Bushwood Cove, Md Sat 4/7/12

[tufnik]

Fairly windy with about a foot chops. Sunny. Moc, Metro Man and I hit the water about 9 am.

It was noon and Metro had to leave. He had two blue catfish. I had none.

Around 1 pm, Moc came by. He had a stringer full of cats. Four hours and I still had nothing, not even a nibble. He said he's going in, and I said I'm going to catch at least one before going in, even if I have to stay till dark.

Within half an hour of Moc's departure, I finally catch a 24" cat, the largest I would catch the whole day. I later went on to catch a total of seven ranging from 12" to 24". I was off the water at 4:30 pm. It was till windy and choppy.

I used bws, nightcrawlers, cooked shrimp and fresh shrimp on two rods, each rod with a tandem hook rig. Nothing hit the shrimp. My catches were on the bws and nightcrawlers, but mostly on the nightcrawlers. (BTW, no croakers were caught) Oh, Kevin, we caught all the fish pretty much the area you marked. Thanks!

Ok, you can blame surfdog and kevinfry for motivating me to get out there to get pullage Thanks, those are the first blue cats I've ever caught!

Gave some cats to my neighbors. They were really happy to get them. I'll have some for dinner tomorrow.

Ok, Moc and Metro, what's your story?

[kevinfry]

I was thinking of you guys today, hoping you got into some action. Did you guys anchor or drift??r than
BTW I think you'll really like eating those guys. Much lighter (almost flakey) than channel catfish

[moc]

The weather forecast called for sunny and windy conditions. Winds would be 9 to 17 mph and it would die down in the late afternoon. The temperature was 41 degrees in the morning with a high of 67 degrees during the day. Because of the wind forecast, I was looking for protected waters. Tufnik and Metroman were going to hunt for cats down on the Wicomico River at Bushwood in Southern, Maryland. Bushwood had a cove that offered enough protection from the wind. I arranged to meet Metroman at the WaWa on Route 301 just outside of Waldorf before the Rt 5 / Rt 301 split. I was not sure how long it would take me to get there, so I got their early, around 7:10am. The plan was to meet at 7:30am. Metroman arrived right on time,but he forgot his bunker bait. It was not a problem. I had some raw shrimp that I split with him. On our way down, we stopped at a gas station that had some shops on Leanardtown Road (Rt 5) and bought some bait there. We both bought bloodworms for a great price $8.99/dozen and a box of night crawlers. This is all the bait that we would need today.

We arrived at Bushwood at 8:25am and saw Tufnik getting his yak together. Once we launched about 9am we experimented with fishing near a sandbar with bloodworms. We did not get a a nibble. I decided to head over to the cove were I caught fish last year, and it was reported to be productive on the forum. There were allot of crab pots. I had two topless traps that was baited with perch. I placed them in 10 feet of water for the duration of the day while I fished. Tufnik and Metoman came over also to fish this area. I started to see marks on my fish finder, so I through out my anchor and anchored up. It was not long before I started to get a nibble. I fished in 10 to 14 feet of water all day with just top and bottom rigs. The best bait was a combo....shrimp on the top hook and nightcrawlers on the bottom. I used hook Number 1s and 4s with 1.5 to 2 ounce of weights. I was catching fish all day. Raw shrimp, bloodworms caught by themselves, but it was the nightcrawlers with the raw shrimp that was the big hit. I could have saved money by not buying any bloodworms.

It was very important to anchor. The drift was pretty fast with the wind. Metroman left at noon with two fish that he kept. I believe he caught at least 4 blue catfish. I left and hour after metro, especially when the winds picked up. I ended up with 9 keeps measuring 19.25 to 24 inches. I had them on a stringer which slowed down my speed to the boat ramp. I believe it was 2pm when I was heading back to shore. I did pickup my two crab traps and they were empty. The bait was not even touched. The water temperature was about 55 degrees, so I guess it is not time for the crabs to move. I will make another test run towards the end of April.

