Severn River Perch

[J. Rentch]

Mark Bange and I launched from Jonas Green abt 7:30 this morning to find some White Perch. Conditions looked good, low winds and the end of an ebb tide. I was throwing a 6wt with a Chartreuse Wooly Bugger. We headed north fishing the shorelines and coves. We both found WP in creeks. John Veil joined us for a while, before heading across the river to fish the western shoreline.
DSCF0200.jpg
Later I found a small Pickerel between some boat ramps. The poor guy swallowed the fly, so had to just cut it off.
DSCF0201.jpg
I then tyed on a Brown Wooly Bugger and fished with it the rest of the day.
DSCF0202.jpg
We continued to travel past the RT 50 bridge. I managed a nice dozen WP. All between 5-8", and found in shady areas along shorelines.
As we were above the ft 50 bridge, ran into a kayaker that was crabbing. He was having a nice day, almost a bushel.
DSCF0203.jpg
Was after 11, so we decided to head back to launch. Wind had increased to 10 from the south and a flood tide, so progress was tough. Got back to the launch around noon. We haven't fished the Severn for a while, so today was not magnificant, but it was fun.

[Mark]

John is doing very well with the fly rod. He has come a long way in a short time. His casting has improved greatly and he is already catching fish on flies he has tied.

I left my long rods home today. I did all of my damage with a light spinning rod and 1/8 oz. jig spinner. White perch were my target and they were active at many locations. As usual, shade was a good choice to find them. But some were in sunny choppy water churned by the wind and tide. Actually I was hoping for a striper in those spots but I caught none today. Lots of white perch though. This was my largest:

P1060031.jpg

But I had two surprises before I started nailing white perch. I caught back to back channel cats with my perch spinner. The first was about 18 inches and it put up a respectable tussle on my light spinning rod. Son-of-a-gun if another didn't hit the same spinner shortly after within feet of the first. This one gave me real hard time, not only to get it into the boat but to try to measure it and photograph it.

I think it was about 23 inches. It refused to pose nicely on my Hawg Trough. Its pectoral fins were very erect and I could not get the fish to lay on its side. It was either happy to see me or ready to do harm to its captor. I'd bet on the latter.

I got a decent shot of its head:

P1060025.jpg

But its tail was hanging over the left side of the ruler on the above photo.

It wriggled quite a bit and I could not get a clear full body shot.

So I put it back into the water quickly.

Today was my first Severn outing of the year. I was reminded what a beautiful and productive body of water it is, especially for kayak anglers.

[J.A. Veil]

I found Mark and John Rentch already catching fish when I paddled into a particular tidal pond. Mark called out on the radio about his channel cats. I worked shorelines that he had already visited (shade is important for perch and pickerel). I wanted to catch a few perch, but once I verified they were in a particular stretch of shoreline, I put the Bignose spinner away and threw paddletails or twistertails looking for pickerel and hopefully a channel cat too.

Two pickerel showed up quickly, then 20 mins later, I found a 22" channel catfish (my 39th species of the year so far). I was using one ultralight rod and two light rods today. Fortunately the catfish hit the strongest of the three rods, and I was able to get it to the side of the kayak, where I popped the jighead out with my pliers while keeping the fish in the water.

I moved off to a different tidal pond and made a quick circuit. By that time, the sun was high, which minimized the shaded areas. Plus the water level was still quite low, taking some of the areas out of play. I found a few perch and another pickerel. I was back to the launch less than 3 hours after I had launched with plenty of pullage from three fish species plus on blue crab that grabbed onto a twistertail. Plus I got my morning exercise by paddling several miles.

[bignose]

You are a brave soul to lay that big catfish in a hawg trough held in your lap!

[J. Rentch]

It is certainly nice to hear of all the Pickerel being caught this summer in the Severn River and its tributaries.