Put My 88� year Old Pop on a Trophy Rockfish

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Central Chesapeake Bay
Location: Bloody Point

On Wednesday April 21st, I used my planer boards for the third time ever, and for the first time after opening day. As with the previous two catch and release trips, everything performed flawlessly and there were no major tangles. We left the marina at about 7:30 after some technical difficulties, and had lines in the 55� water by 8 am. We marked much more bait on the west side than the east, but did not see the bait balls that we were hoping for. The wind was predicted to be 5 knots out of the south accompanied by 1 foot waves and scattered showers, but the morning brought 12 to 15 knot winds out of the south with 1 to 2 foot chop on top of 2 foot rollers.

We deployed our basic 8-rod spread as follows: All singles off the port board, 2oz chartreuse back 100�, 4oz white back 80�, and 6 oz chartreuse back 60�. All tandems off the starboard board, 2/4oz white back 100�, 2/4 oz chartreuse back 80�, and 3/6 oz white back 60�. Our boat rods were a 50oz chartreuse cannonball chute in tandem with a 2oz chartreuse chute back 35�, and a 20oz Chesapeake Bay Lures paddle tail in white with a 6-arm white umbrella back 75� to complete the spread. We did not deploy the whole 12-rod spread due to the wind and wave action.

With me today were my sister, her husband, and my 88�-year-old Pop. High tide at TPL was at about 11:30 am, low tide was at about 5:30 pm, and it was a tough bite. We didn�t get our first knockdown until about 11:30 am on the east side near 86 when a 36� incher hit the chartreuse 2/4 oz tandem set back 80 feet on the starboard planer. Pop was first up on the rod, and did a great job retrieving his trophy, which was netted after a 5 to 10 minute fight. We got a second pulldown at about 1:15 pm on the west side. The second fish hit a single 2 oz chartreuse chute set back 100 feet on the port planer. I retrieved the rod from its roof rod holder, handed it off to my sister, who wasted no time retrieving her 38-inch rockfish. The weather was a little rough, but it was a good day overall to spend with family catching trophy rockfish on the bay.