West River to Thomas Point

[dsaavedra]

Went on a loooong trolling journey today, launching at Discovery Village on the West River, trolling past Beverly Triton, across the mouth of the South River, east to Thomas Point shoal light, and back home. 18 miles in total and it wore me the hell out. I've never seen the light house before so it was very cool to see it up close from a kayak!

Trolled an Xrap on one rod, a tandem rig of a 5" paddle tail on 3/8 oz and 4" paddle tail on 1/8 oz on another rod, and a 4.5" on 1/2 oz on the third rod. I caught a total of 12 rockfish, most 15-16" and a few smaller. All of them were caught on either the Xrap or the 4" paddle tail, which was the trailing lure in my tandem rig. By far, the fish of the day was this 26"er that crushed the Xrap as I was trolling parallel to the shoal on my way to the light house. What a fun fight on the whippy 6'6" medium power Ugly Stik... lots of drag-peeling runs and it had my rod just about doubled over diving under the kayak when I got it close. The ironic thing is for all the miles I covered trolling, all the fish were caught within 1.5 miles of the launch except for the big one. Not a disappointing day by any means, but next time I'll save my energy .

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[john from md]

Looks like you had a nice day and burned some extra calories. Good for you.

I tried targeting Perch in the South River on this beautiful day. I got several hits but they were small and could not get on the hook. I believe I had a small rock (from the head shakes) but he got off before I got a look at him.

[LC3]

Thanks for the report. An 18 mile trip is most impressive!

[mjkeith13]

That’s a hell of a trip and even more impressive rockfish! Thanks for the great picture of the lighthouse. I will try to get out near it hopefully soon!


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[dsaavedra]

Thanks guys, it was certainly an intense paddle and I won't be doing that again any time soon. I set out with the intention of only doing ~8 miles or so but I kept thinking "a little bit further won't hurt". I was also pretty ambitious because I am preparing for a charity paddle event in September called Bay Paddle 2021. It's a relay paddle event where several teams will be paddling the entire length of the Chesapeake over 8 days to raise awareness/money for Oyster Recovery Partnership and Chesapeake Conservancy's work to improve water quality in the bay and designate it as a National Recreation Area. If you're interested, here's a link with more information: https://www.baypaddle.org/ and if anyone would like to donate, here is my personal fundraising page: https://runsignup.com/david2021, proceeds go to Oyster Recovery Partnership and Chesapeake Conservancy