Mixed Bag

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Mid Bay
Location: Mid Bay

Mixed bag of perch, croaker and rockfish. My brother, and friend and I went out at Matapeake's boat ramp 5 PM Thursday and fished until 11:45 PM. A mixed bag of medium to large croaker, very large white perch and a 19 1/2 inch rockfish that appeared very healthy and showing no signs of striped bass disease. None of the sublegal striped bass had signs of the disease either. Last year, it was about 1/3 of every striped bass we caught.

Started out in 25 foot of water directly in front of Matapeake, where we pickup up 30 croaker and I hooked into cownose twice rays, but lost them (I usually keep and eat them, they are delicious). Tide went slack and so did the fishing, so we headed to the bridge pilings where I picked up another 7 croaker and a couple of dozen HUGE white perch. Caught about a dozen spot for live lining, but all were very small. Tried live lining for blues but none were to be found, I think the high water temps made them run for deeper water. We usually catch more blues in this area this time of year than we do croaker.

90 percent of the croaker were caught on shrimp, the rest on squid strips. Everything else was on bloodworms.

Rockfish was cooked using a recipe a competitive BBQing friend of mine recommended. Clean and remove head and tail, scale and place in a ziplock bag with Tabasco sauce overnight in the fridge. Wrap in aluminum foil and cook on the grille. Best rockfish recipe I've tried and I've been fishing (and cooking) all my life.