St. Mary’s College launch

[ronaultmtd]

This holiday Monday, the Windfinder forecast was iffy and I was looking for some protected waters but not over crowded. St. Mary’s College is on the St. Mary’s River a few miles from the mouth into the Potomac River. It is difficult to park, difficult to load and unload as you cannot park your vehicle at the site you unload, difficult in a lot of ways, so it is seldom used...it is a short drag from the unload site to the sandy beach and then you are immediately in the river and fishable waters...I was 100 yards out when my rod went down with a 16 inch Striper...looked like it was going to be a banner day! Ummm not! The next 100 yards of trolling resulted in lots of floating grass...something I fought over the next four hours...two miles up river is Tippity Whicity Island and Martin Cove...Martin Cove has a small creek that opens up into a nice size pond once you managed to get through the narrow creek mouth...it has a mixture of fresh water and salt water fish in the pond...many baby striped bass of eight inch size attacked my perch pounder lures, bluegills and big mouth bass...the depth of the pond is a maximum of eight feet deep, but pretty easily fished with a kayak...the channel around the right side of the Island headed up river is shallow and the deeper water is on the rear of the Island and on its left side...sonar was showing lots of fish and balls of tiny glass minnows looked like rain upside down...I pulled double jighead ZMan Diesel Minnow rigs and alternated many different colors...the only reliable lures were the perch pounder and my home made redfish Magic spinner with Sea Assassin Pearl/Chartreuse swimbait...I caught one 17 inch Striper on the ZMan smoky Shad...and two 40 pound (+) cow nose rays...everything else was on perch pounder and the Sea Assassin...coming back to the launch the view was typical of a holiday at St. Mary’s College as swimmers and paddle boards were out in force as I neared the college...the docks had beach towels and were crowded by sun bathers trying to get as much sun as the law allows...I pulled Lady Luck up on the beach through the soft sand and walked up the hill to the public parking area for visitors to historic St. Mary’s City...about two city blocks...to my pickup truck...drove down to the marina lot, loaded up and headed home...not a lot to show for four hours of fishing, but the scenery was spectacular...

[J.A. Veil]

It sounds like you had a good variety of species and some pleasant scenery. There is nothing wrong with a day like that.