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I had a customer this morning that was telling me how hot his Rocktober had been fishing from the banks of the South. His stories set off the itch. After seeing the pics from supfisher01's post about life in the Severn, I arranged for someone to cover the last 2 hours of my shift. I had to take advantage of the beautiful day and really wanted to go up and hit some side tribs off the Severn to be sure that all the fish weren't hiding in them.
I arrived at the launch at about 2pm and met some boat fisherman coming in from across the Severn. They told stories of plenty of keeper bass working peanuts in "The creek with the house at the mouth..." I weighed their data and opted not to cross the river to search for the mysterious creek The wind was blowing harder than I had anticipated straight up the river and I wanted to stick with my plan and not chase rumors.
I caught my first dink as I rounded a point and headed towards the next creek to the west. I spoke to some guys in a boat that came by to check out my rig and get intel from me. They had been crabbing all day and not seen any bait or rockfish. They were convinced that the fish had left the river.
I got another dink on the way and I could see the writing on the wall as to how the day was going to go.
I wanted to make a pass in a small creek to see if there was any bait trapped in there. The tide had only just started to flood and I was hoping that I might find life. I did a loop, found nothing and headed up to the next creek. I planned to stop back on my way in to see if fish moved in during the interim.
Upon arrival at my next stop, iI again found zero signs of life, so I went to the back and used my UL rod to try for pickerel. I was working on the theory that the tide needed to mature and flush more bait into the creek while I was playing with the Picks.
I failed to find any Pickerel. so I worked the mouth a little bit before bouncing up one more trib. It was dry as well. I caught dinks in both places, but nothing bigger than 17". I was starting to feel discouraged....
I returned to to my previous site and found more of the same. There were some better marks, but they did not bite.
By this point, it was approaching sundown and I was assessing where I wanted to be during the witching hour - low light with high topwater potential. I was deciding between 2 likely spots where I knew there would be favorable structure
As I scoped out the first, I saw some peanut bunker breaking the surface and took that as a sign that I was in the best place possible. As I was moving into position, an elderly couple came out of the creek mouth in an old Boston Whaler that was coughing smoke. It was clear they were out for some late day fishing. They looked at me like was crazy for fishing where I was, but I just smiled and waved.
As soon as they moved on, I started casting to the channel that lead from the mouth of the creek. On the second cast, I caught a strong 19"er. More casts led to more of the same. Almost all were in the upper teens to lower 20's. My favorite was a fish that exploded on my Smakit Jr, but missed. I let the lure sit for a few seconds before giving it another small twitch. Then, BAMMM!! It crushed it again and started peeling drag. I few minutes later, I landed and very healthy 23" - my biggest for the night.
What was odd was that the school of Peanut Bunker kept working the area, but nothing was working it. Every time I cast towards them, I came up empty. I was confounded by this, since there were clearly fish in the area.
The flurry lasted until the sun went down. During that half hour, I caught over a dozen fish - a couple 14s but the rest were all upper teens along with a 20", 2x21"s and the 23". All the while, the couple in the Whaler kept staring at me trying to figure out why I was catching and they were not.
Content in fact that my back up plan had paid off, I headed for home, thanking the fishing gods for providing some topwater to salvage the day. The waxing moon was just a sliver but very bright. It made the paddle up river especially beautiful.
There are definitely still fish in the river. It just seems that you have to get lucky and be there when they are (more so than usual) and when they are in the mood to bite. It is nothing like last year when they were everywhere and more than willing to play. They seem especially schizophrenic lately.
DSCN4318.jpgDSCN4319.jpg
I arrived at the launch at about 2pm and met some boat fisherman coming in from across the Severn. They told stories of plenty of keeper bass working peanuts in "The creek with the house at the mouth..." I weighed their data and opted not to cross the river to search for the mysterious creek The wind was blowing harder than I had anticipated straight up the river and I wanted to stick with my plan and not chase rumors.
I caught my first dink as I rounded a point and headed towards the next creek to the west. I spoke to some guys in a boat that came by to check out my rig and get intel from me. They had been crabbing all day and not seen any bait or rockfish. They were convinced that the fish had left the river.
I got another dink on the way and I could see the writing on the wall as to how the day was going to go.
I wanted to make a pass in a small creek to see if there was any bait trapped in there. The tide had only just started to flood and I was hoping that I might find life. I did a loop, found nothing and headed up to the next creek. I planned to stop back on my way in to see if fish moved in during the interim.
Upon arrival at my next stop, iI again found zero signs of life, so I went to the back and used my UL rod to try for pickerel. I was working on the theory that the tide needed to mature and flush more bait into the creek while I was playing with the Picks.
I failed to find any Pickerel. so I worked the mouth a little bit before bouncing up one more trib. It was dry as well. I caught dinks in both places, but nothing bigger than 17". I was starting to feel discouraged....
I returned to to my previous site and found more of the same. There were some better marks, but they did not bite.
By this point, it was approaching sundown and I was assessing where I wanted to be during the witching hour - low light with high topwater potential. I was deciding between 2 likely spots where I knew there would be favorable structure
As I scoped out the first, I saw some peanut bunker breaking the surface and took that as a sign that I was in the best place possible. As I was moving into position, an elderly couple came out of the creek mouth in an old Boston Whaler that was coughing smoke. It was clear they were out for some late day fishing. They looked at me like was crazy for fishing where I was, but I just smiled and waved.
As soon as they moved on, I started casting to the channel that lead from the mouth of the creek. On the second cast, I caught a strong 19"er. More casts led to more of the same. Almost all were in the upper teens to lower 20's. My favorite was a fish that exploded on my Smakit Jr, but missed. I let the lure sit for a few seconds before giving it another small twitch. Then, BAMMM!! It crushed it again and started peeling drag. I few minutes later, I landed and very healthy 23" - my biggest for the night.
What was odd was that the school of Peanut Bunker kept working the area, but nothing was working it. Every time I cast towards them, I came up empty. I was confounded by this, since there were clearly fish in the area.
The flurry lasted until the sun went down. During that half hour, I caught over a dozen fish - a couple 14s but the rest were all upper teens along with a 20", 2x21"s and the 23". All the while, the couple in the Whaler kept staring at me trying to figure out why I was catching and they were not.
Content in fact that my back up plan had paid off, I headed for home, thanking the fishing gods for providing some topwater to salvage the day. The waxing moon was just a sliver but very bright. It made the paddle up river especially beautiful.
There are definitely still fish in the river. It just seems that you have to get lucky and be there when they are (more so than usual) and when they are in the mood to bite. It is nothing like last year when they were everywhere and more than willing to play. They seem especially schizophrenic lately.
DSCN4318.jpgDSCN4319.jpg
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