Starting to see fall pattern in the Severn

[J.A. Veil]

I enjoy the late summer to early fall time of year in the Severn River and its tidal creeks and ponds. The heat of July and August is gone, and the water begins to cool down too. With the change in weather, fish location and behavior begin to shift. The techniques I use shift a bit too.

I launched onto the Severn on the past three mornings. I did not need to be up at dawn, but could have a leisurely breakfast and check emails before heading off to one of the nearby launch points. I fished for a while, then was home before noon each day. I fished in different spots on each of the three days to get a sense of where the fish are and what will get them to bite.

On Monday, I did a short trip into a tidal pond. I reported on that trip a few days ago. I quickly caught stripers, perch, and pickerel to get my Severn Slam, then added a bonus speckled trout. That trip lasted only about two hours, but it was fun and productive.

On Tuesday, I cast a Bignose spinner and a Fat Sam mullet paddletail to shaded wooded shorelines similar to the ones shown below for an hour. Those shaded areas with overhanging trees offered a lot of fallen wood and other habitat for my target species. Water depth was 1 to 4 ft. It took about 30 mins to catch my Slam.

2020-09-09-001.jpg 2020-09-09-003.jpg 2020-09-09-004.jpg

After that I began trolling paddletails in the back portion of one of the larger tidal creeks. There often is a good striper run during portions of Sept and early Oct in some of the larger Severn creeks. I wanted to see if the fish were there. I saw loads of bait and several dozen gulls flying around. These are key ingredients for the fall run. But the stripers were either not there yet or were not active. I caught two of them at about 16" and 18" but had no other bites. I try to be very systematic when trolling for this fall run. I follow the same routes on each trip and may make several passes through a portion of the creek before moving on to the next portion. Once the fall run starts, the fish often move gradually from the very rear toward the creek mouth. My records allow me to focus my attention on where they are likely to be.

This morning (Wednesday) I fished in 4 different creeks and ponds. I launched and immediately began trolling as I paddled to the first creek. As I approached the first spot, one rod went down and produced a 20" striper. I moved into the first creek and began casting to shaded shorelines, like I did yesterday. I quickly caught 2 pickerel, 2 stripers, and a bunch of perch to get my Slam for the day.

I moved on to the second creek, which is one in which I often troll. As I worked my way to the rear of the creek and back out again, I trolled up 8 stripers. They were not large but pulled very hard.

At the third spot, a tidal pond, I caught a few perch. In the very back end, I cast to a grassy shoreline with shallow water. I must have dropped the paddletail right in front of the fish. The bite was immediate and hard. In a few seconds, the fish burst out of the very shallow edge and shot 100 feet toward deeper water. The drag was screaming as line pulled out. I tried to imagine what fish was causing this much activity. It reminded me of the first runs of a snook or redfish in Florida. It took a few minutes to get the fish to the side of the kayak. It was a 21" striper that pulled above its weight class, and was one of my best fights all summer long. All the stripers I caught today pulled aggressively, even the smaller ones. And they were all solid and fat fish. I guess they sense that cold weather is not all that far off.

I trolled to a fourth spot, another tidal pond, where I caught a few perch by casting and 6 more stripers on the troll. After that I headed back to the launch feeling very satisfied for just 4 hours of fishing effort. The wind was low, and the overcast (and occasionally drizzly) weather seemed to be ideal for fishing.

Here are some things to look forward to over the next month on the Severn:

• Stripers should move into the creeks initially where bait is assembling, then follow the bait back into the river during October. Trolling becomes a good fishing technique, and casting lures, including topwater, will work too. Jigging over structure may catch stripers too.
• White perch will remain in the shallow shoreline areas for a few more weeks but will begin leaving for deeper water spots in early to mid-October
• Pickerel will become more prevalent in the creeks and ponds. Until the water cools down to the 40s in the winter, these fish will pull pretty well.
• Later in the fall, leaves will begin to fall into the water making trolling and casting tougher
• Fewer large boats will be out on the river such that there will be fewer wakes to deal with
• The cownose rays appear to be gone from the river now and will remain absent until next summer
• There can be opportunities to occasionally catch other species, like speckled trout, small redfish, bluefish, pumpkinseed, flounder, yellow perch, channel catfish, and snakehead.

Barring strong winds or bad weather, you can probably guess where I will be tomorrow morning. I have two other tidal ponds to check out, with some trolling while moving between spots.

[bignose]

As usual, your report is first rate information.

Thanks for the heads up.

[DanMarino]

Very encouraging John!

[J. Rentch]

Yes, great news, we all are looking to an active fall in the Severn

[Mark]

Nice report John.

It amazes me how the creek stripers change their appearance during the fall.

They go from their sleek flat bellied summer physique to a football shape with full rounded bellies.

They're ravenous and it's not unusual for them to share (regurgitate) their latest meal with you as you remove the hook.

[jbrown]

Wow. Great stuff. I enjoy the Severn because I can pretty easily pull my son in my old ocean kayak with my Mirage Drive Hobie and he and I troll. If the stripers aren’t biting we can always catch perch. He’s 12 and loves it because we actually catch fish there! Now we really need to go after reading your article! Such a blast to hear the drag screaming on his real with him laughing. Thanks for the info.


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[moc]

Thanks for the information John! Excellent detailed reports as usual.

[J.A. Veil]

As a reality check, Severn fishing is not always easy. I fished in four Severn creeks and ponds this morning. The bite was really slow. I faced low water level and discolored water in two of four tributaries. For the first two hours, I caught about five small perch in each of two ponds and nothing else. In my third stop, I was getting ready to leave the creek. On what would have been one of my final casts, I hooked a pickerel. On the following cast, I hooked a second pickerel. Then nothing else.

On my way back to the launch I trolled a long way in a fourth creek. I caught three stripers, and one of them was 19". Today required a lot more effort with fewer fish to show. But they are still there. I managed my Severn Slam again, but it took three hours compared to 30 mins on the previous days.

[HawkGT]

I always enjoy reading your reports, John. Thanks!

[Mark]

John,

There's no harm in a slow day. Otherwise our hobby would be too easy and actually boring.

Every day on the water is different.

Fishing reports in particular have a very short shelf life. But descriptions here of techniques, conditions, general locations and results are timeless.

Thanks for sharing.

[J.A. Veil]

Mark - you are right. Today had miserable morning tides (see chart below). The difference between early morning low and late morning high was only 0.2 ft. I cannot recall a smaller differential than that. Poor tidal current flow generally does not help the bite.

severn tides - sept 11.jpg

The water level remained low all morning, limiting some of the places I wanted to cast. One tidal pond had been affected by stormwater runoff and was muddy. Weems Creek was clear until above the bridges. Then large areas of the upper end were dark brown in color. At places I could see a sharp edge between the normal greenish water and the brown water. I don't know if this is another algal bloom. I certainly hope not as the late spring mahogany tide depressed the bite this year. I got only one bite in the areas where the brown water was.

[jbrown]

Severn slam Sun AM. Beautiful conditions and the tide was up. Visibility about 2 ft. Caught baby Striper blues and perch. Hugh Ray when I let my paddle tail touch the bottom. Guy next to me caught 12 in spec and 5 early morning top water small stripers. All small stuff but good action.


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