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The wind built throughout the morning and swirled around the contours of Weems Creek. The water level was quite high when we launched and fell throughout the morning. Raptor and I fished for several hours casting small lures to the shallows next to the shorelines. Although we fished near one another and both threw small spinner-type lures, I had better catching success. My conclusion is that the perch showed us two important preferences this morning (this is purely my speculation -- I don't really know what the little perch brains were thinking). But these are both basic premises of successful fishing for any species.
1) Find the size and color of lure that they want. I threw primarily Bignose spinners in 1/8-oz and 1/16-oz sizes. Both were bright chartreuse with a little flash. On my third rod I used a beetle spin rig with a small black plastic minnow. The minnow tail had good swimming action, but did not get much interest from the perch. They were all over the Bignose spinnerbaits however. Raptor initially was throwing a beetle spin rig with a twister tail. It was a little longer than the spinners I used. He had some bites but no hookups. Later he switched to a Woody's spinnerbait and got a few fish. I think the bright chartreuse was an advantage today in the somewhat murky water. If I had thrown the Bignose lures for the first half hour without success, I definitely would have changed to another size, shape, or color of lure to try to find what they wanted.
2) Fish where the fish are most likely to be. These fish were hunkered down very near the shoreline. It did not matter if the shore was dirt, grassy, riprap, wood bulkhead, tree roots, the fish were right up next to the edge in shallow water, in part because of the higher than usual water level. I focused my efforts on those shallow spots. In particular, I often positioned the kayak 10 to 15 ft off the shoreline and made a long cast parallel to the shoreline. My lure was in the target zone for most of the retrieve. Raptor fished part of the time casting to shallows and part to intermediate depth waters. He also made more casts perpendicular to the shore than I did. I suspect he had fewer bites there because there were fewer perch in those areas.
So much for my sermon/teaching moment. I also had some good pickerel news to report. Near the end of the trip, I caught two juvenile pickerel about 7-8" long and as big around as a cigar. They hit the same small spinnerbait that caught all the perch. I caught them at locations on opposite sides of the creek. I had not seen very small pickerel in several years in the Severn and was worried about the species' reproductive success. Today's unexpected catch suggests that there has been some reproduction and recruitment of young pickerel. I tried to get a photo but both of the little guys did a quick self release at boat side.
1) Find the size and color of lure that they want. I threw primarily Bignose spinners in 1/8-oz and 1/16-oz sizes. Both were bright chartreuse with a little flash. On my third rod I used a beetle spin rig with a small black plastic minnow. The minnow tail had good swimming action, but did not get much interest from the perch. They were all over the Bignose spinnerbaits however. Raptor initially was throwing a beetle spin rig with a twister tail. It was a little longer than the spinners I used. He had some bites but no hookups. Later he switched to a Woody's spinnerbait and got a few fish. I think the bright chartreuse was an advantage today in the somewhat murky water. If I had thrown the Bignose lures for the first half hour without success, I definitely would have changed to another size, shape, or color of lure to try to find what they wanted.
2) Fish where the fish are most likely to be. These fish were hunkered down very near the shoreline. It did not matter if the shore was dirt, grassy, riprap, wood bulkhead, tree roots, the fish were right up next to the edge in shallow water, in part because of the higher than usual water level. I focused my efforts on those shallow spots. In particular, I often positioned the kayak 10 to 15 ft off the shoreline and made a long cast parallel to the shoreline. My lure was in the target zone for most of the retrieve. Raptor fished part of the time casting to shallows and part to intermediate depth waters. He also made more casts perpendicular to the shore than I did. I suspect he had fewer bites there because there were fewer perch in those areas.
So much for my sermon/teaching moment. I also had some good pickerel news to report. Near the end of the trip, I caught two juvenile pickerel about 7-8" long and as big around as a cigar. They hit the same small spinnerbait that caught all the perch. I caught them at locations on opposite sides of the creek. I had not seen very small pickerel in several years in the Severn and was worried about the species' reproductive success. Today's unexpected catch suggests that there has been some reproduction and recruitment of young pickerel. I tried to get a photo but both of the little guys did a quick self release at boat side.
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