September 28, 2018 - Soggy Weather

We had a few dry days last week to celebrate the rainiest year on record. The rain is back, but the forecast for the weekend looks good with sunshine, seasonably cool temperatures, and calm winds.

So, how did things go in our brief time away from wind, gloom, and rain?

Captain Bernie Shea out of Solomon's went bottom fishing on his charter boat "Shea-D Lady" (301-672-3282) last Saturday and caught plenty of white perch and spot in the medium to large size. The mouth of the Patuxent from Hawk's Nest to Sandy Point, South East Marker, and Drum Point all were holding eager bottom dwellers ready to take pieces of bloodworm on a double bottom rig where two at the time were quite common.

Bob Klimek trolled up a 40 inch, 25 pound Cobia near the Target Ship last Friday. The big fish took a green surgical hose lure behind a #2 planer.

There were several reports of rockfish approaching 30 inches caught on cast lures, either top water poppers or swimming plugs, coming in from the rocks off the O Club, Hog Point, and Goose Creek in and around Cedar Point.

There are breaking stripers on the Cedar Point Rip every morning. Clouds of gulls give away the location of the fish, most of which are not quite the 19 inches required. The cool, rainy weather can change that around quickly and will find these fish available all day on a change of tide and bigger fish will increase. You can wear out your trolling gear catching these fish with small bucktails fished in tandem using a 12 to 16 oz in line weight.

There should be some good-sized stripers on structure at Little Cove Point and in Cedar Point Hollow. There are plenty of spot to be caught and live-lined to tempt the fish.

The overwhelming flood of fresh water from the rain run-off has brought catfish to areas usually out of their usual habitat because of salinity. The blue and channel cats seem to be everywhere on the oyster bars and in the shallows ready to take fresh cut bait, and even trolled lures. Let's go with the flow and catch these hard-fighting, tasty fish, then take them home and eat them.

Several hardy bass fishermen were out at St. Mary's Lake last Friday and found the largemouth eager to take most any lure. One kayaker landed 9 bass; the biggest was 17 inches.