Power Plant fishing this winter

[mdmakaira410]

Has anyone tried fishing brandon shores or calvert cliffs on their kayaks. i would like to keep fishing all winter if possible and have read that these are the spots when it gets too cold to fish anywhere else.

[ictalurus]

Unfortunately, I don't know of any good public launches to get to the Calvert Cliffs power plant. The closest place is either Calvert Cliffs park or Flag Pond park, both of which would require a portage of at least a mile, and a mile-plus paddle after that. I don't think Flag Pond is even open now, actually. There's a private community a little north of Flag Pond Park, and there might be access via a marina in Flag Harbor, but that's 2+ miles. It would have to be a pretty nice day. Every time I thought about trying it, the wind was blowing like crazy.

[DOGFISH]

Years ago, I used to duck hunt along the causeway out in front of the old Kennicott Copper factory. Even during duck hunting season, you could see the rockfish occasionally breaking, feeding on bait out in front of Brandon Shores. We would watch them through binoculars. The power plant is much larger now. However, the warm water should still be discharged out there.

There is no longer access to the copper plant causeway. Back then the coppr plant was closed and the causeway unguarded. The causeway has been closed for sometime now. I guess you would have to get to that power plant area by way of kayak from Cox Creek. That may be quite a paddle. I don't know of any other area to launch from. That may take some research. I have thought about that myself on occasion.

There is another power plant on the Patuxent River. Some of my friends used to fish there by boat. I don't know about kayak access. I tend to stop fishing for awhile following the close of rockfish season, to get caught up on all the the things I put off during fishing season. Of course most of that is building new fishing rods. It never ends.

Good luck with those power plants.

[ictalurus]

Chalk Point on the Patuxent would be a possibility. You could launch near the northwest side of the Rt 231 bridge. I've launched there before but never fished the power plant. I'm not sure where the discharge is, but it would be 2-3 miles away from the launch location. There's a creek before the plant that's supposed to hold white perch, yellow perch, and catfish in the winter, but I haven't heard any striper reports specifically from the power plant there.

There's also the power plant on the Potomac that Capt C-Hawk mentioned in another thread.

[Capt C-Hawk]

Look for Eagle Harbor on a map of the Pax. Used to be a tough launch for a
14' aluminum boat, but if nothing has changed it would be good for a kayak. The chalk point discharge is a mile long canal that's about a cast wide. Security thinks they own it but it's tidal, just don't touch land. The canal was always best when the river had ice flowing. Water in the canal would be near 50. Stripers were in there through Feb. along with some nice perch. In March the white perch took over followed by channel cats. By May the water was too hot. They've added cooling towers, so no idea what temps are like now.

Used to be a great winter shore fishery. You could park in the lot Pepco provided and pull everything behind you in a wagon. We used to take a hibachi, charcoal and a cooler with either burgers or even steaks.

The end of shore fishing came when the low lifes started dumping the trash drums on the bank so they could use the barrels for fires to keep warm. No money in Pepco's budget for that sort of cleanup.

Morgantown plant is a whole different story that's in a previous thread

[surfdog]

my father and i used to fish the canal at chalk point in winter, man it was a good spot until the low lives kept trashing the place. the fire barrels wernt the problem, all the trash that didnt go in the barrels was. like all the other good spots around the state, inconsiderate A Holes screwed them up