Wicomico

[ronaultmtd]

Plan on going out in the morning fairly early to fish the mouth of the Wicomico behind Cobb Island- salinity is way down so I will probably only catch blue catfish but fishing is fishing...I have been gone out of town on two business trips and missed fishing two week ends so figured taking a Monday off might pay off with less boat traffic and more cooperative fish.

[richardbb85]

plz report back how u do, i am wondering if the croakers are at bushwood yet or not

gl

[ronaultmtd]

I will take pictures and report back tomorrow

[OBX_RAT]

The croaker are just starting to come in to bushwood and chaptico, mainly cats and perch still. I fish there on a regular, its only 8 miles down the road from me.

[ronaultmtd]

There has been way too much fresh water coming down the rivers for the salt water species liking- super high tides have kept things stirred up but hopefully, the weather will cooperate and the Bay can get back to normal soon. In the meantime we fish for what is available and is biting- mostly catfish and perch- I will use big river minnows for bait today that can catch just about anything that eats live bait- stripers, puppy drum, bluefish, flounder, trout, white perch, largemouth bass, catfish, and the dreaded frankenfish. Last year about this time of year, I caught what we estimated a 120 pound bat ray on minnows fishing off my Sister's dock. I thought for a while that I had a world record striper until I got it close enough to get a look at it. It had a four foot wing span and was about a foot thick. I beached it, got the hook out and released it back alive. Everything eats river minnows- I catch them in a trap I drop off the edge of the dock. A six-inch minnow free swimming on a 4/0 circle hook in the edge of a deep channel is going to be my ticket today- It is raining as I write this so I plan to drive down to my Sister's place and wait for it to clear- high tide is early this morning and low is around 2 pm, so I'll be headed home before the late afternoon thunderstorms hit that are forecast for today.

[ronaultmtd]

I got out on the water this morning at 10 am- It was windy and choppy today, but I had one very nice striper at the boat- it hit a medium chartreuse sassy shad on a spinning rod- it was too light an outfit for the fish (10 lb test) and eventually the hook pulled when I tried to get the boga grip in its mouth- it didn't like that-

The river minnows didn't cooperate last night and this morning- my trap was empty, so I had to bait fish for a while in Mitchell's Creek to get some bait- caught a monster white perch on a 1/16 oz jig with a small natural shad body- it was much too big to use for bait so I let it go- after catching 4 white perch for bait (about eight-nine inches long) I paddled out into the mouth of the Wicomico- Ended up with five very nice catfish- one channel cat and four blue cats- biggest was 29 inches- I was using large chunks of fresh cut bait on 6/0 circle hooks trying for big stripers- I was anchored in 25 feet of water smack dab in the middle of the channel leading into the Potomac- love my anchor trolley system- I didn't catch any croakers,but I wasn't fishing for them either.

[richardbb85]

couple more weeks for the croakers i guess

[ronaultmtd]

The water is plenty warm for croakers- surface temp was 74 degrees today on the out going tide. They were probably in shallower water than were I was fishing- I marked fish coming out the inlet in around 16-18 feet deep water-

[richardbb85]

ill give it a try either this or next weekdend

[ictalurus]

Nice work on the stripers and cats. I thought about launching at Bushwood this weekend but opted for Piney Point because it was closer. I'd love to get into some of those cats, though.

[Redfish12]

You're hammering the cats this spring! Sounds like a fun fight with the striper! You got to work on the leg ramp swing in, the lip gripper only comes out for fish I don't want to keep and wouldn't mind loosing. Striper, I lip grip and rip with my thumb or just grab the hook or leader if it's strong enough and slide them in. It takes some practice forcing yourself to accept the possibility of getting spiked in the calf or hamburger thumb, but it beats loosing fish! Granted... I still loose quite a few and brought a net on my last trip because I was going for flounder which I hate loosing the most bc they are few and far between.

Keep up the good work and get a waterproof camera already!

[ronaultmtd]

Like a dumb A--, I left my Fuju F-10 waterproof camera sitting on my kitchen table yesterday after charging the battery and putting in a fresh 2 gb card...I am thinking about getting a GoPro camera with mount so it stays on my kayak, but haven't figured out how to yet. The striper was frisky at the boat and the jig hook had wallowed out a pretty decent size hole in it's lip so I was afraid it would pull free when I first saw it, but I had it on for several tries at the boat- just wasn't meant to be. The Catfish bite is very dependable in the mouth of the Wicomico River right now and they are some decent sized fish- between 20 and 30 inches long. Figure a night time trip should produce some bigger fish but I would want company out there.

[Memory Maker]

Forget the Boga and get a net ........... easier to control ....... fingers and other parts away from hooks and teeth ........ lose fewer fish ....... you can keep the fish in the net in the water and still use the boga if you need better control