Lots of action in Breton Bay

[dsaavedra]

I was in St. Mary's for the weekend and decided to fish Breton Bay on Saturday morning. I hit the water around 5:30 and quickly found plenty of small rockfish and white perch along the back side of a point. The tide was coming in so I imagine they were sitting there snatching up any piece of food that got swept over the point in the current. That spot sort of dried up so I went to another point and really nailed them. I was trolling a 3" paddle tail holding the rod in my hand and on every pass over the point I could feel my lure getting hit repeatedly by perch/small rockfish, then eventually a rockfish big enough to take the bait would hit it and I'd hook up. I ended up catching 32 rockfish and 11 perch that morning. The perch were all pretty small but I did land some decent schoolie rockfish at 17", 18 and 7/8" (I tried as hard as I could to squeeze 19" out of that fish but it just wouldn't go ), and a 19.5" rockfish. The 19.5" rockfish was a surprise catch - I had just caught and unhooked another rockfish and while I was tallying the catch in my notebook I had my rod laying in my lap with the lure dangling a couple feet in the water. Next thing I know my rod is trying to escape from my lap so I grabbed it and fish on!

20210619_074612.jpg

[J.A. Veil]

It is fun to explore new spots. My recent southern MD foray did not work out as well as I hoped, but I had several good trips there last year. I will definitely return later in the summer.

[dsaavedra]

I grew up in St. Mary's so Breton Bay is not new territory to me, though it has been at least 6 or 7 years since I've fished there so it was fun to go back. I remember countless summer evenings spent with friends in various places in and around Breton Bay on freezer-stocking missions. We'd bring home dozens of perch between all of us, then spend all night (or the following morning) cleaning them. I caught my biggest perch ever in Cherry Cove as a teen, it was 13.5".