Tufnik did not catch anything yet when I left. He said that he was going to stay until he caught something. He did not bring his anchor, so I think that had something to do with it since we all had the same bait for the most part. Tufnik used his Mirage Drive to slow his drift. I am sure that if he kepted it up, that we would catch some fish. The store was open at the Bushwood ramp, so I was able to buy some ice for my catch and get an oyster dinner to eat in the car on my way home....yum

I got my April fish and now I am beat... I think I need a nap.

[MetroMan]

It definitely got choppy out there, but not too bad to keep me from anchoring up. I caught my catfish on bloodworms on 6/0 circle hooks. I had night crawlers, shrimp from moc, and gulp catfish bait. I only used bw and gulp. I should've used my other baits. I had some fresh shad that I chunked up for today's trip. I realized I left it back home in the fridge when I was already too far away from home. Dumb me.

It felt good to get the pullage from the cats. My last one was a nice fighter. He made a few rod-bending, drag-pulling runs when he began to surface. It was in the low-mid 20" range.

I lost my first fish. I got him unhooked and on camera...went to set him in my rear well, and he casually flopped himself back into the water. I didn't have my stringer. I was so used to catching small perch, which I normally toss in the rear. The subsequent two cats were beaten about the cranium with my pliers, then hooked up to a make-shift stringer from 50lb leader material.

It was choppy as hell on my way back to the launch. Waves often crashed over my bow. I hunkered down and rode em out.

Great day out there. I'm impressed with amount of meat I got from these bad boys. These two fish will feed us for dinner twice. The fillets are vacuum sealed and in the freezer. I wanna go again for more to have a fish fry.

Pics & vids coming. My daughter is in my face now, and lord knows if I break out the laptop right now she's gonna think its playtime.

[Shady]

Nice work on the cats guys!

Moc, I was really hoping for a sign of crabs but I guess we'll have to wait a few more weeks...

[tufnik]

I was thinking of you guys today, hoping you got into some action. Did you guys anchor or drift??r than
BTW I think you'll really like eating those guys. Much lighter (almost flakey) than channel catfish

I did not bring my anchor, so I drifted. Moc and I thought maybe that's the reason why I didn't catch anything for 4 1/2 hours. Maybe cats don't like to chase passing bait. Maybe they're so lazy they want to find bait sitting still before they eat it. Anyway, after Moc mentioned the need for an anchor for cat fishing (the stand-still bait method), I did manage to keep the bait still by pedaling up to the line, slacking the line, etc. It was hard to do this with two rods out. Seemed like one line would slack and get snagged on my rudder or drive. I ended up using only one rod.

Yep, I agree. Nightcrawlers did well. Didn't need bws.

Same with me Metro, the water was pretty choppy going in with the head wind. Got splashed and sprayed.

Hey, good fishin' with you guys. Got to do a cat trip again soon.

[MetroMan]

I lost my video editing software when I did a restore, but here is the raw footage of the three fish I caught.

Fish #1. He gets away when I went to place him in the rear well of my yak.
[ame]http://youtu.be/y_Px4MWJwGw[/ame]

Fish #2. Toward the end, that noise is me administering some blunt force trauma to the catfish. Knocked him out cold, much easier to handle that way.
[ame]http://youtu.be/rJU_QugnK7o[/ame]

Fish #3. He was the biggest, and the best fighter of them all.
[ame]http://youtu.be/V1uxDLLZ08I[/ame]

[tufnik]

"...come on, you m______ f_______" .....lol

Nice pullage on the fighter vid.

Cool videos.

[ictalurus]

Nice work on the cats, gents. It's funny that anchoring is so important. You guys had better luck in the wind than I did on Saturday. The off screen violence reminded me of some old movies.

[chex]

Nice going guys.

Tufnik, why do you think you started catching them later on? Change of technique, location or... tide?

Moc... damn! Got cats??

[tufnik]

Nice going guys.

Tufnik, why do you think you started catching them later on? Change of technique, location or... tide?

Moc... damn! Got cats??

I thought it would not have mattered, but I think my technique was the ticket. As mentioned in post #6, I tried not to move the bait. In other words, I stopped drifting. I tried to keep the bait stationary on the bottom.

On the other hand, could have been just dumb luck

[MetroMan]

I'm still mad at myself for forgetting the damn cut bait at home.