First Fish of the Year

Winter in southern Maryland has been very chilly. Actually “chilly” might not be the right word. It’s been down right COLD. 2018 began with temperatures in teens and they didn’t go up very much until the last two days. With multiple days of cold weather the local lakes had a good layer of ice on top of them. Having no equipment, and no confidence in walking on the ice, I have been waiting a thaw.

This morning after taking the trash and recycling to the dump I drove up to a local pond I like to fish. As I walked down to it I saw there was still a skim of ice on parts. But I was very happy to see that the northern end had open water. I brought two rods, one rigged as a dropshot with a small “sexy shad” by Arkie Lures. It was tied about 8 inches above my weight figuring that fish would be near the bottom. It proved fruitless on the 2 dozen casts I tried with it. The second rod had another “sexy shad” on a 1/16 oz jig under a float. I tried a few spots and on one long cast the float went down. A quick yank and I began to reel. I brought in a crappie about 7 inches long. Not huge, but it was nice to get that first fish of the year.

Upon my walk back to the car, I picked up a few bits of trash and decided that I’d try to do just that each time I head out the this year because every piece helps. Until next time...Tight lines!

Second photo via Litterati App.

2017 in Review

Six months, it's been SIX MONTHS since my last post! To say that I have been neglectful would be a gross understatement. To offer an explanation would only be giving an excuse, so I'm going to forego that and get to the year in review.

Fish Across Maryland (FaMD)

My efforts to catch a fish in each county in the state of Maryland had some success. 2017 began with my having 10 of the 23 counties in the state completed. Oh wait 24 counties, since Baltimore City is also its own county! Really it is, I'm not making that up. As 2017 comes to an end, I now have 15. While it isn't a done deal yet, I am making progress. A little faster progress would be nice, but at least I increased the number by the same amount as last year. I will say that the task is becoming more daunting now, since the remaining counties are all at least 90 minutes from home. It is at this point that I really need to sit down and make a true plan of how I want to finish. I think I enjoyed getting the counties on Maryland's Eastern Shore the most. Two of them, Caroline and Dorchester, had specific trips that I really had nice experiences. I really wish I had a bigger cooler with me for the one to Dorchester. If you're interested you can read about them from the links below the map.

Link to the story for Caroline County.
Link to the story for Dorchester County.

New Species in 2017

Being a complete and utter FishNerd, I like to keep track of how many fish I catch. If you look back at the 2016 Review you'd see a snap shot of my Excel spreadsheet that I use to keep track. I thought this year that I wouldn't bore anyone with the true numbers, but I can say that I have caught more fish this year than last year. I caught 24 different species, including fresh and saltwater. Five of those species were brand new to me. That is coupled with the fact that I caught three of those species while on one trip in Pennsylvania. Click that link if you are interested in reading about it.

New and Old Bait

Now in all honesty, my 2017 wasn't all fun and games. In fact the summer began with me attending funerals for a couple of different cousins. Both were 30 years older than me, but they were still family. Upon both occasions I saw my mom's sister, Annette (not the mother of either cousin who passed away. Annette's father, my grandfather, was a big influence on me when I was younger. I never attended summer camp, like my sons did, when I was young. When my parents had to work during the summer, I headed down to New Church, VA and spent a week with Mommom and Granddad.

Granddad was from Chincoteague, VA and in his retirement he was a watermen. He had crab pots, clammed, oystered and fished to make some extra money. I would go down to their house and on Monday morning, we'd wake up at 5 am and head to Horntown Bay and get the crabs out of the dozen or so crab pots he owned. We'd bring them back to the house, clean them, by removing the shells, intestines, and legs, and then steam them. During that time my Mommom would fix breakfast, and then wait for the crabs to be finished. She would then pick the crab meat so that it could be sold by the pound. After breakfast, Granddad would check the tides for Metompkin Bay. If the tides were right we would take the boat down there and "sign clams" for a few hours until the high tide started coming in. The clams would be taken home and then sold on the roadside, right out in front of the house, by the dozen or more, and my grandfather would give me a few dollars to out of what was made. I write all of this because it was on those trips to Metompkin Bay that Granddad would hand me my fishing pole and put, what he called, a "bull minnow" on a double drop rig and we would catch flounder. While I was at the second funeral of the summer, my aunt Annette asked "How school was going and how much longer I had until retirement?" Her next comment was that when I retired that I needed to have some way to pay for whatever hobby I had at that time. It was then that I looked her in the eye and told her that "Her father had taught me how to put stale bread into a minnow and trap" to catch bait. Well long story short, I began using live-bait much more this summer. I purchased a minnow trap and a Frabill Flow Troll Bucket.

Each day that I took out the kayak, I would begin with putting the trap in the water by the launch. I would then take my time rigging the kayak. In about 10 minutes or so I would have two to three dozen "bull minnows" or mummichogs to use as bait. I'd take them out and put them on a single circle hook with a small piece of split shot just about the hook. I'd cast them out and let them fall and swim along, or maybe even troll them behind me. I caught several this way this summer. Red drum, stripers, white perch, channel catfish and even a couple of cownose rays all bit and wouldn't let go of these tasty baits.

Another "new" bait that I started using this year was a hand-tied copper holder for my soft plastics. I was thinking one evening when I couldn't get to sleep "Is there a way to keep the plastic from sliding down the hook?" I had seen "professional" style jigs that had ways to hold the plastic in place, but I knew there had to be something that I could try. So I came up with

If you're interested in seeing how I made them check out my post about "National Relaxation Day."

On YOUTUBE

To close out this post, as well as 2017, I have to let everyone know about my experiences using the camera my wife got me for my birthday. Back in July, my wife gave me a GoPro Hero5 Session. Years ago, in my former life - as a volleyball coach, I would get film of the games and would try to make high-light videos for each of the girls. Now I've taken the camera out quite a few times while on the kayak. I have also had loads of "footage" that is unusable since I had it aimed too high, or didn't hit the button firmly enough. But I have recorded, and posted three videos to YouTube in hopes that others may enjoy. Personally my favorite is the one from just last week when I was on Williams Mill Pond, south of Delmar, MD. That day I caught 5 chain pickerel after having to break ice on the kayak to get onto the pond itself.

I'm going to sign off for today in hopes that I will be more faithful to posting what's going on here! Until then ... Tight Lines!