Saint Mary's Lake

[J. Rentch]

Yesterday three members of the Free State Fly Fishers (Mark Bange, Rich Batiuk and myself) and a SMOG member- Big Mike, made a trip to Saint Mary's Lake, St. Mary's County. Launching around 11:30 to overcast sky and winds from the SE. Air temp was 54 and water temp 52. This was my first visit to this area
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Mark and I headed for area "D" to hunt Pickerel. Rich turned left and fished area "J". Mark fished the west side of "A", I fished the east side. We both were throwing Bendbacks. After two hours we each had one hookup and one strike. No picture of the Pick, jumped off the Hog Trough before I could take the picture. Very frustrating because the area looked very inviting for Pickerel.
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I left that area and paddled over to area "A", switching to a lighter rod and an olive wooley bugger.
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On the second cast I landed an active LM Bass
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I continued throwing in this area and managed four nice Crappie with a half dozen casts.
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Overall, it was a good day, could have been better. Need to visit this place again when the weather warms.

[Mark]

Excellent report and photos John.

Good catches too.

It was also nice to see Big Mike.

The lake definitely deserves another visit from us.

Here's the only fish I boated:

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It looks as surprised as me after many fruitless casts.

[Big Mike]

I started at the dam which was very slow using white Gulp. After awhile I slunk off to my secret spot uplake but still slow. Decided to try a small Rapala in a yellow perch pattern. Game on. Ended up with half a dozen bass, 5 pickerel, a crappie and a yellow perch.



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[J. Rentch]

Nice going, I didn’t get active until I moved to the south shoreline

[J.A. Veil]

Good work fellas. It seems that pond and stream fishing is the main game in town right now.