as well. Not
sure what happened. So John and I
gambled on the Flats. I’m driving my car
down the road to meet john at the rendezvous spot and my tranny just goes. My RPMS hit the roof and I’m barely
moving! With boat in tow! I have a line of a dozen cars behind me now
and I’m just creeping along. NOOO! Not now.
I was literally a mile from John.
I tell him he’s got to drive. I
limp to meet him, switch the trailer to his truck and we are off. I have no idea how I’m getting home but I can
worry about that later.
It’s mid Afternoon on the last day. The flats close to targeting striped bass at
midnight. It’s a full moon, we plan to
fish late but I’ve got an appointment for work at 8am. Oh well… it’s the last
day on the best time of the year. Drink
a red bull or ten. Fishing at night on
the flats was a good way historically to avoid the flotilla of boats that used
to be out there when the fishing was good.
Striped bass feed well at night all up and down the coast and it holds
well for our area also. And guess what…
no body around here does it… well, except for John and I. I think in 15 years fishing the flats I’ve
seen about 2 boats out there well after sunset and I think those two boats were
kayaks. Sure people fish the river after
dark but not the skinny water up on the flat.
I bet you could even run planner boars and troll the shipping channel after dark
and do well but trolling is about as much fun as petting a cactus. With night fishing you get an awesome bite in
the evening or at last light and then things just die out for some reason. Well, at first dark, the fish need time to
acclimate. So give it a little while and
fish after true dark, say an hour or two after sunset. By now the fish know what’s up and figured out
how to use their senses again. It’s
almost like the change in the tide. Give
the fish time to figure out where the bait will set up and how the current
flows.. they’ll go back to their same haunts time and time again. John and I fish hard up on the flat with an
incoming tide and a fading sun. John
found his old school hand held GPS that is pushing 12 years or more old. It’s got dozens of marks of trenches and
honey holes from the years of the haydays.
But back then, say 2004 time frame I think you could fish in Tidings
parking lot and hammer the fish. It was
so easy a rookie could do it. Oh, we
were rookies back then. Well, it’s near
the finest hour now and John and I are skunked.
Not a darn fish. I’m cursing the
place like I did a week or two before when john and I slept in our trucks to
allow us to fish as long as possible. We
took a skunk then too but the river was much higher and muddier, so was the
flats. We head down south to the old
faithful, never fail spot. The spot that
used to be littered in fiberglass. The
spot where guides used to anchor next to each other in unison and block the
regulars from fishing just so their clients could hog all the fish. Many, many a 50 ponder have come from here in
5 feet of water. We have a good incoming
tide and I think it was the second cast I hook up. The fish hit inches from the boat and is now airborne. Nice 28 inch football. Exactly what we were looking for. Now let’s just hope for some numbers. Sure enough, he and all his friends and fat
girlfriends were there, ready to party.
There wasn’t another boat for as far as the eye could see. Could this be real we thought? The sun was just setting below the trees, we
were rasing against time but the fish had arrived! We were in the middle of acres of bass. Our shallow diving stick baits were bouncing
off the backs of stripers on every cast.
We were getting slammed about every 5th cast from all sizes
of fish. The smaller guys like mid 20
inch size were a lot easier to hook and land but even they threw the hook
often. I don’t know what it was but we
just couldn’t land a biggun. The two
treble hooks were working against each other it seemed. When a large striped bass hit the lure in 4
feet of water, they have nowhere to go.
They can’t dive deep like they usually do. So they go up. I kid you not, a 40 inch 25 pound striper
will go air born under these conditions.
Or at least try. They kick and
roll on the line at first. Well that’s
after an arm jolting strike where they literally try and steal your rod. During this rolling process, they often
dislodge the lure. We should have
removed a treble hook or used good quality J hooks on the slip rings instead of
trebles. Sure we tried top water but the
fish would hit top water very rarely. Like
one out of 20 casts. We wanted
action. John had not caught a striper
almost all spring!? So action we got on floating crystal minnows and Diawa SP
minnows. At one point john hooked about
a 15 pound low 30 inch striper and it rolled at first and literally jumped,
completely airborne like a smallmouth.
When it landed it spooked the sea of fish that were in the area and the whole
place just exploded. Earlier we had seen
many swirls as our boat drifted over the fish. We knew there were good numbers
of fish around but nowhere near that many?
