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!

National Relaxation Day, August 15th

**Disclaimer: While this won't be my most verbose blog post, I thought I'd share the steps of making the new baits I tried out yesterday. I hope to point together a nice post about my summer in a week or so, just before the new school year starts.

According to the "Twitterverse" yesterday was #NationalRelaxationDay. I decided to spend some time at my "makeshift" fly vice. I wanted to give a couple of things a try. Here's how it went:

Step 1:
I used a number 2 Mustad straight shank hook and I laid some wraps of thread.

Step 2:
I took a piece of copper wire, recycled from a piece of coaxial cable, and bent a hook into it. I then tied it to the bottom of the hook as a catch for soft plastics.

Step 3:
I had seen a YouTube video on how to tie a weed guard on a hook so I tied on a piece of monofilament line, 30# test.

Step 4:
I decided to leave one there. But I also thought I'd try to put "eyes" on one. I used the black head off of a curly tailed grub. It's probably a little bug for the presentation but I figured why not?

Step 5:
At that point it was a matter of putting the soft plastic trailer on it. I used a 2 inch grub from Yum "Christmas tree" color. The colors do a nice job matching the minnows I've been using on river.

Of course saying that I tied a hook to hold soft plastics, I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "fly" or not. But as they say "The proof is in the pudding." That afternoon I headed to one of my favorite spots, a private pond in the middle of the county. A few casts, on a light rod with 6# test monofilament line, the bait got tapped a couple of times. After a couple more casts I reeled in a small largemouth bass. When I brought the fish up I saw that he liked the lure since it was almost all the way down his throat. (The photo at the top of this post!) After it was released I changed locations a little and caught another largemouth. I was hoping to get a crappie or two, but alas no luck.

The next day I took the kayak out on the river. Using the same bait, I made casts to a location that I know usually holds fish. On the third cast, I hooked up with a small striped bass, or what might have been a hybrid between a white perch and a striper. After photos, I released it and made a few more casts. Unfortunately I didn't check my line and it snapped on my next hook up. I tied the other version of the lure on, without the "eyes" and caught two or three white perch on it before moving to another spot.

There's something satisfying about making a lure yourself and then actually catching fish with it. Now I just have to make a few more...Always check your line as well as your knots. Until next time...Tight lines!!

Dorchester County Trifecta (August 5th, 2017)

Early in the summer, my family and I visited Cascade Lake in Carroll County which afforded me the opportunity to add that county to my list in my quest to “Fish Across Maryland.” This past Saturday I decided to try and get another. Since my wife and youngest son were away at “Basic Leadership Training” with his NJROTC unit, and my oldest son had to work, I woke up nice and early. I took the dog out for a walk and had a quick breakfast and then climbed in the car. Living in Maryland, most Marylanders know that you usually don’t travel east across the bay bridge unless you can get an early start. I ended up having no trouble at all and made good time towards Cambridge, just across the Choptank River. My original plan was to put in right in Cambridge at Sail Winds Park, but the evening before I check a couple of things online and decided to go to Secretary, MD. It is about 15 minutes northeast of Cambridge itself and it sits on the Warwick River, a tributary of the Choptank. I’m happy I did go to Secretary because as I cross the bridge into Cambridge I could see that the winds had kicked up whitecaps and I had no desire to fight them.

The boat launch I found was right off Second Street. It had plenty of parking for trailer as well as a very wide ramp. Knowing that I might be a little while loading up, to catch some minnows as bait, I decided to put the kayak in along the wooden walkway a little way from the ramp itself. I dropped the minnow trap in, loaded up the kayak, and then parked to car. It was now that I learned that I had only caught 6 or 8 minnows and I wanted more. I moved the trap to another location along the little cut in the marsh and climbed in the kayak and paddled across from the launch. There I made casts with a small grub on a 1/16 oz. jig. A couple of casts into the morning and I was hooked up with a familiar fish, a white perch (Morone americana).

I have caught loads of white perch back home, and had used white perch as the “qualifying fish” in one other county, Talbott County. Again, I had driven a little over 2 hours, and I wasn’t going to just load back up and be done, so I made a few more casts and caught a couple more. I then paddled back toward my trap and found that I had a good three dozen minnow to work with for a little while.

