Jonas Green-Thursday Morning

[J. Rentch]

Mark and I are launching from Jonas Green 7:30 on Thursday. If interested, please feel free to join.

[Mark]

John and I launched as planned. It was breezy but the wind posed no problems for us. The chop on the water was easily manageable. The stripers -- or I should say the lack of stripers was problematic. We stayed between the bridges and trolled the traditional areas that have produced stripers in the past. Curiously, our FFs were lighting up with clouds of baitfish at 10 to 15 feet and we saw numerous pods of them breaking on the surface. Still no stripers were visible near them or if they were present they were not tempted by our jigs with plastic trailers nor were they interested in buck tails.

After fruitlessly chasing stripers (and dodging commercial and recreational crabbers) we relented and hit some coves for perch. They did not disappoint and gave us some action on 1/8 oz. spinner jigs. Most perch were in the 8 to 10 inch range and offered good pullage on light tackle. I also landed a small 12 inch pickerel.

The tide was very low when we left the water at 11:00 a.m. Vegetation was choking out the coves at that point making it difficult to get our lures through the growth.

So the stripers remain scarce in the Jonas Green area of the Severn. We gave it a yeoman's effort and covered more than 7 miles of water.

I hope others can report striper catches there soon.

[J.A. Veil]

Good report Mark. I'm glad you guys found some perch.

[J. Rentch]

The stripers weren't biting, but was a great day to be on the river for mid July.

[On the fly]

The stripers weren't biting, but was a great day to be on the river for mid July.

Sorry I missed this morning hoping to get out next week, probably ft. Smallwood around white rocks again in hopes of stripers.

[J. Rentch]

I just checked the Annapolis Buoy near mouth of the Severn, and salinity was 6 ppt. Should be at least double that for mid July. Also saw lots of markers in the 10-15 ft range. Could this be the reason they weren't biting? We probably need to fish higher salinity waters.

[sega]

Seems like everyone's been having a tough time with the stripers. Has anyone even started live lining yet? When we get some reports of guys finding spot I think that's when I'll get back after them.

[bignose]

We were one of the "commercial guys" that you were dodging, lol.
I saw the bright orange yak over on Horseshoe point and assumed it was John Veil.

Our original plan was to run the Charter boat up to the Sewer Pipe, but after being greeted at the green can at Hackett's with 2-3 footers, we decided to favor discretion rather than valor (it sorta went" If we don't head back, in I quit" at which point he reminded me that slaves can't quit) and go back and fish inshore until the wind laid down.

I convinced the Captain to head up into the Severn: understand that he is not totally comfortable fishing in "small water," with a 38 foot wooden boat, but we had some customers with young kids and wanted to put them on some fish, and it didn't matter what species.
We set up and drifted along parallel along the old railroad tracks, and even in the protected water, the wind was moving us at a pretty good clip. We were also dodging the crabbers too, don't want to interfere with guys trying to earn a living………

We caught a lot of perch in 11-14 feet of water using standard bottom fishing rigs and cut soft crab. Many of our perch were quite big. We saw a lot of bait and small crabs going by, the river looks good, the water much clearer than the past several weeks.

Not the type of contemplative fishing up in the creeks that I like to do for myself, but it beats getting the crap knocked out of you to make a point. And it was important to make sure that the kids had some success.

So not a kayak report, but an update on the Severn.

There has been a steady bite of good sized rock above the Bridge, but still not much of a live line bite. We've done our best chumming. Spot are still pretty scarce along the bar at Hacketts.

[Mark]

We were one of the "commercial guys" that you were dodging, lol.

I think charter captains should be required to have an official Snaggedline permit ($100, check or cash) to enter the Severn between the bridges.

Glad you got some fish for your clients. There are enough perch there for all of us.