From all around the boat to near 50 yards away this enormous school took
off all at once with thousands of swirls and splashes happening simultaneously. It was insane. All we could do was watch in aww. Or take another cast. We had to move… like 20 yards to hook up
again. A trolling motor is essential out
there. I wish I had a power pole too. Stealth is key. We used to have to start our engine, just
like the flotilla of guides that were all Parkers without trolling motors used
to have to do. But back then it didn’t
matter. There were so many fish that if
you spooked that school, you’d just move a 100 yards and be on them again. Well, that’s how it was for us on the last
day. So I broke a car and hammered the
fish. We found gold. Oh how sweet it is when a plan comes together
like that. It almost makes up for all
those skunks and poor days. But again,
every day I keep thinking of that line, “It’s not always the fish we are after.” Sometimes just taking in the wild is pleasure
enough. And that night it was truly wild. We didn’t land nearly as many fish as we
should have. There were probably
thousands of fish stacked in layers all around us and often times we call a
blank on our casts. It didn’t seem
possible. Or these big giant fish would
just have their way with us. WE didn’t break
any fish off, our hooks were sharp but they just knew how to get away from us stupid
fishermen. These fish had done this a
time or two before. So we each landed a
few fish in that flurry of action before sunset and were quite happy. By now the sun was long gone and the first
dark hit. Sure enough it slowed to a
crawl. Then to top it off the tide
slowed to nothing. What most people
would do at this point is run home. F
that. The moon was looking marvelous. Even just staying out there to watch the stunning bright moon rise over the bay from the east would have been worth it. But when we had the majority of the upper bay’s
spawning stock around the boat… we weren’t going anywhere. They will turn on again, just be patient
grasshopper.. Well, it worked. Waiting till true dark, like dark 30 or let’s
say 10pm was the ticket. Now for some
reason we were able to hook and land these bastards. Like the fish hit the lure with more
accuracy or something. The same
pattern happened again. Swirls happening here there and everywhere around
us. And I mean giant swirls. These were legendary fish. The kind that only shows up this time of year
and vanishes just days later. These are
the repeat spawners, the biggest fish of the entire stock. Who knows, there could have been 100 pound
striped bass around us. We caught a few
of the bigguns and it was just awesome.
My big fish of the night went 44 inches and probably met with 40 pounds
as she was just as girthy as they come.
This fish hit almost when I was taking my lure out of the water. This was not the first fish to do that either
that night. When this happens the chaos
that proceeds is just stupid. I should have
been doing more figure 8’s musky style.
I did a few that came up empty. A good musky fishermen knows that a
figure 8 is essential every time, after every cast. We did some minor lure modifications that I’ll
hold to myself for now. They were John’s
idea that he read somewhere. Just a little
add on to the rear slip ring of the stick bait but sure enough does this
work. Every time I see it I’m like ahhhh,
that’s BS. I don’t need it. Well, after watching John do the dosy doe around
the boat a few times on his 4th fish to my zero… you’ll change. I’m no dummy.
He hooks me up with this little add on and it’s off to the races. I’m hooked up like the 4th cast to
the giant. After releasing the fish I
had to do the two step on the deck of the boat.
My own little happy dance. I did
it. I set out for a giant in shallow
water and succeeded. Everything is gravy
now. My car problems just vanished. Everything was right in the world. I didn’t need to take another cast. Now I just sat back and took in the scenery…
in the middle of the night, full moon over head, swirls and splashes like little kids playing
in a pool from all around us from one side of the bay to the other it
seemed. This is just cool I
thought. We fished some more of course
but then we looked at the time. It was
1216am. It’s closed. Time to go home. We had to make an 8 mile run in a 16’ aluminum
boat. There were still floating mines of
logs all over the flats. Hopefully the
moon will be my guide and sure enough it didn’t let me down.
So how did I get home? Well, I lost my two high gears of my
transmission. John drove me to the
meeting spot and I had another 20 miles to do and my top speed was about 25mph
up the hills and about 40 down. Who
cares. I just got on a lifetime striped
bass bite in shallow water. My truck
could catch on fire right now and I’d could care less. She lived an honorable life. She died an honorable death. I made it home about 330am still
grinning. The next day I read the “Flats
reports” on my fishing websites. Every
one saying they threw the kitchen sink and didn’t touch a fish. I couldn’t say anything. I knew those fish were still there and even
though off limits my report online would attract unwanted attention. People would still go and beat up on those fish
and say they were largemouth fishing.
They do need a break to do their thing. Water temps
were as high as 64 degrees when we were on the fish. DNR was nowhere to be found. Why patrol and area that has no fish or
fishermen? Well, that’s what they
thought anyway. Till next year.
As I type this the fish are hitting the Delmarva Beaches
hard. Assateauge Virginia just closed its
ORV zone because of nesting birds, just in time for the mass of fish. For some reason the Va portion of Assateague
Island gets covered up with giant stripers.
The MD portion however is considerably slower. Giant blue fish have invaded much of Delaware.
This is very rare. Usually it’s a NJ thing to have huge blues
around. They are littered in Indian River inlet, even the smaller inlets are
producing double digit blue fish. The
flats at the mouth of the chesapeake bay are filled with giant bull red drum
and sight casting in gin clear water to spawned out cows is happening right now
on the flats at the mouth of the bay.
This phenomenon does not last long.
Early to mid may that’s it. The
bull reds will be there well through May but the stripers in the skinny are
probably already fading. The bull reds will later move out of the white water
and head to the deeper shoals off the bridge at the mouth of the bay for much
of the summer. But right now they are in
the white water, In the skinny. In the
fun zone as I like to call it. Shallow
water fishing at its finest. I’ve burned
about every last vacation day. I’ve
tested the patience of my wife to the limit.
My fishing needs to take a chill pill for a little while. My house and yard has weeds growing out of
weeds. Things are falling apart and
require my attention. I did catch two
snakehead yesterday in about an hour’s effort.
Quick easy drive up spot in Downtown where they tend to stack up this
time of year. Good fun but they just
aren’t striped bass in 4 feet of water.
I don’t know what compares to that that is accessible in a 16’ john
boat. Anyway, tight lines. I saw freshly hatched ducklings and goslings
the other day. Some of the finest top
water strikes of the year await us. It’s just about musky time. Who’s ready?
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