Podickory Point, August 1

[Fishinfool]

image.jpgArrived at SPSP East at 5:25 am. Tide would be high at 9:25 am. Wind speed was 33 kps from due south at Thomas Point. After a few choice words I walked up the beach. Once I got around the first jetty the wind died considerably. I waited until the 6:00 am report was up at Thomas Point and wind speed had started to drop. Fortunately I decided not to abort the trip as both wind and tide worked well for trolling the shore lines all the way to the Little Magothy River where I arrived at @ 10:15 am,after a short snack break about halfway up.

This was my first trip along this shoreline, so it was as much exploratory as catching fish. I did find one location where I got several strikes from perch on my trusty quarter ounce white jig w/ a white 4 inch Gulp. Also trolled a half ounce yellow bucktail with a new 5" chartreuse Z-Man soft plastic, hoping for a keeper rock. Got a few strikes from perch on it, but no landings. I kept two average size keepers. Podickory Point itself looked so promising from land, but no fish yesterday at any of its complex of jettys and bulkhead.

The first third of the paddle was primarily state owned land. The bird and natural life was beautiful! I spotted a juvenile bald eagle on the way up having his breakfast on a freshly killed menhaden. On the way back, I managed this shot.



This was a fairly long paddle for an old guy, but not bad because I caught the outgoing on the way back from the Little Magothy. I got back to the East Beach launch at 12:15 pm. A great day on the water, if not too productive fish wise. What rockfish there are seem to prefer deeper water around the bridge, and haven't venture in close to shore yet. Hopefully in the Fall, they will.

(Having trouble posting pics from my I-phone)

[J.A. Veil]

Thanks for the report Steve. I'm glad you got out in some new waters. Please check the units on wind speed in your third sentence (kps). I suspect you mean kph (kilometers per hour). 33 kph = 20 mph, which is still pretty brisk.

I was out on the Severn late morning in a small skiff with CBF's John Page Williams. It was very calm from 10:30 - 12:30 there. We made some water quality measurements (temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity) at one location at one meter intervals (bottom to top). He and others have long term records of the DO profile in the river, showing a low oxygen layer in bottom waters during the summer. Yesterday the DO was better than it had been a month earlier, but was still not optimal.

[Fishinfool]

Thanks John! Yes, the Thomas Pt light reading is in kph, duly noted.

Good you got out for the Severn water monitoring. The DO levels are better than predicted because of the unusually cool summer so far. Also, larger wind events without much rain churn up the Bay and rivers and move oxygen from deeper waters up.