St. Mary's Lake is re-open

[dsaavedra]

Has anyone fished St. Mary's Lake since it re-opened a couple weeks ago? I want to get down there and go for some pickerel and crappie.

[Big Mike]

I haven’t fished it since it reopened but the pickerel bite is usually good year round (unless Mark comes down, then they get lockjaw). I’ve found the crappie bite slow until March rolls around. Without cold weather gear I’ll wait for spring to get out.

There are some significant changes to the lot. Before it was an honor system box and a wide open gate. Now they’ve installed the toll gate system seen at Pt Lookout and other parks. You’ll need a credit card or the park pass swipe card to pay the $3 fee. The bigger change for me is the 6AM opening in the summer. This takes away the prime morning fishing hour and with the toll gate you won’t be able to get in early.

They’ve also paved most of the gravel lot and reduced the number of spots when they did. It is a nice, fresh smooth lot but it’s a shame to see an impervious expanse of asphalt replace what used to soak up rain. If your old enough you remember the lyric, paved paradise and put up a parking lot. It applies here.

Wish I had a fishing report. You could call the Tackle Box in Lexington Park to get latest on how it’s fishing


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[dsaavedra]

I knew of the changes to the lot, including the payment system, but did not know the gate won't open before 6am. I'm not usually that much of an early bird, but I know many are so that really stinks!

It's been several years since I fished St. Mary's Lake (I used to live ~30 minutes away in Mechanicsville), well before I started fishing from a kayak, so I'm eager to fish it again no that it's opened. I think I'll make the trip down there next weekend.

[ronaultmtd]

Fished it several months ago just before they closed it. The Pickerel I caught were all hammer handles, but I had a good stringer of some really nice Crappie and a few small LM Bass. I use all UL spinning gear there...7' Fish Eagle UL rod with 1000 Diawa Exeler LT with 6# Trilene XL mono.

[Mark]

Mike,

As I recall, you did very well that day.

It must have been "operator error" on my part. Although I did hook a few hammer handles to avoid the skunk.

I'm glad to hear the lake has reopened.

I look forward to another visit this year.

It's a beautiful body of water.

[dsaavedra]

It really is a beautiful lake. One of the largest in the region and what I like the most about it is the variety of cover and structure available. There's lily pad and lay downs in the feeder creeks, a few shallow flats with weedlines adjacent to deeper water, standing timber in at least 3 or 4 locations (this is something you really don't see in many lakes around here), deep water for jigging/cranking (also you something you don't see often around here, most other small lakes/ponds max out around 10 feet).

One thing I've noticed is that it seems to be overrun with small fish. Hammer handle pickerel and little 12" bass. The biggest fish I've personally seen from the lake is a 4 pound bass, though I've seen photos of some pushing 10 lbs. I wonder if it needs some kind of culling or forage stocking program to allow the fish to grow larger.

One of my more memorable catches out of the lake is a flier. Southern Maryland is at the extreme northern end of their range so they are quite rare in this region. I've seen 2 in my lifetime. This is the one of them, that my friend caught in St. Marys Lake:

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[dsaavedra]

Made the trip to St Mary's yesterday and it was a pretty disappointing trip. I marked plenty of fish, what I am sure were crappie. They were in small clusters tight to the bottom. But they weren't biting. I managed to catch just 3 crappie and a pickerel. The worst part is I caught all these fish in the first ~20 minutes of fishing and then went 3.5 hours without a bite before calling it quits. The fish were caught off the ends of the man-made jetties, or in standing timber.

[bunnielab]

The choices they made in changing the lot are baffling, the trend in most parks is to move away from impermeable surfaces. The reduction in parking makes no sense at all as well.

A friend an I hiked the lake a month or two ago and I was shocked to see how little work they did. It was closed for almost a year for what looks like a couple weeks of work that could have been done with a lot of the parking still open.

[Big Mike]

Oh I agree, closing the park for 8 months to do what they did is criminal. I was expecting a grand new pavilion but it looks like they did nothing to the existing bathroom, the ramp and dock are identical, and fewer parking spots. I can dream that they’ll open earlier in the summer, but I think that’s wishful thinking.