Topwater and Speck Bite Right Now

[Capt Brady Bounds]

Chesapeake Bay has a string of low marsh islands, tidal creeks and remote waterways spread out from the Little Choptank River to below Smith Island and including Fishing Bay, Tangier Sound, and Pocomoke Sound. This area is characterized by shallow water and inaccessibility. The shallow water heats up in summer and this discourages larger stripers from being there. Other species however such as croaker, speckled trout and red drum move into these places and stay throughout summer until the autumn season causes a decline in the water temperatures.

So one might describe fishing in the shallow water low marsh islands for large to medium sized stripers as being more a springtime fishery than elsewise, and on top of that larger than usual speckled trout also show in the same places.

Last year, we saw an unusual abundance of specks in these places, that lasted into September. Very unusual because we only see specks like that every five years or so.

This year, this week starting Saturday 5th, with the full moon, amazingly, we guides are seeing large numbers of specks again and the current topwater bite on striper is off-the-scale in size and abundance.

So go now, it just doesn't get any better.

[Cliff]

As always, thank you Capt. Brady for the information!

[tufnik]

Thanks for the fishing guidance. I'm not familiar with specific fishing places. Can anyone name some places?

[DEkayakstriper]

I am very interested in this fishery. I have been thinking about searching some the areas around fishing bay, and points further south but I am clueless on where to start as far as tackle is concerned.

[Capt Brady Bounds]

Not Where, But How and Why

I'm not burning spots. But after nearly thirty years of guiding in Ches Bay, I'm qualified to tell ya how and why, according to my experiences. In other words it's far more important to learn how to locate your own fish, than it is to be told the exact location of where somebody caught fish yesterday, or last week.

Guides are expected to find fish, and fish tend to move around a bit according to food sources, water temperatures and other. In order to find fish with any degree of reliability above 50% , the first premise is to eliminate any method that relies on luck, and to depend upon a more scientific approach.

Let's just jump ahead on the learning curve : structure holds and attracts fish. In any place there is structure, or at the minimum, the concept of structure. A stump, a point of land, a weed bed, an object, are all examples of physical structure. Conceptual structure (my terminology) is a tidual flow of water, a push of current on the upstream side of a fixed object, or even movement of baitfish towards the sun out in open water.

The islands of the eastern shore have feeding stations in places where the tidual current brings food in concentration. Points of land are a good example. In addition as current flow tends to increase around a point of marsh or island, there is a corresponding increase of depth right at that point, so now ya gotta hole there as well. Conceptually speaking if there was a hole just off a point any predator fish in that hole would be facing into the current watching for food. If you cast perpendicular to the current flow, your lure is seen by many more fish than if you chose to cast from any other direction. So too, the bigger fish are likely to be holding at the up-current side of the hole, where their size and greater swimming ability gives them advantage over other predators that are also in that hole.

So there are concepts and patterns that must be learned and then applied to any place or situation. From that you learn how to find fish on your own.

So if you are willing to believe the above text, then what you need to be asking rather than where is "what is the structure that I'm looking for, on what tide, and what is the bait source ?

All the rest of it is "small potatos" compared to knowing how to use the answers to those three questions.

And the answers are : silversides, stumps, and incoming.

[boondoggle]

Lots of pearls in the above.

Yesterday's late start gave me about 40 minutes of incoming. I squandered it using a bait to large for my targeted trout (juvenile rock <12" liked it though). I should have started with the small stuff.

[MDFishin]

from deal island to some of these spots you talk about is about a 3.5-4 mile paddle Def doable for me. Are you guys kayaking or on a boat? im just wondering the best place to launch.

When you say stumps do you mean actual tree stumps, or marsh stumps? I just didnt think there was many trees over there

[ictalurus]

The Captain's advice is on the money. I've found a few of my striper topwater spots, which are often overlooked by boaters, by applying the same formula.

Google Earth is pretty helpful for advance recon. It won't tell you if bait hangs there often, but it's a good way to find points, current seams (which are sometime visible in the photo), and other structure. If you play with the time slider, you might be able to find a photo that shows more detail than the most recent (default) photo.

[tufnik]

Applying those ideas and studying the maps are fine, but you can gain only so much from the maps and really, some of us need a kick-start on specifics.

Since we're not familiar with the area (stumps, incoming, etc) and we don't know where the launches are, can someone just name a few places where they have caught fish from? Just a few examples would be nice.

[ronaultmtd]

Speckled trout have specific requirements for their haunts...mixed in will be medium to schoolie stripers- sometimes puppy drum will have the same locations- not into burning spots - hard enough to find them much less sharing with a few thousand INTERNET friends....ADC has fishing maps that burn spots all the time, but as the Captain and Bill say, fish move around so even if you hit the spot they were at this high tide, they won't be there at low tide.

The Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, NC had a big sign out front- "You should have been here YESTERDAY". That says it all....

[DanMarino]

Sounds Neat

Sounds like neat fishing. I'm clueless about fishing the eastern shore, so I'll have to investigate launching points. I've got no hobie, so I won't be paddling too far from whatever launch points I can find. I will have to see if I can give this a try at some point.

[boondoggle]

The best way to investigate a new fishery is ponying up and hiring a guide. I can think of a Captain that not only puts you on fish but also works very hard to impart the knowledge necessary for you to repeat the experience on your own. Three guesses as to whom this Captain might be...

[tufnik]

Speckled trout have specific requirements for their haunts...mixed in will be medium to schoolie stripers- sometimes puppy drum will have the same locations- not into burning spots - hard enough to find them much less sharing with a few thousand INTERNET friends....ADC has fishing maps that burn spots all the time, but as the Captain and Bill say, fish move around so even if you hit the spot they were at this high tide, they won't be there at low tide.

The Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, NC had a big sign out front- "You should have been here YESTERDAY". That says it all....

Ok, I understand....if I pick a place, any place....I might just hit a fish bite frenzy...lol

[ronaultmtd]

PM me

[Southerly]

lenny rudow has some nice books for fishing on the bay but remember that just because a place is known to be a good 'spot', it doesn't mean it's good all thru the tide cycle, all thru the day, or night, and/or all season, and year.

continue making effort to learn about your target species. whichever species that is - they're not only at one spot in their 'season'. imho - learn where they are commonly caught, give it a try yourself, then try to find analogous locations and avoid some of the crowd if possible.

ps - i've searched amazon for fishing books, and bought as many as i could 'used' for a buck or two, and wound up with a few that are actually the most helpful for next to nothing.