Severn 5/2

[DonV]

Me and Michelle did an impromptu trip today out of Jonas Green. Pretty slow day overall but with with a nice exciting ending. Launched from JG about 9 and fished towards the mouth. Landed five fish between us in the area of the Research Center. After a few hours headed back to the park took a little lunch break and then headed up river. Michelle hooked up a nice fat 26" that gave here quite a battle especially with her having another rod snagged and wrapped around a third rod that she was fighting also. Ended well with the fish landed.

After we got her back situated decided to start trolling back as we were getting tired at this point and the wind seemed to be picking up. I ended up with a close to 30" fish on and landed pretty much right after dropping my lure in. So damn excited I didn't even get him in the Hawg Trough right.

Personal best fish for both of us. We were quite proud of ourselves for putting in the extra effort as we were about ready to give up at lunchtime after the slow morning but decided to give it a go. It paid off.

We do have some video but it contains a lot of cussing and us sounding like way too excited idiots and I think I will keep it private.

The hot lure for us again today was a light green almost pearl color Berkley Powerbait 5" paddletail, all fish caught on the same but for my big one was caught on a 4" white fleck. Tried a couple of different colors with no takers. All fish were caught in about 10- 15' of water near edges. The big fish were caught around 1:30 to 2:30 on the incoming tide.

It was also nice to meet a couple of Snaggedline members I hadn't met before. Dan in the morning and Shawn in the afternoon. Nice seeing you guys.

Pretty slow day for them also.

2015-05-02-105346.jpg2015-05-02-130737.jpg2015-05-02-130959.jpg2015-05-02-133343.jpg2015-05-02-133732.jpg

[Goody]

Way to hang in there. Paid off with a PB. Congrats.

Mobile

[Mark]

Don, Michelle,

Terrific outing by two excellent anglers.

Congratulations.

[YakCapn]

Good to meet you too Don. Congrats again on the 30 incher. I was trolling around the Severn too. Unfortunately, my 1 ounce buck tails (white and magic bus yellow) failed to produce...I was hoping to land something but got completely skunked. I saw plenty on the fish finder, but I just failed to get the job done today. I should have switched lures to paddle tails or something, but I was stubborn. Feeling a little demoralized tonight after hearing others success of the Severn recently. I'll try to wash the skunk off tomorrow on the Potomac...I'll bring some shad gear along too.

[DonV]

Way to hang in there. Paid off with a PB. Congrats.

Mobile

Thanks Paul.

You been getting out, haven't seen much of you on the site lately. Still fishing Beverly Triton?

[DonV]

Good to meet you too Don. Congrats again on the 30 incher. I was trolling around the Severn too. Unfortunately, my 1 ounce buck tails (white and magic bus yellow) failed to produce...I was hoping to land something but got completely skunked. I saw plenty on the fish finder, but I just failed to get the job done today. I should have switched lures to paddle tails or something, but I was stubborn. Feeling a little demoralized tonight after hearing others success of the Severn recently. I'll try to wash the skunk off tomorrow on the Potomac...I'll bring some shad gear along too.

I tried bucktails on my previous trip to Ft. Smallwood and had absolutely no luck even with a paddletail trailer. Have seen reports of others fishing them and having luck but nothing for me. I'm going to stick with what has been working for me till it stops. This is the one that has been hot for us at both Ft. Smallwood and today at Jonas. Have tried a bunch of different colors and some hard baits with not much success. I have the same lure in a slightly different color, darker green and it just is not quite as productive. Picked them up at Oliies a few years back and just started using them last year. They hold up pretty well and are easy to rig. Someone else I showed them to made a trip to Ollies and said they still have them.


paddletail.jpg

[YakCapn]

Thanks, yes, I think I'll move back to the paddle tails. I have a variety to choose from...mostly white and clear. I had good success last week with a buck tail at Beverly Triton, so much so I doubled up and used them on both rods this week. I'll learn from this mistake. Usually I use different styles of lures on my two rods: buck tails, X-raps, and paddle tails primarily are what I select my 2 from.

[TXfly16]

Congrats on your fish, hopefully we have the same luck on Monday!

[J.A. Veil]

Congratulations on the large fish. It is the largest Severn striper I have seen reported so far this year.

[DonV]

Thanks, yes, I think I'll move back to the paddle tails. I have a variety to choose from...mostly white and clear. I had good success last week with a buck tail at Beverly Triton, so much so I doubled up and used them on both rods this week. I'll learn from this mistake. Usually I use different styles of lures on my two rods: buck tails, X-raps, and paddle tails primarily are what I select my 2 from.

The problem is that may well be the day when the bucktails will be the hot lure. This fishing stuff can be baffling and can get you a little crazy. Some days I can be right on top of someone else catching fish, have the same lure and at least think I'm fishing it the same way in the same spot and just nothing happens. Our last trip to Ft. Smallwood was pretty slow and after leaving I had the feeling the same feeling your having that I should have maybe tried something else.

[J.A. Veil]

The problem is that may well be the day when the bucktails will be the hot lure. This fishing stuff can be baffling and can get you a little crazy. Some days I can be right on top of someone else catching fish, have the same lure and at least think I'm fishing it the same way in the same spot and just nothing happens. Our last trip to Ft. Smallwood was pretty slow and after leaving I had the feeling the same feeling your having that I should have maybe tried something else.

One option is to try a different type or color of lure on each rod to see what is getting hit most often that day. In addition I found on the last two trips that the two front rods got more than 75% of the strikes. Perhaps the rear lines, which were set out farther (and which therefore dropped lower in the water column) were not intersecting the fish.

[Mark]

J.A. Veil wrote: "Perhaps the rear lines, which were set out farther (and which therefore dropped lower in the water column) were not intersecting the fish."

I recently read on another fishing forum that stripers typically attack baits by rising in the water column. If that is true it may pay to avoid deeper presentations if you are not pulling enough lines to cover the upper and lower depths.

[YakCapn]

Yes, I was wondering if my 1 ounce bucktails were trolling too deep yesterday on the Severn....At best I need to have 2 different weights of lures, if not two different types. If I troll more than 2 rods, I'm destined to have a tangled mess. Its like the Dos Equis guy on Cinco de Mayo; "don't jump straight to cinco, start with dos."

I'm going out the Potomac later today. I'll use a paddle tail on a 3/8 oz jig head and then a 3.5 inch Rapala Countdown, size 9 with no extra weight. I probably won't troll a great deal though...thinking I'll set up around the 14th street bridge and fish for shad. I was out without shad gear earlier this week at the 14th street bridge and there was pulse after pulse of schools of fish that passed by on the fish finder. I tried to jig thinking there might be a striper down there, but I only bumped a few of what must have been shad.

[dtandrade]

It was nice meeting you both as well, looks like you faired better then me, going to try and get out a few days this week to see if I can put a 30" one in the Cuda.

[Goody]

Thanks Paul.

You been getting out, haven't seen much of you on the site lately. Still fishing Beverly Triton?

I've been at Beverly Triton the past few weeks. Went yesterday. It was such a nice day out there. The water was pretty calm. Caught alot of schoolies up to the 20" range.