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I was in Oklahoma for the past five days. The only saltwater they have there comes from oil and gas wells. I was eager to get in some Chesapeake fishing. The only trouble was the lousy weather today with worse weather on the way. I spent all morning getting caught up from the trip. After lunch I checked the weather forecast and found wind and rain, but mostly light rain was predicted. I decided to go fishing. Here are the problems and solutions:
Problem: strong wind. Solution: look for an area with shelter from wind by landmass. I tried several spots until I found one that allowed me relatively calm water.
Problem: rain. Solution: I wore a GoreTex rainsuit over my regular fishing clothes with my PFD on top of the rainsuit. I wore a hat with a long front brim. When I paddled into the wind, I had to zip the hood up all the way.
Problem: very low water level. Solution: fish farther from shore than usual.
Problem: dirty water from stormwater runoff. Solution: no easy solution since the most sheltered waters have more stormwater runoff input. I decided to fish where I could and see what happened. I caught fish in rust-colored water and in water that looked like coffee with cream.
I did not want to spend a long time loading and unloading the kayak allowing rain to get in my van. I chose my 11' Native Manta Ray 11 paddle kayak today and trolled just two lines. I have no electronics on that basic kayak. The two lures I used were a 1/2-oz jighead with a chartreuse Gulp swimming mullet and a 1/2-oz bucktail with a 12 Fathom Buzztail plastic in chartreuse. Both caught well -- the bucktail/Buzztail combo caught a few more fish and caught the larger ones.
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Results: I trolled for 2.5 hours and caught 27 rockfish. Two of them were about 16". Most were between 17.5" and 18.5". I caught keepers of 20", 20.5", and 22.5". The largest one is shown below. All fish were fat and healthy -- all were released. Without my FF/GPS, I do not know the precise depths where I caught the fish. I estimate they were in depths of 5' to 15'.
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I do not know how the weather will be for the next few days. If the weather is fishable, I plan to be out again. If you do choose to fish in high winds, please be careful and safe.
Problem: strong wind. Solution: look for an area with shelter from wind by landmass. I tried several spots until I found one that allowed me relatively calm water.
Problem: rain. Solution: I wore a GoreTex rainsuit over my regular fishing clothes with my PFD on top of the rainsuit. I wore a hat with a long front brim. When I paddled into the wind, I had to zip the hood up all the way.
Problem: very low water level. Solution: fish farther from shore than usual.
Problem: dirty water from stormwater runoff. Solution: no easy solution since the most sheltered waters have more stormwater runoff input. I decided to fish where I could and see what happened. I caught fish in rust-colored water and in water that looked like coffee with cream.
I did not want to spend a long time loading and unloading the kayak allowing rain to get in my van. I chose my 11' Native Manta Ray 11 paddle kayak today and trolled just two lines. I have no electronics on that basic kayak. The two lures I used were a 1/2-oz jighead with a chartreuse Gulp swimming mullet and a 1/2-oz bucktail with a 12 Fathom Buzztail plastic in chartreuse. Both caught well -- the bucktail/Buzztail combo caught a few more fish and caught the larger ones.
004.jpg
Results: I trolled for 2.5 hours and caught 27 rockfish. Two of them were about 16". Most were between 17.5" and 18.5". I caught keepers of 20", 20.5", and 22.5". The largest one is shown below. All fish were fat and healthy -- all were released. Without my FF/GPS, I do not know the precise depths where I caught the fish. I estimate they were in depths of 5' to 15'.
003.jpg
I do not know how the weather will be for the next few days. If the weather is fishable, I plan to be out again. If you do choose to fish in high winds, please be careful and safe.
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