I made my way out into the main channel, under the small bridge, and was reminded why I was happy I hadn’t launched on the main river. The wind was blowing nicely and I had no problems moving. Of course, the paddle back, into the wind, was going to be a little tougher. I made my way east in the river, passing by a very nice set of townhomes.

In fact as I paddled past, a very nice older lady spoke to me saying that I looked like “I could use another hand.” I agreed and mentioned how nice the temperatures felt in early August (low 80’s instead of low 90’s) to which she agreed as well. I paddled a little further, just past the townhomes and thought I would try that area. I had a small circle hook on a bigger rod, spooled with 20-pound braided line. Just above the hook I had a small piece, 1/8 oz., piece of split shot. I put a minnow on my line and made a cast to about 10 yards from sure. As I reeled in the slack, I felt a terrific pull and it was game on. I began to reel, keeping the rod high, and noticed that I was being towed a little. The fish was staying down as I tried to lift the rod and reel in the line. At one point, I got a look at it before it dove back down. It was a good size, but unfortunately, I couldn’t quite tell what yet. I fought it a little more and finally got it to the surface. It was at this point I wish I had brought a larger cooler with me, or even a cooler on the kayak at all, since I had a 20-inch channel catfish in my net. Again, this was really 30 minutes into my outing and I didn’t want to turn around then, so I decided to let it swim away. I baited up again and made a few more casts. I felt the familiar “tap tap” of the perch pulling at my minnow, and I caught a dozen or so. I also hooked up with, about 5 minutes after the first one, another catfish, this one about 18 inches. Again, I wish I had a bigger cooler with me.

Now some folks refer to catching three different species of fish as a “grand slam.”: But being a baseball fan and knowing that a “grand slam” scores 4 runs, I like to refer to three different species as a “trifecta.” After about 40 minutes of catching perch, and the catfish, I moved a little further out into the channel, such as it was. I made a few casts, lost a few minnows, but eventually got hooked up again. This time the fish was staying more towards the surface of the water, but it was also able to tow, or at least turn, the kayak some. I fought it to the boat and had a 16 inch “rockfish” or striped bass.

Three species in one location really, the kind of fishing I really enjoy. Cast out a line, hold on and be a little surprised at what bites.

That brings my count of Maryland counties to 15 out of 24, just over 62%. I hope to get one more before school starts, but time will tell. Until then…Tight Lines!

Just as a side note on the ride home from Dorchester County, I stopped off at the Wye Mills Community Lake. I like to break up drives by fishing for about 45 minutes or so along the stream that flows out of the dam there. While there on Saturday, I did catch a “slam.” While there I caught a few bluegills, a white perch, a black crappie and a green sunfish = four species. In fact, I caught 6 different species on the day! I really enjoyed that day!!

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.

County No. 14 Carroll County

Father's Day 2017 and the family is out as an entire group. With my oldest son working in the evenings, and my wife finishing up her school year we don't often have everyone together. This morning we got everyone up and drove up to Cascade Lake. My wife had read about it, and even though the boys are well into their teens, we thought it would still be fun. From my point of view it meant a chance to possibly catch a fish in a new county.

After paying the fee to get into the area, $15 a person, we made our way to the parking area. A walk down the hill brought us to a very pretty area. Personally it reminded me of of Lake Lure in North Carolina, where they filmed some of the scenes for "Dirty Dancing." (My family visited that area a few years back.) There were water slides, a diving platform, with three different heights, paddle boats, and a small beach for the younger kids.

There were multiple signs around the area that said "Catch and Release" fishing only. I made my way towards the earthen dam at the far end of the lake. I spotted a couple of other anglers and just before I made my first cast one was reeling in a largemouth bass. I had a 2/0 wide gap hook tied on from earlier in the week. I put a green pumpkin Senko worm on the hook rigged "wacky" style. I made a cast along the shoreline and allowed the bait to drop. It got hit immediately but I was late setting the hook. Another cast to the same area and I hooked up with my first of eleven largemouth. On reeling in that fish the worm fell off into the lake never to be seen by me again, so I switched to a purple Luck-E Strike curly tail worm. Still rigged without any weight I'd make cast and allow it to fall. If nothing bit, I would lift the rod tip, reel in slack line and wait a little more. During the fall, I would watch my line and look to see if it began moving a different direction and then I'd know to set the hook.

