Fishing for the Skillet

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Eastern
Location: Choptank River

My fishing buddy Matt and I pulled away from the Island Creek dock at 6:30 pm to try our hand at some shallow water fishing for striped bass in the lower Choptank River last night. A light wind was blowing from the south and we anticipated a high ebb tide so conditions were looking favorable. The Dorchester shoreline was our destination and the combination of an uncluttered shoreline, balmy breezes, good company and not a care in the world set the stage. Peaceful and very quiet would be the words to describe the next hour or so as we worked surface poppers over submerged rip rap that certainly never accomplished its intended purpose since it was now located 200yds out from the existing shoreline. Cast after cast, surface poppers, floating Crystal minnows and jointed plugs tempted every possible spot that could hold striped bass; simply put there were no takers. Water temperatures are now in the upper 80�s in the shallows; perhaps that was the reason that it was just not to the liking of the striped bass or perhaps we just stunk as fishermen.

Action needed to be taken to get the skunk off the boat so we switched to small 1/16 and 1/8oz Road runner spin jigs and flayed away with spinning gear that was meant for 1 to 2oz lures rather than this fly weight stuff in hopes of catching some white perch. Did I mention that the wind was now blowing a good 12 knots? Anyhow the white perch were holding right tight to the rocks and it was on. Fish started to come into the boat. Most were in the 8� to 10� size class but 12� perch started to get tossed into the ice chest. White perch fillets fried in panko crumbs started to look real good at this point. My friend Matt pulled out a relic from his childhood; a Garcia Mitchell 308 spinning reel. For anyone under the age of 50; this was the Model T of ultra-light spinning reels in its day. I gave it a try on a few perch and felt a rekindled force in my hands from my young days of trying to catch the largest fish I could on these might-mite reels. I did find though that the ball bearings in this little reel felt more like small rocks in a blender than the Shimanos and Daiwas I am now used to fishing with.

It was quite evident that this type of fishing has been too long ignored by us and we began to plan a return trip better prepared for targeting white perch. I plan to dig out some unused and forgotten freshwater ultra-light spinning gear and a 4-weight fly rod with a good supply of Road Runner lures and chartreuse Clousers (the rocks are hungry also) for our next evening trip to the shorelines of the lower Choptank River.