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Leaving Them Biting: 111 Fish Over Oyster Beds

Fishing Report 
3K views 15 replies 11 participants last post by  Vietpimp999 
#1 · (Edited)
Summary
The idea today was to target perch on the oyster beds, cast to breaking fish if we saw working birds, and maybe live line if we caught spot. This was another of our summer days off. We got a bit of a late start, and when all was said and done, we caught 111 fish and left them biting over a live hard bottom. We caught mostly perch with a bunch of spot in the mix; we harvested 10 perch and two spot. We had the spot as part of our breakfast the following day. We used bloodworms from Marty’s, and used cut strips of spot later in the day.

Details
It was pretty windy, and so we first stopped off in the river in the hopes of catching without having to enter the bay. There were some decent marks on the meter, and we started fishing at about 1 pm over the oysters. The bite was nonexistent, and so we decided to leave after 10 minutes of drifting. The motor hard started, and so we kept drifting to let things pan out. At about 1:25, I caught a spot, which was put into the live well, and at 1:30 we got the motor running. We then headed towards the mouth of the river, stopped to fish, and got a slow pick of fish, putting put four more spot in the live well to bring our count to five before we moved.

Next, we near a drop off after seeing some marks in 25 feet of water. I snagged something on the bottom and lost my rig at about 2 pm. Everything was lost including the swivel, and so I grabbed the spare line. Next, we got up onto the oyster bed and deployed our lines. Things started off slowly, but we had a steady pick of spot as we drifted to the south which kept us in 13 to 17 feet of water. During the first of three drifts, I caught the day’s first perch. Here, I took the time to re-rig while my line remained in the water. There seemed to be a sweet spot in about 15 feet over oysters where we would catch most of the fish, and the bite seemed to tail off after we had drifted into 17 feet. By our third drift, we had put about 14 spot in the live well which were perfect live lining size. During this time, we left the motor idling in order to get it good and warmed up. As our drifts continued, the wind laid down a little, and so we concluded that it would be safe to go further afield.

We headed north, started fishing at another oyster bar where we had luck the last time out. We started in about 19 feet of water at 2:50 pm and started catching perch on our first drop. We caught perch hand over fist but they were on the small side. Sometime into it, Kate had a rig fail, and that’s when we decided to eat lunch. Our lunch time count stood at 52 fish, mostly perch. At about 3:15, we re-positioned, and started a second drift. The fast-paced catching continued where it left off after lunch, and we started catching some bigger perch which were harvested. While we were repositioning for a new drift, we were followed closely by a 45-foot express cruiser, too close for comfort. Every time we made a correction to the port he did the same, and thus, stayed on our tail. We stopped in 20 feet of water about 30 yards from another boat stopped and fishing to our port side as the cruiser bore down on us. I thought the cruiser was going to pass between us and the other fishing boat, but at the last second, he turned to his starboard, almost ran into us passing 30 feet of our starboard side, and sent a 4 foot wake our way. I turned into the large wake, any luckily, it passed without incident as Kate exclaimed “That’s why we have a seaworthy boat!” We did three or four drifts here and left them biting when we quit fishing. The wind was starting to pick up a little again after it had laid down so it was time to leave. We wisely chose to forgo heading above the bridge to look for rockfish.
 

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#7 ·
Skip,

Yes is it. That cheesy two part chain is unmistakable. You got a lot of guts diving those pilings. I needed this perch trip in the worst way last week after I not only turned your invite down but left my fishing partner Norm hanging all on account of that 4-letter word that begins with a W and ends with a K. I'll PM you.

Thanks,

Don
 
#10 · (Edited)
Tommy, Yes you can. The best way is to calibrate the sensitivity of your meter over a medium bottom, such as sand. Sandy point is a good area to do this. Shawn Kimbro taught this to me. Go close to the shore off of Sandy Point where you will be over sand, and turn the sensitity up and down. You will see the color change from say, green to yellow to red (depending on the brand of your meter). Leave the sensitivity in the middle setting, and that will be your indicator that you are over a medium hardness bottom. Move out away from the shore, and you will see the color change to, say red (again, brand of meter dependent), which is what you will have seen on one extreme when you were adjusting the meter over the sand. When you see the color change, you will have gone from the sand to the oysters. Note that color, and that's what you look for when looking for areas which will hold fish.
 
#12 ·
Nice catching report. The fish look delicious, can you give us some details on how you prepared them.

Have you tried using artificial's for perch?
Thanks! The recipe is pretty easy. Soak the fillets in Italian dressing for a short while. Meanwhile, mix together some Italian bread crumbs with a little Old Bay. Add in a little Panko crumbs with that if you like. Rolled the fillets into the bread mix, sprinkle extra bread crumbs on top, bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Be careful not to overcook; when the fish flakes, it's done.

As for using artificial lures for perch? I love it! My favorite is using Beetle Spin type lures in the shallows at docks.
 
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