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My parent-teacher conferences ended early yesterday, so I headed to Fort Armistead to try my luck on some November rock. I launched around 1:30 to no wind and about a foot of visibility in the water. I headed up underneath the bridge to start, as I noticed lots of seagulls and other birds sitting on the water up there. The fishfinder was pretty empty until I hit the 25' depth range, and there were plenty of marks on edges where it went down to the 40' range. As I always do, I got suckered into jigging those marks and quickly confirmed what I probably already knew- they're likely a smattering of perch, gizzard shad, and maybe the occasional catfish giving me that nice thick red line that makes my pulse quicken. Or maybe they were stripers and I just suck at jigging, a very likely possibility.
I headed across the channel, which always to me feels like crossing an intersection, although today wasn't too busy barring a couple of tugboats. There was a surprising amount of bait in the middle of the water column, and while I passed over some very large bait pods it didn't seem like much was harassing them if anything. I was trolling a 1oz. and 1/4oz. paddle-tail, hoping that the bright sun might provide a nice silhouette for mid-range rockfish cruising near the bait pods, but never got a bump. I crossed behind Ft. Carroll, and got a chuckle at my favorite aspect of that place- The "Guard Dog" warning on the wall. There's something eerily awesome about that structure.
My thought was with water in the 46-degree range they might not be totally hunkered down in the depths and perhaps were in the secondary channel which runs about 30-35' deep and heads back into Bear Creek. As the title of this thread indicates, it was a futile effort. That channel and its edges held less bait and fewer marks of any kind than my previous location. The wind picked up from the east on an outgoing tide and that was about it for me. As cool as Fort Carroll is, it makes quite the washing machine with reflected waves, so I boogied back towards the launch and called it a day. It was gorgeous out there, but since jigging two keepers there in mid-December two years ago I haven't had any success in that area late in the season. My best guess tells me that any fish of size might still be near river mouths chasing the last of the late fall bait run, fattening up for winter, and that they haven't headed into their winter holdover haunts yet, but you all probably have better insight on that than I do!
This will likely wrap up the 2019 rockfish season for me, as I'll switch over to soaking bait for big blue cats and heading to the Eastern Shore ponds in search of pickerel and red-lipped largemouth. And so it goes!
I headed across the channel, which always to me feels like crossing an intersection, although today wasn't too busy barring a couple of tugboats. There was a surprising amount of bait in the middle of the water column, and while I passed over some very large bait pods it didn't seem like much was harassing them if anything. I was trolling a 1oz. and 1/4oz. paddle-tail, hoping that the bright sun might provide a nice silhouette for mid-range rockfish cruising near the bait pods, but never got a bump. I crossed behind Ft. Carroll, and got a chuckle at my favorite aspect of that place- The "Guard Dog" warning on the wall. There's something eerily awesome about that structure.
My thought was with water in the 46-degree range they might not be totally hunkered down in the depths and perhaps were in the secondary channel which runs about 30-35' deep and heads back into Bear Creek. As the title of this thread indicates, it was a futile effort. That channel and its edges held less bait and fewer marks of any kind than my previous location. The wind picked up from the east on an outgoing tide and that was about it for me. As cool as Fort Carroll is, it makes quite the washing machine with reflected waves, so I boogied back towards the launch and called it a day. It was gorgeous out there, but since jigging two keepers there in mid-December two years ago I haven't had any success in that area late in the season. My best guess tells me that any fish of size might still be near river mouths chasing the last of the late fall bait run, fattening up for winter, and that they haven't headed into their winter holdover haunts yet, but you all probably have better insight on that than I do!
This will likely wrap up the 2019 rockfish season for me, as I'll switch over to soaking bait for big blue cats and heading to the Eastern Shore ponds in search of pickerel and red-lipped largemouth. And so it goes!
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