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Today John Rentch and I made a long fishing trip to visit a bunch of shallow water structure spots I used to fish from my boat. After a 75 minute drive from Annapolis, we launched from Lowes Wharf marina at 6:30 am. The sun rose over the horizon 15 minutes later as we paddled to our first spot -- a semi-submerged rock pile. We cast topwater plugs around the rocks without interest I circled the pile a second time and threw a white paddletail. I caught two 15" stripers to get the skunk out.
At that point we made a long paddle across Poplar Narrows to get to Poplar Island and the several natural islands along its eastern edge. These islands offer shallow water structure in sod banks, grassy points, old wooden bulkheads, and other structures. I talk about them in my books. We fished along a lot of shoreline spots and had no bites. This was frustrating, since the water looked clean and should have held fish.
At that point, John and I went off in different directions. I moved to another spot that has drainage tunnels allowing water to flow from inside the Poplar Island structure to the water outside as the tide ebbs and flows. In past years, these tunnels often produced a lot of stripers, some huge perch, and some channel cats. The tunnels fish much better when there is water moving through them. Outgoing current is ideal, but incoming produces bites too. I arrived at the first tunnel two hours before low tide and expected to find a strong flow coming out of the tunnel. The water was moving there, but very slowly. As I visited the rest of the tunnels, I found gentle or no flow. At the tunnels with flow, I caught fish. I cast a white paddletail up inside the tunnel and twitched it while winding in. I caught 9 more stripers from 17" to 19" from the tunnels. They gave a good fight in shallow water areas. In all the years when I fished here from my boat, I could never move through the tunnels to get inside the Poplar structure. But today, with a small kayak, I was able to move inside and make some casts from the back side. I caught a few of my fish there and the others from the outside.
On the way back to the launch, the seas were glassy calm, making for an easy paddle. I was glad as I had been paddling my kayak for 6 hours and covered 10.2 miles. I am disappointed that these spots did not produce more bites today. It takes a significant amount of effort to drive and paddle there. It was fun to be back in some of the spots I had fished dozens of times from 2010 to 2020 in my boat.
At that point we made a long paddle across Poplar Narrows to get to Poplar Island and the several natural islands along its eastern edge. These islands offer shallow water structure in sod banks, grassy points, old wooden bulkheads, and other structures. I talk about them in my books. We fished along a lot of shoreline spots and had no bites. This was frustrating, since the water looked clean and should have held fish.
At that point, John and I went off in different directions. I moved to another spot that has drainage tunnels allowing water to flow from inside the Poplar Island structure to the water outside as the tide ebbs and flows. In past years, these tunnels often produced a lot of stripers, some huge perch, and some channel cats. The tunnels fish much better when there is water moving through them. Outgoing current is ideal, but incoming produces bites too. I arrived at the first tunnel two hours before low tide and expected to find a strong flow coming out of the tunnel. The water was moving there, but very slowly. As I visited the rest of the tunnels, I found gentle or no flow. At the tunnels with flow, I caught fish. I cast a white paddletail up inside the tunnel and twitched it while winding in. I caught 9 more stripers from 17" to 19" from the tunnels. They gave a good fight in shallow water areas. In all the years when I fished here from my boat, I could never move through the tunnels to get inside the Poplar structure. But today, with a small kayak, I was able to move inside and make some casts from the back side. I caught a few of my fish there and the others from the outside.
On the way back to the launch, the seas were glassy calm, making for an easy paddle. I was glad as I had been paddling my kayak for 6 hours and covered 10.2 miles. I am disappointed that these spots did not produce more bites today. It takes a significant amount of effort to drive and paddle there. It was fun to be back in some of the spots I had fished dozens of times from 2010 to 2020 in my boat.
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