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I have fished Weems Creek several times over the past two weeks. Each time I try, I find perch in more of the usual summer spots. It is good to have them back in position for some fun catching.
I launched from the Tucker St. ramp at 7:30 this morning to high water levels and fairly calm conditions. I spent three hours fishing the upstream half of the creek. However, the wind strengthened throughout the next 3 hours so that I had plenty of trouble keeping the kayak where I wanted to be for casting. I picked up a few perch in about 6 different spots.
Then I headed to one of my preferred stretches of shoreline. I proceeded to have a fabulous 20 minutes, during which I caught about 10 perch, two pickerel (15" and 20"), and one big surprise (a 24" catfish). It took a Strike King MicroKing 1/16-oz spinnerbait in sun perch color.
Why was that stretch of shoreline so good today? One big reason is the nature of the habitat. You may recall my post last Feb when I paddled around on a very low water level and took some photos of the habitat. Two of the photos below show the network of branches, roots, and other cover in a sheltered area that drops off. Today almost none of that wood was visible to me, but the fish enjoyed it.
The same MicroKing lure was the top producer for perch today too. However, the two pickerel hit other lures -- the larger one hit a gold spinner arm, 1/8-oz jighead with 2" black paddletail minnow with a chartreuse tail. The smaller one hit a 1/16-oz green spinnerbait made by MKF member Bignose.
Weems Creek has been my home waters for the past decade. I suspect I have fished Weems more than 100 trips over that time. I have never caught a catfish there or any other Severn spot either. I have not heard many reports of cats in the Severn.
Weems has shown abundant small schools of bait recently. I found a few of the baitfish and took a photo. They are small menhaden (what I refer to as peanut bunker) about 2" long. Last year in early June they were abundant until mid-June, then they disappeared to be replaced by small slender silversides. I had to switch to lures with slender profiles to get bites.
As I paddled back to the ramp, I looked in the water next to me and saw a very young needlefish (about 2" long and not much bigger in diameter than a pipe cleaner). Awesome.
I launched from the Tucker St. ramp at 7:30 this morning to high water levels and fairly calm conditions. I spent three hours fishing the upstream half of the creek. However, the wind strengthened throughout the next 3 hours so that I had plenty of trouble keeping the kayak where I wanted to be for casting. I picked up a few perch in about 6 different spots.
Then I headed to one of my preferred stretches of shoreline. I proceeded to have a fabulous 20 minutes, during which I caught about 10 perch, two pickerel (15" and 20"), and one big surprise (a 24" catfish). It took a Strike King MicroKing 1/16-oz spinnerbait in sun perch color.
Why was that stretch of shoreline so good today? One big reason is the nature of the habitat. You may recall my post last Feb when I paddled around on a very low water level and took some photos of the habitat. Two of the photos below show the network of branches, roots, and other cover in a sheltered area that drops off. Today almost none of that wood was visible to me, but the fish enjoyed it.
The same MicroKing lure was the top producer for perch today too. However, the two pickerel hit other lures -- the larger one hit a gold spinner arm, 1/8-oz jighead with 2" black paddletail minnow with a chartreuse tail. The smaller one hit a 1/16-oz green spinnerbait made by MKF member Bignose.
Weems Creek has been my home waters for the past decade. I suspect I have fished Weems more than 100 trips over that time. I have never caught a catfish there or any other Severn spot either. I have not heard many reports of cats in the Severn.
Weems has shown abundant small schools of bait recently. I found a few of the baitfish and took a photo. They are small menhaden (what I refer to as peanut bunker) about 2" long. Last year in early June they were abundant until mid-June, then they disappeared to be replaced by small slender silversides. I had to switch to lures with slender profiles to get bites.
As I paddled back to the ramp, I looked in the water next to me and saw a very young needlefish (about 2" long and not much bigger in diameter than a pipe cleaner). Awesome.
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