Since I had the time I tried a couple of other baits. The small Rat-L-Trap I like to used produced one first as well as a Matzuo crankbait. Being a pretty big bait I was surprised when I reeled in a crappie on it. But in all honesty that crappie was easily big enough to eat.

So county number 14 is checked off - Carroll County. Where will "Fish Across Maryland" take me next? Stay tuned. Until next time... Tight Lines!

Three New Species in Pennsylvania

Once again it's been a while since I last posted anything about my experiences. That's not due to a lack of fishing, but more due to a lack of doing anything new. I'm still enjoying myself, but I do need to mix it up some. That all being said I do have a couple of new things to report.

As Alice Copper sang years ago "School's out for summer!" It's only been a week since school got out, but it was quite fun. A colleague of mine, who has two children like me, owns property in Clarion County, PA. We have been invited multiple times to go up and stay with them. When the kids were young, we'd take day trips to hiking trails or canoe rides down the river. This year, when I was invited to bring my youngest son, I brought along a couple of fishing rods. Monday morning, while the boys were still waking up, I drove down to the camp store and picked up a 3-day tourist fishing license.* (More on that later.) I also bought a small container of night crawlers to increase my odds of catching something. Parking the car at the ranger station for Cook Forest State Park, I headed down a trail about a tenth of a mile or so.

There I walked out onto some rocks along the side of the stream and began to see what I could find. I put a small size 14 hook on my collapsible panfish rod and added a piece of worm to it. I made casts into some of the eddies and began getting bites. It took some skill, probably not a lot, to time my hook set. After a few tries I got it right and landed something. The fish was about 6 inches long, with a narrow body. I had never seen a fish like this one so I snapped multiple photos and let it go. With no cell service where I was I had to wait until I got back to my friend's to look it up. I caught a couple more in another area as well as one small bass and then headed back. When I got back I found out that I had caught a "Fallfish" (Semotilus corporalis). According to what I read about them, they prefer very clear water as well a strong current; so it isn't very surprising that I've not seen them around my local area.

After heading back to the house for a bit, my friend, Karl, and I grabbed our sons and headed back to the river. This time we brought Karl's two paddleboards and my kayak. The boys climbed on the paddleboards while Karl and I jumped into the kayak. Having watched a few fishing shows I decided to give a "crawler harness" a try. From what I could see and read about them, the harness usually is made of a main hook, with a few plastic beads and some sort of a spinner blade with a stinger hook tied to the main hook. I used a size 6 long shank hook with beads and a Colorado spinner blade but I didn't tie a stinger to it. I put a 4 inch piece of night crawler on the hook as we began going down stream. As we drifted I could feel the blade spinning sending out vibrations. I reeled it in one time to check the worm and made another cast towards one of the calmer areas as we drifted by. As our pace picked up I felt the tug on the other end and began to reel. As I reeled in my prize I was rewarded with my second new species of the trip. This time I caught a 9 or 10 inch smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu).

Happy with how my plan actually worked I snapped a couple of photos and released it back to the river.

I tried a few more times but eventually my hook got hung up of the bottom and we were moving to fast for me to try and reverse and save it. I ended up losing a couple more jigs on the way down the river but I was able to catch another fallfish in one of the eddies.

The next morning I drove back to the river side. I had spoken to a gentleman who was fishing the area. He was quite adept at catching the brook trout that were stacked up at the mouth of a small creek. I tried a few bait, but couldn't get any bites. So I went back to the camp and had breakfast with everyone. We were kind of just hanging around the property so I decided to give it one more try. There I tied on a small Creme 1.5 jerkbait. A few casts in I felt the line get heavy after a pause between retrieves so I gave it a nice tug and reeled in my third new species of the trip, a brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Quite the fighter I was amazed at the pull of this 9 inch fish. I released it back but on second thoughts I wish I had kept it since I did catch one more and they would have made a nice dinner once I returned home.

All in all I really enjoyed my time in the Clarion River valley. It's a beautiful area with loads of outdoor activities to enjoy. I hope to get back up there at least one more time this year, especially since the launch permit I purchased for the kayak is good until the end of the year. Until next time... Tight lines!

*About the license fee for a tourist: my 3 day license, with the trout permit, cost almost $37. I can see how some people will think that a price that high isn't worth it and just go without one thinking they won't get caught. But I also know that the money that pays for my license goes to conservation and that's why I do it. So as a quick plug - ALWAYS BUY A FISHING LICENSE!