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13th - unlucky - PSCR trolling

Fishing Report 
7K views 20 replies 17 participants last post by  Bella Rock 
#1 ·
Launched from Sandy Point at 7:15 am with fellow Tfer Blue Lou. Light rain but predicted to clear up. Only few other trailers in parking lot. Got out to jetty and saw fog but had about 1/2 mile visibility and radar.

Running east along bridge - had to dodge what looked like a faded clam line marker. No idea why it would be right there - bad place for it.

We ran SE towards Mattapeake - watching meter. Slowed in 45 feet on west edge and set a southerly course. Put over port board and ran five lines. One single and four tandems - various colors. Lou put 6th rod 250 feet back off transom - 8/3 tandem.

With lines set - we shook off rain gear as drizzle stopped. Fog stayed though - bay was flat.


We worked near Brick House bar - one of my favorite areas. Radar showed a few other boats but we stayed away from them. Bay was so calm - radar was showing birds sitting in 60 feet so we headed there. Meter showed a few fish down about 40 feet - these usually will not bite. Lou pointed out a Menhaden swimming in a circle on surface - we thought it had been hit by a Rockfish. We circled this area and soon saw many more dead and dying Menhaden.

Not good - talked to others fishing and they reported same thing. Checked lines a few times - and had a close call. Before helping Lou reel in lines - I would move radar out to 2 miles to see if course was clear.

No boats near us other than the anchored ships and two other boats trolling about 2 miles away. We were checking lines when a large boat - " Bella " ran along our starboard side at about 20 knots - maybe 75 feet away. We could clearly see an open array radar unit but it was not spinning. Called them on VHF # 16 - he apologized for running so close.

I did quick math and figured Bella must have been just outside the 2 mile radar range and at roughly 20 knots - covered the distance to us in about 7-8 minutes - exact time I was in cockpit.

Lesson learned - check radar every 2 minutes when pulling lines.

Fog slowly lifted and soon we saw dead Menhaden in larger numbers. The Sea gulls were pecking at them but not eating them. We netted a dead Menhaden - it looked very fresh with no marks. Scary what is killing them.

We trolled all around # 87 - # 88 markers - another favorite area. I could not believe not getting any hits - conditions were good. No waves , no other boats around , 55 -56 * water temp. nice incoming current. We fished until 1:30 and slowly pulled in lines.

The Severn River Rod and Keg club holds a raft up at 2:30 so we ran over to join the party. Seven other boats had fished - no one had caught a Rockfish. Boats fished from just north of bridge to as far south as Bloody Point.



We all discussed lack of Rockfish over a few cold drinks - fun way to end the day. Left the party about 3:30 and ran north to Sandy Point. Running just inside Hacketts can marker - saw a tide line full of dead Menhaden that looked few days old. This went on for over a mile.

Got home and talked to some other fishermen - from Deale all the way to Solomons - no one caught or heard of any Rock caught - other than a few at the CCNPP by guys jigging. One side note - some 2-4 pound Catfish ( Channel and Blue ) caught from Sandy Point beach and jetty.
 
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#2 ·
Sad, very sad.

Granted water is still chilly, but you’d think there would be SOME sign of life with those wide ranging reports.

Not good at all.
 
#3 ·
I had already considered converting my sport fisher to a research boat to try to figure out what is happening. This just about cinches it. Tackle off, instruments on. Get my pullage from perch jerkin’ or going to the Keys. Thanks as always Skip for keeping us informed! Damned few of us left here.
S
 
#8 ·
Two weeks ago, after a dismal winter of inshore fishing in SE Florida, I towed my Edgewater 158 up North hoping to catch some fish in the Bay. Other than great beach fishing during the Mullet run, we had to contend with Red Tide, Blue-Green Algae, wind, rain, and chilly temps. Sadly, I think it is just the new norm for short money'd fisherman.
 
#9 ·
Skip,

Thanks for the very informative narrative. If you (and many very good fishermen) are getting skunked, it speaks volumes as to the state of the fishery. Given the current situation, my plan was to chum this spring, and I was toying with the idea of mixing in some trolling. After reading this, I don't think that I'll even bother with the planer boards and broomsticks. Sad, very sad....

Don
 
#12 ·
Just a theory but there is a decent possibility that the bulk of the stripers may be on the spawning grounds up the rivers right now. Hopefully this is the case and a lot of them may be spawned out by next week.
Like Skip said fish were marked here and there just not feeding. We saw the same thing. Our raft up group was fishing the same general area. One boat was as far south as Bloody Pt. He said he did think he had one knock down. We saw some dead alewives and I understand they were really thick closer to Kent Island. Strange thing for this time of year. Normally a summer deal.

It is rather disturbing that the guy’s in our raft up group didn’t hook up with any fish as all are better then average fishermen and know what they are doing. We fished from sun up until 2 pm. All our boats had a six rod limit. Just about everyone was trolling parachutes and umbrellas.

My question is if they knew the fish was in trouble in 2017, as most rec and commercial fishermen did, why are they waiting until 2020 to do something? And they wonder why we have no faith in them.
 
#13 ·
I ran the boat around a bunch Saturday from the upper Severn to Tolly Pt. Fog was bad from the navy bridge out but that didnt bother the sailboats, just added Garmin XHD 2 weeks ago so I was able to put really test it out. I noticed a few dead fish floating on the way out but once I started coming in from Tolly, there were quite a few floating fish up to the Severn River bridge.
 
#14 ·
Let's hope the spawning grounds are covered with breeding fish. The catching didn't start getting good last year until May 7-8th (near BB). Everyone was worried in April last year when fishing was slow, then it popped in early May and it was on. I'm not in anyway saying the numbers aren't down....and I'm planning on C&R only this year, but I'll bet the fishing heats up in a few weeks.
 
#16 ·
My question is if they knew the fish was in trouble in 2017, as most rec and commercial fishermen did, why are they waiting until 2020 to do something? And they wonder why we have no faith in them.[/QUOTE]

With all due respect, we all knew they were in trouble. The question is why didn't we all do our part earlier?
 
#17 ·
J bones - I heard the fish kill might be related to a mahogany tide - similar to a red tide.

I doubt it was due to water warming up or cooling off too fast ( thermal shock ) as water has slowly risen in temperature over last month to just 55*.

Whatever the cause - it covered at least ten miles of bay.
 
#18 ·
There may be a chance that there are fish on the spawning grounds but according to DNR’s report last week 16-28” fish were being caught on the flats and the big females were expected to show soon.

Well if that’s the case, they should be down around the Bay Bridge to Solomons now or have moved through last week.

Anybody see the problem with that?

Chris
 
#21 ·
Thanks Skip, was out there in the same area at the same time. Heard you call Bella out, but didn't recognize your voice.

We launched out of Matapeake for the spring shaken down and worked E-W down towards BP with a couple umbrellas and 4 tandems of various colors for a few hours but nothing to report (no knockdowns or jellies). Saw all the fish kill as soon as we cleared the Matapeake walls. We did hear someone report a 42" on a white umbrella 1/4 mile north of BB.


Curious how that is gonna impact the fish running out of the rivers if that much bait is no longer around.
 
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