Rainy Day Projects

Wow - will the rain ever stop? I think it was Friday or Saturday I saw a “tweet” from a friend that read “Today begins 15 consecutive days of rain” to which I replied “We can hope and pray for breaks here and there.” And that’s what we have had, breaks for a few hours. I have taken the kayak out a time or two and caught a few fish.

In fact I have been trying to do some filming with the GoPro for my YouTube channel “Fishing Southern Maryland & Beyond.” But to be completely honest the rain has really dampened my spirits (pun fully intended).

With that all being said it brings me to my post today- what to do on rainy days? First and foremost I am not a “handy” guy. But at the beginning of the summer the ceiling fan in our bedroom just gave up the ghost. Yesterday I finally got around to purchasing a new one and spent the necessary time to install it. Mind you two days before this a large tree limb came down and smashed our air conditioning unit outside. It damaged it enough that the fan could not turn, ie making it so we had no AC. Thankfully they both, the fan and AC unit, are working again.

But surely some of you may be reading this and thinking “This is a fishing blog. I can’t believe he is writing about home improvement.” You are correct and it brings me to project for this morning. Last week I took the kayak to a local lake and spent some time catching some fish. As I loaded it back up I spotted on the ground the blade, a Colorado blade specifically, and partial wire of a large beetle spin lure. I picked it up and used it this morning. I bent the wire at an angle, maybe 30* or so.

After that I bent a small curl in the end of the wire so that it could hold on a soft plastic lure. I then cut the original bait keeper off of the jig I was going to use.

At that point I placed the jig into my makeshift fly vice and made a few wraps around the collar of the jig. I placed to spinner’s wire along that shaft of the hook and proceeded to make several wraps, trying to keep them tight.

I tied off the thread and used a little Super Glue to hopefully bind the threads some. The finished product below has my new “underspin” with a Zoom Super Salt Plus 4” grub. Now I just have to wait for the rain to stop to get out and use it!

By the way my wife did just call and ask about the size of another ceiling fan, so rain please stop soon!

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.

End of an era...

Man, it’s been too long since my last post. But to be completely honest I think I begin a lot of my post with a statement like that. Nevertheless I am back and I have a little post to share.

My fishing adventures have been pretty regular since my last post. I haven’t made any special trips to new counties or caught any new species recently. Most of July was spent on the kayak in places I have fished before. I did take a small trip with my youngest son and his NJROTC group to a camp in West Virginia. While they spent time in PT (physical training) each morning, or on the shooting range, I spent time on the side of the lake at the Camp Mountaineer. While I could see small panfish swimming around, I really couldn’t get any of them to bite. But I did have a pretty good week catching largemouth. Whether I was using a senko worm, wacky rigged, or a green-pumpkin grub or a finesse worm, I caught bass each day. They were all pretty much the same size, between 10 to 12 inches, and healthy. At the end of the week, there was supposed to be fishing contest between the cadets using bait that they had “found another their campsite.” The campground was run by the Boy Scouts of America, but due to thunderstorms in the area it was called off; so unfortunately any of the tactics I figured out wouldn’t be able to help our group.

Once I got back to my regular waters, I went back to putting the kayak on the water and spending about an hour and a half catching what I could. Most of the time I have been on the Patuxent River, at Nan’s Cove. I’ve caught many white perch as well as a few striped bass, or as they are called in Maryland “rockfish.” I have been using some live bait, minnows, when catching them. I’ll tell more about that in another post. I did make a report to the Maryland Angler’s Log and a former colleague spotted it. She is now the outdoors reporter for the Maryland Enterprise and she included my thoughts in her article.

Of course the most important part of any fishing trip is making it home safe which brings me to the title of this post. Over the last few years, I have been using one or the other Ocean Kayak brand kayaks that my family owns. We got both of them at the same time close to 10 years ago. Up to last season, I was able to tolerate the fact that each of them were taking on water. Or maybe I should say taking IN water? Being sit on top kayaks, the haul is formed on hard plastic. Unfortunately we had nowhere to store them except outside and which meant they were in the direct sunlight, something the manufacturer warns against. Well that lead to leaks, and recently I had to spend 15 to 20 minutes after a 90-minute outing allowing it to drain. I mean gallons of water were coming out. Well this past Monday I was returning to the launch when I shifted on the kayak and I felt the water inside slosh from one side to another. When it did, I almost went overboard. I got back to the launch, loaded it up and returned to home. I spoke to my wife about it. That afternoon I removed any hardware I wanted to keep, my anchor trolley, paddle clips, and I took the kayak to the transfer station to be taking to be recycled. Two days later I was on the water with my new kayak, an Ocean Kayak band CAPER ANGLER.

While it will take a few trips to get used to fishing from it, I think I really am going to enjoy it. Please come back to see how things are going. Until then…Tight Lines!!

As an aside - a friend of the family saw the article and mailed it to my wife, so I thought I'd share it in "print form" as well.

Easter Break is Here!

April 13th and school is out for a few days. With Easter being a little later this year, and state testing pretty much starting right when we get back, I only have Thursday through Tuesday off. So with that being true and my nephew getting married on Saturday, my family and I aren't going out of town as usual. With all of those factors, I decided to try a few spots in Maryland in an attempt to add a few counties to my "Fish Across Maryland" quest.

This morning I woke up at my normal time, 5:10, and went through my regular routine. I left the house around 5:50 or so and began the trek to Smithville Lake, in Caroline County. About a two hour drive across the Bay Bridge down Rt. 404 until I was basically within spitting distance of the Maryland/Delaware line. The Maryland DNR website mentions that the lake is an excellent spot to catch largemouth as well as other sunfish. Being the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I was hoping to get into a nice chain pickerel while there.

I put the kayak on the water just after 8 am. I had a golden colored jerkbait tied on one rod and decided to begin with that. The pond had large areas of lily pads and I thought I'd make long casts on the edges. On the third or fourth cast, I hooked up with something and reeled down to make sure I didn't lose him. After a minute or so I had a 10 inch largemouth as my first fish in Caroline County. Two pictures and he was released to swim again.

Having driven 2 hours to get Smithville, I wasn't just going to paddle back in after catching my first fish, especially since I caught him after being on the water for only 10 minutes. I paddled around for the next couple of hours casting a 1/32 oz jig with an orange soft plastic "critter" from Johnson's. It paid off with nine other fish, split between bluegill and black crappie.

Most of the fish I caught today were towards the northern portion of the pond. I wanted to try the other end so I paddled that way as well as let the wind push me. There were a few others fishing down that way; but I only saw one other person reel in anything. Around 11:30 I decided that I would start to head back to the launch when I spotted an old tire sticking out of the water about 6 ft from shore. After a few big tugs, and lots of muddy water in the kayak, I brought it home. A few of the other anglers chuckled as I went by joking "I didn't know kayak anglers needed a spare tire." Nevertheless each one also said "Thanks." Like the app* I heard about a few weeks ago says "Cleaning the planet one piece at a time."

Until next time...Tight Lines!
*App name: "Litterati."