Tweet
I haven't posted a report in awhile because I haven't had the time to really do much fishing worth reporting. So here is a double report from the last week.
I was able to take some time off one morning to hit the OC Inlet for some tog just before the season closed. Met up with a friend and aside from a small lull in the action, it was pretty much drop and reel fishing from the start. The tog were absolutely pouncing on baits, sometimes before I even got down to bottom. We easily had a limit each and were selectively letting keeper sized females go because they are bursting with eggs right now. I had to be off the water by noon and had to leave them biting. It was a good way to close out the tog season!
A couple days later I was able to head over to Somerset Co. to try some specking for a few hours I had available in the morning. I launched before first light and was off the water by 10:30 am. Conditions were ridiculously calm - absolutely no wind, the water surface was like a mirror, and there was hardly any current the entire time I was out. It was like fishing in a bubble. A ton of stripers the first two hours, but not much with any size; only 2 around 20" and many in the 14 15" range or smaller. Specking was slow until I found a school of them on a flat busting bait. The bait wasn't on the surface but the specks kept pushing it up every now and then. First you'd see the bait rise and then a couple seconds later 2 or 3 specks would bust through it, sometimes jumping out of the water. Once I found this I was able to slowly pick out about 9 of them in the 20 - 21" range. Even though I knew the school of specks was in the area, with the slick conditions and lack of current I really had to grind out the ones I did catch. I think if the current had been moving even a little bit I could have done better pulling more fish from the school. I trolled on my way back to the ramp and picked up two undersized specks to round out the day.
And I finally caught my first speck in Maryland on a top water! I've caught countless specks on the Eastern Shore over the last 10 years and I could never get one to hit a top water until yesterday. I'd done it in Florida before, but for some mysterious reason I could never get them to hit a top water in Maryland. Curse broken!
IMG_0818.jpgTHSL2034.jpg
I was able to take some time off one morning to hit the OC Inlet for some tog just before the season closed. Met up with a friend and aside from a small lull in the action, it was pretty much drop and reel fishing from the start. The tog were absolutely pouncing on baits, sometimes before I even got down to bottom. We easily had a limit each and were selectively letting keeper sized females go because they are bursting with eggs right now. I had to be off the water by noon and had to leave them biting. It was a good way to close out the tog season!
A couple days later I was able to head over to Somerset Co. to try some specking for a few hours I had available in the morning. I launched before first light and was off the water by 10:30 am. Conditions were ridiculously calm - absolutely no wind, the water surface was like a mirror, and there was hardly any current the entire time I was out. It was like fishing in a bubble. A ton of stripers the first two hours, but not much with any size; only 2 around 20" and many in the 14 15" range or smaller. Specking was slow until I found a school of them on a flat busting bait. The bait wasn't on the surface but the specks kept pushing it up every now and then. First you'd see the bait rise and then a couple seconds later 2 or 3 specks would bust through it, sometimes jumping out of the water. Once I found this I was able to slowly pick out about 9 of them in the 20 - 21" range. Even though I knew the school of specks was in the area, with the slick conditions and lack of current I really had to grind out the ones I did catch. I think if the current had been moving even a little bit I could have done better pulling more fish from the school. I trolled on my way back to the ramp and picked up two undersized specks to round out the day.
And I finally caught my first speck in Maryland on a top water! I've caught countless specks on the Eastern Shore over the last 10 years and I could never get one to hit a top water until yesterday. I'd done it in Florida before, but for some mysterious reason I could never get them to hit a top water in Maryland. Curse broken!
IMG_0818.jpgTHSL2034.jpg
Comment