All Day Bite at Mouth of the Potomac

Type: Tidal
Region: Southern
Location: Mouth of the Potomac off Virginia shoreline

I went out on CCA NOVA charter (Boat: Four Seasons Guide Service) with 3 other chapter members. We chased working and sitting birds and then drifted through jigging. Birds were all over the area. The incoming tide was carrying bait upriver and we were drifting the opposite way due wind, so drifts were pretty fast.

Metal lures worked better than plastic. My 3 oz silver crippled herring with a dark blue backstripe took 59 landed fish between me and another fisher, and was the lure of the day. Trollers were picking up some fish, but our hookup rate was substantially greater when jigging.

Four anglers landed +/- 175 stripers from 9" to a 32" striper that hit my lure when I was working it back up through the water column as Walleye Pete was getting ready to move. The lure was on a left-handed Abu Garcia bait caster I use for jigging and casting efficiency mounted on a medium Ugly Stick baitcasting pole and spooled with 20 lb braid with a 30 lb mono shock leader.

About 20% of the fish we caught were keeper size, including about half a dozen in the 30" range which were released. I landed 11 keepers between 24.5" and 32". Most fish were small schoolies, with larger fish mixed in here and there, except for several bird gaggles that had schools of larger schoolies underneath. Several times there were so many fish, the lures bounced off fish and/or hammered on the initial drop down. My best day ever!