Weems Creek 6-8

[bignose]

I tried Weems Creek again today.
To say the least it was a pretty slow day.
I started at about 9:30 from the Tucker St ramp and worked upstream today.
I observed some freshwater/brackish water jelly fish near the draw bridge area, the first time I've seen them. There are pods of bait fish about the size of a dining room table, now nearly 2" long scattered around the surface below the bridges.
I worked the North Shore towards an area the John Veil had kindly pointed me to. The further upstream that I went, the more turbid and off color the water became. Visibilty was less than one foot. There seemed to be some brownish layer of algae on the surface.
There was someone working under the Rowe bridge in a kayak, but he didn't seem very conversational, so I moved on.
I ended up trying the down river area from Tucker's but then the wind stated getting frisky so I packed it in about noon (I believe that fishing is a leading cause of wind). The water was slightly clearer, here.

A few, smallish perch and a couple of pickerel, both about 15", and an overly ambitious 4" Striper that tried to swallow grub almost as long as he was. The fish were located in submerged wood and I did not catch many under the docks.
Today's hot lures were a 2 or 3 inch Powerbait grub in chartreuse on a 1/8 oz. jig head. They wanted it jigged in an up down motion, not a steady retrieve. My spinner jig caught a few but not as many.

[Grady-Black]

That was me Bignose, I was so focused on feeling my lure in the water, didn't mean to appear stuck up, sorry.
GB

[Southerly]

i believe the jellyfish you see are what i generally call phosphors. they have a bell shape, no real tentacles. my daughter netted a few to put in the chesapeake tank but the bull minnows tore them up.

this morning 630-715, i cot about 20-30 wp. got wp on each and every one of the first 4-5 casts. fun stuff! 1 wp may have been citation but shook loose before i could get my hands on him. also 1 barely legal rockfish. all using 1/2 oz gold kastmaster. most of these were in about 3' water and all were released.

i caught and steamed some crabs last nite (up to 8") and will be having crab cakes for lunch/dinner (no need to keep the fish today).

gotta love early summer!

[bignose]

G-B,
No problem, we all get focused on our fishing. Now I know who you are and will remember to say hi.
How'd you do?

The jellyfish I saw are craspedacusta sowerbyi. This is only the second time I have ever seen them. Interesting creatures.

[Shady]

i believe the jellyfish you see are what i generally call phosphors. they have a bell shape, no real tentacles. my daughter netted a few to put in the chesapeake tank but the bull minnows tore them up.

this morning 630-715, i cot about 20-30 wp. got wp on each and every one of the first 4-5 casts. fun stuff! 1 wp may have been citation but shook loose before i could get my hands on him. also 1 barely legal rockfish. all using 1/2 oz gold kastmaster. most of these were in about 3' water and all were released.

i caught and steamed some crabs last nite (up to 8") and will be having crab cakes for lunch/dinner (no need to keep the fish today).

gotta love early summer!

Awesome stuff! Was this in Weems creek as well?

And thanks for the report Bignose

[Southerly]

no, not weems creek. i hope you don't mind that i don't usually advertise my fishing spots but feel like the info (early morning, shallows, flashy lure) should be useful at weems creek and other nearby or similar places due to similar conditions in salinity, current, etc.

i had actually intended to use a chartreuse grub to see if the weems creek info would help me. but the KM was already tied on, so i just went with ti.

and yes - i consider this morning's fishing to be epic in its own way; much better than usual.

[Grady-Black]

G-B,
No problem, we all get focused on our fishing. Now I know who you are and will remember to say hi.
How'd you do?

The jellyfish I saw are craspedacusta sowerbyi. This is only the second time I have ever seen them. Interesting creatures.

I caught a 17" Rock in the small cove around the corner from John's downed tree, WP, Pics, and 1 really small YP on the other side of the creek in the cove next to the covered boathouse, and a few WP under the bridge were you saw me. All on a custom gold spinner with chart/brown 1/8 bucktail I tie. Biggest WP was 11". Weem's Creek is coming around slowly but surely. I'm off Monday, might hit it again in the am..

I snagged one of those little jellyfish also!

GB

[J.A. Veil]

I caught a 17" Rock in the small cove around the corner from John's downed tree, WP, Pics, and 1 really small YP on the other side of the creek in the cove next to the covered boathouse, and a few WP under the bridge were you saw me. All on a custom gold spinner with chart/brown 1/8 bucktail I tie. Biggest WP was 11". Weem's Creek is coming around slowly but surely. I'm off Monday, might hit it again in the am..

I snagged one of those little jellyfish also!

GB

Nice going GB. Thanks for naming a tree after me .

[J.A. Veil]

G-B,

The jellyfish I saw are craspedacusta sowerbyi. This is only the second time I have ever seen them. Interesting creatures.

Bignose -

I saw some small comb jellies (aka sea walnuts) in Weems last week, and have seen them in the Severn at other times too. These look like slightly elongated golf-ball-sized jellyfish without tentacles but with several vertical rows of tiny beatings cilia. They are in a different phylum from true jellyfish (Cnidaria). They are in the phylum Ctenophora.

I am not familiar with the jellyfish that you mentioned. I will keep my eye out for them next time.

[bignose]

John,
you are probably right. I Googled up fresh water jellyfish and the images I saw looked like those. I assumed that the water is sufficiently fresh towards the upstream areas, while further down below the bridges they are brackish, naturally, I do not know the actual salt level. We had some growing in a small farm pond after somebody dumped some bass from a live well that they caught in Dundee Creek 25 years ago.
My last biology class was over 45 years ago. LOL.

[J.A. Veil]

John,
you are probably right. I Googled up fresh water jellyfish and the images I saw looked like those. I assumed that the water is sufficiently fresh towards the upstream areas, while further down below the bridges they are brackish, naturally, I do not know the actual salt level. We had some growing in a small farm pond after somebody dumped some bass from a live well that they caught in Dundee Creek 25 years ago.
My last biology class was over 45 years ago. LOL.

If I remember correctly, the resident species of ctenophore has the tongue-twisting name of Mnemiopsis leidyi. They are interesting little creatures. Put some in an aquarium in a darkened room and you can see the rows of cilia glistening and possibly luminescing.

I first came across them when as a grad student at College Park, I worked as a teaching assistant in the Dept of Zoology course on Animal Diversity. I liked the subject matter in that course. I liked the cute instructor even more -- I married her a year later.

[Southerly]

we've caught them the past several years and kept them in a large fish bowl. so far, have not observed them to luminesce in darkness (possibly due to exhaustion), but they do have a beautiful refractive effect along their cilia where waves of rainbow color wash down the lines in pulses. the effect is other-worldly.