Hart Miller Island 11/20

[mdmakaira410]

i posted this on another thread and realized it should be here. sorry about that.
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Just a little follow up report from this weekend. Mdfisherkid and i got off to a bit of a late start saturday, due to my inability to set/use an alarm, and got on the water at the rocky point state park ramp at about 10am. We never checked the tide chart and apparently put in right at dead low tide. As fisherkid said, we trolled around the channel between the big and small island looking for holes and dropoffs (as was suggested by MemoryMaker) and found nothing so we huffed it out to the main bay and messed around out there trolling around in about 15-20 feet of water. We marked little the entire time out there on the fish finders so we decided to head back in. By then it was probably around 330 or so and by the time we made it back inside we found we were catching the tail end of an incoming tide. We were met with slight wind against tide conditions but nothing too unruley, had to pull the skupper plug out though. The water level had gone up considerably and chris came up on a hole that dropped off from about 8-11 feet pretty dramatically. I looked over and saw him reeling and he had on a nice fish that we boated and measured out at 24''. That was the first rockfish either of us had taken from a kayak and we were both pretty shocked that we caught it. He took it on a 4'' pearl storm swim shad. With that our spirits were renewed and we started paddling around frantically looking for that spot again to no avail. We spread out at that point and i headed up toward the channel between the smaller island and the point of the mainland (not sure what that town is called). I came in between the channel markers and started marking bait and immediately got a pull down on the glass ghost rapala xrap that DOGFISH suggested. I didnt measure the little guy but i would guess it was just shy of 18''. Fished for a bit after that and eventually headed in just before dark. While not exactly a killer day we both had an absolute blast and learned a ton.

[ictalurus]

Sounds like a pretty nice day. I usually get skunked the first time I fish a new place, so two landed fish and one that got away isn't too bad at all.

[Yak Fish]

Sometimes the water gets rough when the large boats come through. Did you guys have any trouble with the chop? I remember I was with a buddy in a 15' boat, anchored by the rocks when a yacht went by and sent some dangerous waves our way. We turned on the motor and got outta there quick!

[Memory Maker]

Sometimes the water gets rough when the large boats come through. Did you guys have any trouble with the chop? I remember I was with a buddy in a 15' boat, anchored by the rocks when a yacht went by and sent some dangerous waves our way. We turned on the motor and got outta there quick!

There usually isn't much traffic between the Islands ...... the water is shallow and there isn't a marked channel ......... very different story in the channel between the island and the mainland (by the tower) ........ boats always going in and out with a wake .......

Most guys with larger boats don't go between the islands ......

[DOGFISH]

FisherKid or MD410, did you guys make it out on the South River or the Bay last Sunday, or was it just a football day.

[mdmakaira410]

Hey DOGFISH, nice meeting you the other day. We did get out on south river for a few hours sunday. Started pretty late again and launched from thomas point. Launching from the rip rap with 3 people wasnt really all that bad but i could see where it'd be a pain if anyone was by themselves. we trolled out into the channel on the south side for a while and didnt see much other than a few birds diving a ways off out in the main bay. i stuck to the channel and colegroveisamasterbaiter and fisherkid went in shallow. we didnt get so much as a sniff but we also didnt get any current coming through the river mouth either. it was a nice morning though and we got to see the ravens put a whooping on the panthers so all in all it was a pretty sweet day.

[DOGFISH]

Thanks, I have been pretty busy since the meet and greet. The river was slow that day also. It is probably the water getting colder, even though last year the fishing seemed to hold up longer. If I get the wind right in the near future, I might go out and try some jigging or go to the lighthouse and fish around that area. There is almost always some fish under the lighthouse, for bait fishing.

Good to meet you guys. It is always good to see kayak fishers at the store.

[mdfisherkid]

Yak fish, memory maker is right. Hardly any boats going between the islands, especially at low tide. At high tide couple of boats came through but nothing bigger than 21'. Between the islands and the mainland a couple larger boats came flying through but nothing scary/large enough to catch my attention.


Dogfish, yeah we got the big skunk on the south river. Thought about trying to head out to the light house......but had to call it a short day due to the fact the raven's were playing. Otherwise I think we may have tried that. just have to save it for another day.