County #18: Washington County

May 26th, Memorial Day Weekend The plan: wake up at 4 am, eat a quick breakfast and get on the road. My destination is Greenbrier State Park in Washington County just about two hours from home. Put the kayak on the water and catch a few fish as part of “Fish Across Maryland” and then head back home.

Reality: I woke up at 4 am, ate a quick breakfast and drove up to Greenbrier State Park. It took exactly two hours. But as I write this I am sitting in a line of cars waiting to get into the park because it doesn’t open until 7:30. While waiting I also was paid a visit by a park ranger who informed me that the water level of the lake itself has been drawn down for ongoing repairs to the dam. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how “Fish Across Maryland” goes for the day.

Reflecting on the day: To say that I was worried about my attempt would be honest. I have fished another lake that was drained down for dam repairs and had no luck. This was not the case for today. As I paddled out of the little finger from the launch I saw loads of underwater vegetation, so I figured that was a good sign. There were some areas of sandy bottom between patches of grass and if I looked closely I could see fish swim over them. I made it out to deeper water and made a few casts along the grass edges. My trusty tube jig would fall nicely in a spiral. On one cast the spiral seemed to stop and gave it a yank. There it was my first fish of the day and first fish in Washington County: a nice 9 & 1/2 inch black crappie. Landed, photographed and released, any other fish for the day were bonus!

I spent a little more than two hours paddling around the edge of the lake. Occasionally I’d see or hear some splashing along the shore and I figured the largemouth were getting breakfast. I’d make casts near those spots, if I was within range, trying to entice something to bite. I was lucky to get hooked up on a few occasions but pleasantly surprised to see that I was caching bass. I was catching “sunfish.” (By the way any FishNerd knows that the largemouth bass is a member of the sunfish family, but here I’m talking about a different species.) To be completely honest I think these “sunfish”were redbreast sunfish; and they were beautiful! The orange and yellow on their anal fins and tails were so bright. It really made them stand out. I ended up catching three or four of them along with a half dozen black crappie. The small “Crappie Magic” swimbait by Luck E Strike paid off with most of the catches today. I even landed a nice largemouth using it and missed on a couple of others. After the two or so hours in the kayak, I decided I’d head back to the launch. In total I think I caught about a dozen fish. Maybe not the biggest day of fishing, numbers wise, but it was a very fun morning.

With respects to the plan the moral of the story: Know before you go! I really don’t have anyone to blame but myself. Looking back I found “Tweets” from the Greenbrier State Park that the water level was going to be down all summer. It is Memorial Day weekend and state parks in Maryland are ALWAYS very busy this weekend and every other weekend during the summer. Nonetheless at least I have a story to SHOW and TELL! Until next time... Tight Lines!

Upon hearing from the Maryland DNR and the fishing department - the sunfish that I caught were "green sunfish." I had caught them before in another location, but it's always nice to catch something different.

One County Closer to My Goal

April 21st, Earth Day weekend, and what a better way to spend it than on the water in a beautiful location like Cunningham Falls State Park. A month earlier I had visited the lake here, but I was completely skunked. I didn’t know the lake, it was 10 degrees cooler than back home and it seemed like the fish had not moved up to the shallows to spawn yet. That day I spent the better part of four hours trying different techniques in different parts of the lake to have no success. Fast forward one month to today and things have changed.

I arrived at the park just before 8 am, meaning I had left the house before 6 am. I drove into the parking lot and had the place to myself. Being alone I took my time rigging the kayak with my seat, scupper plugs, rods and tackle. I even brought a small cooler in case I caught something to bring home. The air temperature was in the mid 30’s with a very slight breeze. I paddled out towards the northern shore figuring that the water temperatures over there might be a little warmer. I had a small yellow tube on a 1/16 oz jig head about 24 inches below a float. As I approached the northern shoreline I began to make casts towards the point. If memory serves, it was on the fourth cast when my float went under and I was hooked up. A minute and a half later I had my first fish of the day and more importantly first fish in Frederick County. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I drove about two hours to get to this location. I wasn’t about to spend 15 minutes fishing and pack it back up. So I did my best to hold my position where I caught the first one and repeated my cast. This brought another half dozen or so to the kayak.

After a little while I paddled along the same shoreline, past a few guys sitting on their chairs waiting for the trout to bite. I was able to catch a few more including one bluegill. Then I decided to turn back to the launch and head home. I ended up catching 9 or 10 crappie and the one bluegill on my outing and I was pleased with that.

With my catching a fish in Frederick County, that brings me one step closer to my goal of catching a fish in each county in the state of Maryland. In fact the number is now 17. It also raises another concern. The closest county, where I have not caught a fish, to my home is now Baltimore, about 90 minutes away. My normal "modus operandi" has been to drive to a location, fish and drive home. That has just become more involved unless I begin to plan trips where I can get multiple counties on the same day, otherwise I'm going to be spending a lot on gasoline. So the next couple of weeks are going to be spent in planning. I'll keep you informed.

