Perch All Winter

Type: Tidal
Region: Southern
Location: Lower Potomac River

Our crew drift fished from a boat on 8/24 between 7:00 am and 5:30 pm near Swann Point on the lower Potomac. We are happy to report that we caught enough perch to fill our freezer for the winter. Started with a no frills double drop mono rig which had no problem catching quantity. However we had to sift through a lot of small fish just to get some keeper quality fish. In search of better quality, we tried a new rig that is very unconventional and not stealth at all. It is a basic wire spreader rig fished just above the bottom with brass beads for weight and a huge spinner blade in the center, no mono. Very happy to say that it caught 80% of our bigger fish, many of them doubles. If I had to guess, I would assume that the smaller fish didn�t have the courage to attack the bait on this rig which gave the big fish a chance to see the bait and take the risk. Can�t wait to confirm the performance on our next test trip. In terms of bait, the top bait was clearly blood worm, but surprisingly when we ran out of blood worm the fish had absolutely no problem biting night crawler in earnest. Squid and cut-bait were poor performers on this day. The bite was good all day but it went crazy between 1:00 pm and 4:30 pm. About 95% of the fish caught were perch and the rest were medium to small spot with 1 nice croaker.

Sea state was good but got a little windy later on in the day. Sunrise was 6:30 am and sunset was 7:50 pm. High tide for the location was at 8:16 am and 8:44 pm. Moonset was 1:22 pm. Next week we�re heading to the lower bay to see what�s happening down there.