Summer Trophies in the Upper Bay

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Northern
Location: Upper Bay

If you're like me, you have several on your bookshelf by John Page Williams and Lenny Rudow. My copy of John Page's Chesapeake Almanac is as worn as a preacher's bible and I refer frequently to Rudow's Guide to Fishing The Chesapeake. So, when I found out both those guys were joining me for a late afternoon fishing trip onboard my Judge 27CC Thunder Road, suffice it to say I had a little bit of stage fright.

Joining us were couple of pretty ladies from the BoatUS Foundation. Susan Shingledecker and Alanna Keating administer a BoatUS grant that is helping CCA Maryland and The Chesapeake Bay Foundation support the Careful Catch Program including CarefulCatch.com and Careful Catch Facebook. I was sweating bullets because I really wanted to find some fish so we could demonstrate some of the best practices for catch & release we promote with the websites. Time to put your money where your mouth is, Kimbro... Okay, calm down, no problem, just do what you usually do right?

So, we launch at Kent Narrows and headed north to hit some oyster bars and drop-offs hoping for fish. First stop, nothing.... second stop, nothing.... I'm getting discouraged, a little frustrated, everything was right - good outgoing current pushed by a north wind, overcast skies, the right time of day, everything but fish.... Third stop (whoop!) fish finder lights up like Fourth of July fireworks. I secretly tap dance God Bless America behind the steering wheel, then call out what I'm seeing: "Fish are here, 17 feet, let's get our jigs down fast. They're on the bottom. Cast into the wind, let 'em drop, feel for the plop then snap 'em up. You want to touch down every time."

So, you'd think with all that knowledge and fishing firepower onboard, one of those guys would've connected pretty fast, right? Well, um, no... it was one of the ladies on the boat who had never caught a rockfish before with the lead-off bent rod. She hit a home run too! Susan's first ever rockfish went 34 inches. She caught it on one of George Leonard's Li'l Bunker lures. 2-ounce pearl I believe with the barb flattened for better hook sets. Better yet, there would be more 30-inch-plus fish to come.

Alanna was up next. She was throwing a 1.5 ounce stingsilver that I'd rehabbed with gold paint and dressed up with chartreuse feathers on a barbless hook. Even though the outgoing was ripping, it didn't take her long to get the feel of the drop. Her first fish was well into the mid-twenties.

Okay, okay, I guess John Page and that Rudow character caught and released a few too... Okay, so maybe it was more than a few, maybe it was a couple dozen in the keeper size range including several overs, but who could keep up with all the catching the ladies were doing. We moved around over multiple fishing spots, exchanging info and sharing what we know about each one. I even got lucky and whacked an over-30 just before sunset on a hotrodded chartreuse 6-inch BKD.

We finished the evening by popping in on some bluefish breakers just before dark, the first I've seen above the Bay Bridge this year. By the time we were done my head was spinning from everything I learned. In addition to the stripers we caught, we had five black-back perch and a toadfish. All but two of the rockfish we caught were released boat-side while still in the water. We kept one that was deep hooked for Susan's dinner tomorrow night.

It was an honor to jig up some summer trophies with Alanna and Susan. I admit it, I was really sweating this trip because I wanted it to be a good one. I don't know why I was worried now though. After all, John Page and Lenny literally wrote the book on the Chesapeake Bay. How could we miss? They proved they're the real deal with some pretty darn good fishing tonight.