Josenhans Fly Fishing Blog

Quiz with a 27 inch 'Maryland' rockfish

Sunday, June 26 was a travel day for me – so to speak. So far this season I have been spending most of my time fishing Tangier Sound out of Crisfield, mainly due to the fantastic rock and flounder fishing that we have been experiencing. I had a request for a trip out of Oxford, on the Choptank River, from friend Jim Lee and his buddy from Florida Jim ‘Quiz’ Quisenberry who was in town for a little striper fishing. Seems rockfish are in short supply down in the Sunshine State. After launching at the free public ramp in Cambridge, I pointed the Jones Brothers downriver for the short run to the Oxford Ferry dock. After picking up Jim and Quiz we continued west towards Tilghman Island. Since the forecasted five knot winds were blowing at a brisk 15 to 20 out of the northwest, I decided to head through Knapps Narrows and begin the day fishing in the lee of Poplar Island.

Jim showing off a nice striper

We spent the first hour casting to the rock out-crops on the eastern side if Poplar and Quiz was able to catch his very first striper, a fat 20-inch fish that went in the box for dinner. We drifted around some nearby trollers without success and proceeded to work our way south as the winds slowly subsided. Around mid-morning, as I was cruising an edge a few miles south of Poplar the screen of my Lowrance sonar unit lit-up with good-sized marks. We dropped our jigs and almost immediately hooked up with a nice grade of rockfish. For the next several hours we were able to stay with the school, all-the-while boating fish to 31 inches. Five-inch Bass Assassin Saltwater Shads and six-inch Storm Wildeye Shads were the ticket today. Quiz had a blast, and actually out-fished us Maryland boys on our home waters. The wind dropped off to nothing and gave us a much better ride in than we had coming out.

Quiz having a blast with rockfish - We're not in Florida anymore!

Jim hooked-up again!