Lower Potomac Sun. 6/6/10

[basshby]

I had decided to not fish on Sunday but clean boat and tidy things up a bit as I knew it was to be windy on Sunday. But, as I was talking with the charter captain after he brought his afternoon party back to dock about 8pm, I decided to do a short trip in the morning, leave dock by 5:30am and quit fishing by 9:30. A gentleman who was on the afternoon charter heard me talking about a short trip and asked to tag along so I said "sure". Caught two fish one 20" and one 21" we kept and one 18" we let go by 6:30am. It was not till about 8:10am that we finally caught a third keeper at 20" and right before 9am we caught fourth keeper at 19 1/2". We were pulling lines in at 9 am and headed in to the dock. Three of the keepers were caught on Stormbrella rig with 8oz inline out 140ft. The one released and the last keeper were caught on the chartreuse Tomic with a 4oz chartreuse parachute as the weight out 295 ft. All trolling a short distance from #9 buoy. Water flat early but by time we got back to dock it had starting blowing pretty good. Pic of fish:

[garry21cc]

Way to Go Dave !! Do you think you are ready to show us a picture of this Stormbrella you speek of. I know it's been a hot lure for you for the past couple weeks.

[fiveharpers]

I didn't think you could resist going back out on Sunday. You probably still had time left over to do the cleaning of the boat that you planned.

[basshby]

John, Yes had the itch to try a short trip and it worked out ok. Did get some unused items cleaned up from boat and brought a couple of the heavy rods home. Garry, I think I posted a pic of the Stormbrella rig another time but here it is again. The rig has a 6" a storm bunker looking shad which I used with a 1 1/2 oz jig head. I have had bigger fish bend the hook straight on the pre-rigged Storm lures which you buy in packs. When smaller stripers are around I use the regular prehooked 6" Storm lures that usually have 5 in a pack. Also will post another pic I found from another site which I thinks sells the rigs. RW's sells some of the shads but they cost more since the have the foil inside the shad bodies.

My rig with fish that was caught with it last year.



From another site where you can buy a rig:

http://www.cnksaltwatertackle.com/ca...04/3320257.htm

[Scott_nra]

Great Report Dave! Hey, how do those ice blocks work out for you? I need to do something myself that works better than buying so much ice. Does it work well on a cooler full of croakers too?

[basshby]

Scott_nra, I do freeze my own blocks. Have 12, one gallon buckets that six fit on shelf of my freezer. The wife lets me have two shelves and the buckets are 6" dia. and 8" high and its hard to find that size bucket. Put ice in boat Friday night and had fish in cooler on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I do hose off blocks and clean some fish slime from inside of cooler and then fished Sunday and had fish in cooler; but the blocks were getting smaller as you can see in the picture of Sunday's post. I usually flip fish so each side gets its turn on the ice. Croakers sometimes slide to bottom of cooler since they are mostly smaller than the stripers I catch. I started fishing the Lower Potomac in 2005 and used to buy ice; have not bought any since.

[stingray]

I found plastic trash bags to be perfect for making ice. Fill to desired amount and tie shut. Gently place in freezer chest. The great thing is they take the shape of all available space, and then can be re-positioned after freezing.
Try it.

[Scott_nra]

got some tupperware from lunch meat containers in there now. THat will be my first experiment. We're trying for Flat ones at 42 tomarrow and probably going to hit the lower patomas Sunday for some schoolie trolling, flatties at Corfield? and croakers.