Susquehanna Flats (Thursday, 04/26/2012)

[dDreadnaught]

After reading the Susquehanna Flats reports posted for Wednesday, I decided to take the afternoon off work and head to the flats. Launched from the Perryville Community Park and was on the water by 13:30. Tolling using a Storm swimbait and Husky Jerk, I had three fish within the first 15 mins (17", 18" & 24" all caught on swimbait). Then they started to hit the Husky Jerk (all smaller size). Caught 14 rockfish in all, but the majority were around the 12" range. Other boats were having luck with top water baits.

Fishing was great for the first hour then wind calmed down and the bite stopped for a few hours. Around 17:00 the bite picked back up but nothing of any size.

All in all a good afternoon on the water. Traveled nearly across the flats to the Elk Neck Forest. All the time spooking giant size stripers. It was amazing the number of fish stirring up the water, but they would not bite. Frustrating to see so many cows but not being able to catch them. There were so many out there I snagged a 20 incher (in belly). I didn't count the snagged fish in my total for the day.



Husky Jerk How and When to Use Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=U8a0emBuHhY

[RavensDfense]

Sounds like a great day. Much better than working. I wish I had my yak when I lived in Bel Air last year. Definitely need to make a trip up there next year. Thanks for sharing.

[Grilled]

those blue top water rapala's are money at the flats.

[DOGFISH]

Those 12" or so fish are last years spawn. They are going to be a problem this year, but in about two years the fishing is going to be great. The striper spawn last year was huge. Hopefull, with the spring that we have had, they will have another good spawn.

[Shady]

Glad you got into some Stripers on the Flats!

Is it possible that a Striper that is 12" right now will make it to keeper size by the end of summer?

[Twistedfish]

rolling fish

A good friend of mine told me that a lot of those rolling fish we see kayaking across the flats are carp. He said the carp spawn in the spring when the water temp gets into the low 60's and they are all over the flats. Last weekend when I was up there I saw several carp jump completely out of the water.

[Yak Fish]

Glad you got into some Stripers on the Flats!

Is it possible that a Striper that is 12" right now will make it to keeper size by the end of summer?

I've got a book that shows the age of a striper at different lengths:

Age: Length, avg: Weight, avg (lbs)
1: 5" <1
2: 12" .75
3: 17" 2
4: 20" 3.25
5: 24" 5.5

...

10: 35" 28
15: 45" 50


At any rate, it sounds like there should be tons of schoolies left during the summer to make it pretty exciting.

[Yak Fish]

A good friend of mine told me that a lot of those rolling fish we see kayaking across the flats are carp. He said the carp spawn in the spring when the water temp gets into the low 60's and they are all over the flats. Last weekend when I was up there I saw several carp jump completely out of the water.

Certainly that is true, but we also spotted stripers doing the same thing. We'd assumed they were carp until we got a positive ID. I think I saw the largest carp of my life jump right in front of me on the flats last weekend. It looked like a bear emerging from the depths It makes me want to give some dough a shot.

[HJS]

Yak Fish - I think those are conservative lengths for each year class of stripers. I talked to the DNR guy last fall who does the annual survey. He said last year's crop of YOY striper was growing extremely fast. By early this past winter, maybe around November, the biggest ones were already 8" long. I guess they could be up to 12" by now but I'm not sure. After all it was a mild winter that encourages extra growth. The length of year classes start to overlap during their second and third year. Once they get up into the teens it really a crap-shoot to determine age based solely on length. Gotta use scales.

[dDreadnaught]

I did notice many were carp, but I could see lots of rockfish. I even snagged a 20" rockfish on out there. There are definately some big carp out there and it is always a rush seeing them jump out of the water.

[DEkayakstriper]

Great trip! As far lengths go I caught a 26.5" striper on the Nanticoke this past March, that was tagged in Oct 2008 and it was just under 19" long then. This was a really fat and healthy fish. It take some time for the fish to grow.