Shallow water trolling

[J.A. Veil]

Last week I fished in an eastern shore tidal river with two friends. We did pretty well at some spots, but not at others. I returned by myself this morning to focus on those spots that had produced last week. I had ideal conditions (low wind, outgoing tide all morning, and pleasant weather). I used my larger kayak -- a Native Watercraft Ultimate FX15 paddle kayak - and trolled three lines. The rods were 6'6" medium or med-light spinning rods. I trolled paddletails on jigheads from 3/16-oz to 3/8-oz from the kayak in water depths from 3' to 5' along marsh grass edges. I usually use 3" paddletails, but moved up to 4" and 6" paddletails today. These fish wanted bigger baits.


I was on the water for 4.5 hours and caught 65 rockfish. This ranks among my very best days ever for catching rockfish. All fish were fat and strong. Ten of them reached keeper size (two at 19”, two at 20”, four at 21”, one at 22”, and one at 23”) but were all released. The 23” and one of the 21” fish came at the same time as two rods went down. It was a challenge keeping things straight. I was hoping to find some specks, but caught only stripers.

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The fish were still biting well when I left. I was just too tired to wind them in any longer and still had a 2-mile paddle back to the launch point.

[Big Mike]

Outstanding day John. 4” baits definitely out producing 3” right now if your after big stripers. We’re still finding plenty of trout on the grass flats in the lower Potomac and they want the smaller baits, a good dilemma to have. Rock on October!

[J.A. Veil]

We all have heard how important moving tidal current is for a good catch. This morning, John Rentch, Justin, and I returned to the eastern shore river where I had a banner day on Monday morning (65 stripers, including 10 of keeper size, in 4.5 hrs). Today's conditions were good -- overcast/fog to start and no wind, but the tidal current was quite gentle today, whereas it was powerful on Monday. On Monday the current rips coming off of points were very obvious -- today they were quite subtle. In 4 hours of fishing this morning, I caught 17 stripers, but none was larger than 18". While this was not a bad day, it was a letdown after the expectations from the earlier trip.

[ronaultmtd]

We noticed a very light tide at Piney Point today as well...and fish were scattered...biggest Striper was only 19...trout were scattered as well but cooperated OK...

[Mark]

John Veil shared this excellent website, perhaps here, I cannot remember:

https://tides4fishing.com/

It has a wealth of fishing information, including "Tidal Coefficient" which is a numeric value the site gives to the strength of the incoming and outgoing flow at given areas.

I use the location for MD at Northpoint to predict tides for Bodkin Creek, Bodkin Point and the Patapsco River where it enters the Bay. I live nearby and launch at the Downs Park Locust Cove site. I've done better at that location for stripers when the tide is falling and the Tidal Coefficients are stronger.

Although I knew tides were predictable, I did not know that how much the water moved was also predictable. It's good knowledge to have when planning an outing.

Of course, I've also seen strong winds wreak havoc with tide predictions. But all other things being equal, knowing the phase of the tide and the tidal coefficient is helpful.