Cold December, Hot Fishing
The cold snap brought on hot fishing late last week, and the rockfish are schooled up and ready to bite.
Trollers out of Solomons had only to venture into the Bay and put the lures over to catch hungry stripers. The fish are straight out, and both north and south of the Patuxent.
A small umbrella rig with double catch on Capt. Bernie Shea's charter. Fish are hot now in the Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent.
The big charters are trolling small umbrellas and tandem rigs. White and chartreuse lures and teasers are working well. The bait schools and fish are detected on electronics, and flocks of birds will show fish locations. There are fish up the rivers too, and feed on their own schedule. If you find them at the right time, life is good.
Big fish, small fish, and everything in between.
Most of the rockfish are keepers and many are over the maximum of 24 inches. There may be a scattering of 40-plus inch fish caught this week.
The Miss Susie out of Solomons this week.
The Potomac has found rockfish at their fall migration locations including the mouth of the Coan and Vermar Beach. There are schools of feeding rockfish and birds in the bait schools further up the Potomac. The big Atlantic run stripers may be at Smith Point migrating north at any moment. Don't set those drags too tight!
The stripers are getting bigger.
White perch are schooled up in the deeper holes in the rivers. Late last week, a kayaker caught a five-gallon bucket full of the fish using sabiki rigs around the Solomons Island bridge. Some hefty rockfish took the tiny lures too. Good catches of crappie were reported this week at St. Mary's Lake using minnows and jigs.