posted on: December 24, 2015

My Fishing Year in Review - Mid Bay and Patuxent River

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Mid Bay
Location: Mid Bay and Patuxent River

My Fishing Summary for Calendar Year 2015

Total number of fishing events: 22
Number of trips "Skunked": 6
Areas fished: Mid Bay and Patuxent River
Total number of hours fishing: ~ 80 hrs
Fuel consumption: ~ 500 gal
Average fuel consumption per event ~22 gal

While this was a pretty average year for me for Bluefish and Blue Crab, I found the Rockfish to be very scarce. I caught a total of 16 Rockfish over the entire season. Twelve of these had to be released due to spring "slot" restrictions and the new 20" minimum length regulation. As a result I was only able to take home 4 Rockfish - all year- total!

I knew this was a bad year Rock fishing for me but I wanted to get a sense of how bad. So I looked up some old records I had kept in the early 2000's and have included them in a chart shown here for comparison. As you can see from the chart, the Blue Fish count this year was as good as or better than the comparison years. But the drop in Rockfish is quite dramatic. I went from taking 30 to 50 Rockfish per year down to 4 total this year - not good. Some of the years, I released over a hundred Rock, this year only 12. The chart shows the dramatic drop off in Rockfish starting in year 2007. Unfortunately I did not keep accurate records after that year, likely because the fishing was poor and not worth recording, but I don't remember specifically why I stopped. This year I kept records again due to our MSSA SMC Facebook Group page.

In summary, thank god for the Blues, hopefully the Rock will improve.