Fall patterns

[summersoff]

Very Fall-ish weekend
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[ronaultmtd]

It is genuine "burr" outside this morning! The Deep Purple classic rock song "Smoke on the Water" comes to mind as the warmer water has fog interacting with the cold air...

[Slackdaddy]

Question on kayak fall rock fishing:
As a novice saltwater kayak angler I have been reading/viewing a lot.
One of the things that keeps coming up is "Don't fish locations, fish patterns" And talk about locating bait schools, etc.
That is fine and dandy when you are in a powered fishing vessel that will scout at 40+ MPH.

How do you do it in a kayak?? Kayak fishing you are literally fishing a LOCATION for the outing.

Thoughts??

[ronaultmtd]

Choose Locations carefully...think about structure, think currents, channels, holes, bridges, rip rap...study NOAA charts, Google Earth, hang out in a local tackle shop a few hours a week- you would be amazed what you can learn...last trip my electronics rarely showed up the fish I hooked and landed...i fished structure...

[Mark]

Slackdaddy,

The striper “pattern” we see now is driven largely by water temperature and food source.

Stripers prefer cooler temperatures than our summertime shallow waters provide. As a result, larger stripers generally vacate our shallow Chesapeake rivers and creeks after springtime spawning for deeper cooler water in the summer. Some leave the Chesapeake altogether heading to the ocean. Others stay in deeper Chesapeake Bay waters. Scientists believe some stay in our Bay waters for life while others are triggered by a migratory instinct to go to the Atlantic, returning to the Chesapeake only to spawn.

The point is that during summer our catches of stripers in the shallower waters of our rivers and creeks diminishes. If you’ve noticed, you see few summertime reports on Snaggedline of big stripers being caught in the creeks and rivers of the Mid-Bay region. Our reported catches are more prevalent in the open Bay.

But a wonderful thing happens in the fall. Cooler water temperatures extend the range of our resident Chesapeake stripers. They’re now more willing to visit shallow waters.

Another factor drives their return to the shallows – food. Menhaden (peanut Bunker in their young stage of life) grow up in the Chesapeake before they also depart for the Atlantic. You’ve probably seen their schools skimming along just under the surface of the water. They’ve been prevalent in our rivers and creeks for weeks. They’re filter feeders that eat plankton. Perhaps their most important in role is to serve as food for predatory fish.

Stripers love to eat them. So, when stripers return to the shallows as cooler temperatures prevail, the inevitable happens. They start chasing bunker that are using our rivers and creeks as their nursery. The stripers are driven by hunger but also with the instinctual knowledge that as the days get shorter in the fall, winter is coming and food sources will not be as prevalent. So, they go on a feeding frenzy this time of year. They fatten up. The stripers we catch now are plump from gorging themselves on bunker as opposed to their slender streamlined figure in the summer. They’ll even share (regurgitate) their last meal with you as you remove your hook from their mouth at this time of year.

The pattern for us who fish from kayaks is that we will find stripers where they were not just a short few weeks ago. And we don’t have to go far to find them – to run and gun as it were. We can fish creeks and find them where the creeks meet rivers. We can find them in rivers where the rivers meet the Bay.

As a case in point, last week I was in the Patapsco. Stripers were in good numbers at Bodkin Point. That’s where the Patapsco meets the Chesapeake. The tide was outgoing and the fish were tight to riprap. As I was fishing that spot, I saw birds working about 500 to 700 yards north of the point in open water. Even though it's far from shore, it’s shallow there, maybe 10 feet at most. The stripers had surrounded a school of menhaden and carnage was underway underneath. It was fun for me while it lasted.

I fish those same waters in July and August and such scenes are rare. In fact, I saw no breakers then. Where I was catching white perch and an occasional striper or channel cat on the riprap, stripers are now likely to be present in numbers at that spot. (Not always but the odds are good that they are there in moving water.)

Back to the pattern…It’s not just the above where this taking place now, it’s numerous sites similar to it throughout the Bay.

Some years, the pattern continues longer than others and stripers venture farther into the creeks and stay there for prolonged periods. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the presence of bunker. Perhaps its tidal patterns that drive fish into the creeks and keeps them there. Perhaps its storms that push them and bunker into the creeks on flood waters.

I have caught legal stripers well into November far back in the creeks of the Severn, the Patapsco and Mill Creek off Whitehall Bay. Those same locations were not prime striper areas during the summer months.

The above is a fall striper pattern. It’s a perfect setup for those of us in kayaks. We can find leeside protection in the creeks on windy days. And it doesn’t matter that our range is limited by how far we can pedal or paddle since the stripers have done us a big favor by coming to us.

[Slackdaddy]

Thanks for the detailed info guys,, it helps