I realize that this is a fishing blog but I wanted to mention one more thing. During the month of April, I’ve been participating in a movement on Twitter called #30daysofpickinguplitter. As a person who enjoys being outside I think it is vital that we do everything we can to keep our “playground” clean. This particular day I picked up the standard beer can along the shore as well as multiple cigarette butts. But I also found a couple plastic bags with fish remains and other very disgusting contents. I still picked them and found a dumpster where I could put them when I stopped for lunch. I just wish I hadn’t found them. I hope anyone who might read this might make a commitment to do what we can to pick up trash we see. Thanks for bearing with me on this. Until next time...Tight Lines!

By the by: I did get some footage of my outing and hope to put together a short video before the end of the month. Stay tuned...

March 3rd “The best-laid plans” & County #16.

Not only is there the expression mentioned in the title of this post, but there is another about the month of March and “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” This weekend is a testament to both. Since swim season ended last weekend, my time to get on the water has increased quite a bit. But first let me say that swim season ended very well – with our boys’ team winning the Regional Title and our girls’ team taking third, two weeks ago. Not only that we also had a terrific showing at the state meet last weekend with multiple podiums for our boys’ team as well as the girls’ 400 relay team making the podium too. The other coaches and I really couldn’t be prouder of how they swam.

Back to fishing. This weekend I had the opportunity to hit a couple of local ponds and catch a decent set of fish. Mostly bluegill and bass, with none of them large enough to keep, I got good numbers. In fact, by my count and I am a nerd about it, I’ve caught 30 fish in the last three days. But my focus has been on Saturday. I wanted to get back in the quest to catch a fish in each county of Maryland, and I knew that I could take the time Saturday to drive a couple of hours to knock one off the list.

My target was Kent County, in the northern part of the Maryland’s Eastern Shore, specifically Urieville Lake just north of Chestertown. I had stopped by once last summer, but the lake it prone to dense vegetation. So dense that it is almost impossible to get to open water from the small launch. Being late winter I knew that the vegetation would not have grown up yet, so I figured I had a good shot of catching something. Well until Winter Storm Riley hit the Mid-Atlantic on Friday. While at home in southern Maryland had lots of wind with little rain, other areas got hit hard. My family and I were lucky enough only to have our lights blink once at 7 am that morning, but we kept power during it all. Schools were canceled for the day, but it didn’t prevent me from going by a couple of local ponds for a couple of hours.

Now as mentioned I had been looking forward to visit Urieville for a week so the remnants of the storm were not going to dissuade me from going. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish I had had a plan B. I arrived at the lake around 9 am and the wind was still blowing, probably close to 15 mph. I put the kayak on the water and made my way. The lake itself is shaped like a ‘Y’ and I decided to try the far reaches of both top portions. But with the wind the water was terribly turbid and blown out of both. In fact, multiple times while paddling I noticed I was kicking up silt from the bottom it was that shallow. After an hour and half, I anchored behind a small “island” for cover and made casts along its edge, as well as the extreme ends of it. While I didn’t throw the entire tackle box at it, I don’t know if there was anything else I could have tried besides live bait sitting on the bottom, of which I had none. So, after two hours I decided to pack up and head to the car.

Once I got back to the car, I loaded everything back up but kept out my small spinning rod. I had read on the DNR website that people had caught fish in the stream that leads out from the dam on Urieville. It meant crossing the road and climbing down the embankment, but I had driven two hours to try and get a fish, I was going to try. To increase my odds of catching something, I tied on the smallest jig I had under a float. I had used it earlier in the week at the pond in Bennett Hughes Memorial Forest and it had paid off. I used the same one and made several casts along the other shoreline. The float tilted upwards and I gave it a reel. Whatever it was came off. I made another cast with the same results. I decided to make a cast along the same shoreline where I was standing. BINGO – I hooked up with something. It wasn’t terribly big, but I had to get it to shore. I lifted it out of the water expecting a small bluegill but was pleasantly surprised by a “golden shiner.” I went to grab the line to hold it for a picture and it subsequently fell back into the water. I stamped my foot, mumbled something under my breath and made another cast, and another. I hooked up again.

This time I caught a small bluegill. I snapped a photo, but according to my own “rules” it wasn’t the “qualifying fish.” I tried again and again to get another shiner. I ended up catching 7 more bluegills. I looked at my watch and saw that I was needing to get back on the road soon, so I told myself 10 more minutes. On the third cast of the 10 minutes I hooked up again and got it to shore. It was another shiner! Success!! I snapped a photo of it and put it back in the water and then made the climb back up to the roadside and back to my car.

To make a long story short, which obviously I didn’t hear, the weather this weekend came in like a lion so let’s hope it goes out like a lamb AND my “best-laid plans” were thwarted by it. Nonetheless I was able to accomplish my goal on getting county number 16 KENT County in my quest to “Fish Across Maryland.” By the way, if the “in like a lion” also refers to how well the fishing has been so far – let it continue to roar! Until next time – Tight Lines!!