Waiting on the Big Fish

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Central
Location: Chesapeake Bay

I set out from Point Lookout at 7:00 am on 11/15/2016. I headed across the bay to the channel and spotted plenty of birds with fish underneath them. So, I stopped by the birds and threw an X-wrap Rapala bait several times. I missed 2 bites but landed one undersized Rockfish. I switched to a basic white Tsunami sassy shad with zero success until I added a spinner blade to the tail of the sassy shad and caught many undersized Rockfish. We got strikes on almost every cast, especially on slower retrieves. No doubt the smaller fish were striking at the spinner until a larger fish would come along and inhale the bait. Moved the spinner to the belly of the bait and hooked up more often. (I thought adding a spinner would help, but didn't think it would have helped as much as it did.)

I'm planning to try again tomorrow to see if we can duplicate the good results. Jigged a bit in the channel and caught 4 trout, no keepers. Did a little trolling with small and large baits with no success. Wind kicked up, headed back to the dock around 2:00 or so to be greeted by a bunch of DNR officers including a dog and also a helicopter hovering above. Evidently some unexpected activity taking place in the parking lot.