Josenhans Fly Fishing Blog

Hot times on the Eastern Shore,

 

The weather has been hot and so has the fishing, albeit a bit spotty in location. There are places we just cannot fish at present due to the cow nose rays making an absolute mess of the shallows. Once we do some searching however, we generally find rockfish, blues and a few big croaker eager to eat!

 

Wednesday, I had two great guys in Joe DeMeo and his buddy Lou. I had them get up very early to take advantage of first light, but by 8:00 A.M. we had caught only nine stripers. So much for missing breakfast to catch the hot morning feed. Not to worry, after moving a few times we finally found a nice pocket of fish and had some super shallow-water rockfish action for the next couple of hours. Most of the stripers were school-sized fish of 16 – 22 inches and put up a great fight in the skinny water. We tried bluefish later in the morning but they just wouldn’t cooperate, but the morning rockfish bite made the day a tremendous success.

 

Thursday was a white perch outing (black perch to the old-timers on the shore) with Jerry Schultz and his wife Janet. They had all the action they could handle with fat, good-eating perch after just three hours. We cut the half-day trip short as they had more than enough for the freezer and some fresh fillets for a weekend pan-fry. The tidal creeks of Tangier Sound are currently crammed full of fat white perch and some big rockfish for those wanting to dunk a bit of peeler crab.

 

I was doing a little scouting for the CCA Kent Narrows Fly/Light Tackle/Kayak tournament that is held each year during the first Saturday in June. This was the first time I had entered it and I had a blast. I recommend it to anyone, as it is a low-key, relaxed and fun tournament to fish. In fact, because my partner and I didn’t weigh-in a fish, I almost didn’t feel like I had fished a tournament – but there’s a story behind that..

 

Anyway, Friday was my last scouting day and I had heard rumors of a nice school of stripers on the western shore of the bay near Calvert Cliffs. I was by myself and didn’t arrive until 9:00 AM – late riser that I am. There were quite a few charter boats trolling and almost immediately I located a ton of fish on the fish-finder. The water depth was forty feet and most of the fish were holding in the 5 – 15 foot range. I tried 5 and 7 inch Bass Assassins, Storm Shads and various fly patterns in the four to six inch range, with limited success. A personal theory of mine is that when the fish prove finicky, go small. I tied on a two inch lavender/white clouser deep minnow – sort of imitating the local bay anchovies. The fish jumped all-over over this pattern! I was using a RIO Striper DC 400 grain sink-tip line and was probably fishing my fly in the ten to fifteen foot range. After catching a couple in the 23 inch range I noticed they were all fat as butterballs and spitting up the so-called “May worms” as I pulled them to the boat. This is the second worm swarm of the season. I figured the small clouser probably looked like a worm, and I later discovered that pink was just as effective (They wouldn’t touch chartreuse). In the next two hours I caught maybe 25 rock in the 14 to 21 inch range, with five or six that were 23 inches, but weighed around five pounds each. Not great big fish but plenty of action, and what fighters!

 

The next day I met Joe Bruce at the ramp with high hopes of claiming first place in the fly division of the CCA tourney. We arrived off Calvert Cliffs just after 6:00 AM and I could see that Joe was a little curious as to where I stopped the boat, seemingly in the middle of nowhere – no structure nor working fish. I saw the fish on the finder right where I left them on Friday and actually caught a small striper on the first cast. Joe said that wasn’t a good sign. During the first twenty minutes I felt a little heavier tug and landed a plump 21 inch rockfish that I took a good hard look at and, with thoughts of yesterday still fresh in my brain, said no way, we can do better and promptly released him. To make this long story short, for the morning we caught maybe 60 – 70 stripers and released I guess three in the 21 inch range – all on fly. Smaller than the day before but we had a blast non-the-less. Joe had a real nice fish on at the end but it released itself before we could get a look, so we called it a day without a fish for the scales. 

 

Back at check-in we discovered that only two stripers had been weighed-in for the fly division, with third place open. So much for having a plan. I felt a little better when I discovered that at least two other guys had also released rock that would have placed, including a 23 inch fish that was tossed back due to sores all over the body. (Hope this mico goes away soon). Now that’s what I call sportsmanship! I have fished some tournaments in the past where the guys would have tried to check in fish that had been dead a week if they thought they would win a prize! But that just shows the class of this man and this tournament. It was started to promote fly and light tackle fishing and to just have fun, and that’s exactly how it turned out. Hats off to all the Kent Island CCA guys who worked hard to provide the anglers with a great event!

 

Here is a pic leaving the Madison harbor on Friday, a quiet corner of Dorchester County.

Time for another report from beautiful Tangier Sound.  I fished Saturday, along with the past three days with mixed results. Monday was a picture perfect skinny water rockfish day, with overcast conditions all morning. The fish didn’t disappoint, as we had terrific striper action in four feet of water on poppers, light spinning and fly tackle. Plenty of rockfish from two to six pounds came in the boat, and one BIG fish was hooked, briefly showed itself, and promptly released itself before we could get an accurate estimate of size. Let’s just say it brought back memories of the blowups that you see fishing topwater on the Susquehanna Flats. All-in-all, it was a great morning, and we left them biting to stop in Tylerton, Smith Island at Drum Point Market for a crab cake sandwich. Pictured to the right is Gene Jones with a Monday morning rockfish. We tried a few places after lunch, but the tide had slacked and so did the fishing.

To the left is Maurice Klein with a nice fish caught on a Stillwater Smack-it! popper.

 

Gene with the day’s first fly caught rock on a 7 wt.

 

Kevin

Hi Everyone!

 

Sorry this is a little late. I have been fishing everyday for a week and I have just cleared my wind-burnt eyes enough to see the keyboard. Fishing has gone from very good to so-so over the course of the past few days. While the numbers may have dwindled a bit, the grade of stripers has been good. I have been fishing Tangier Sound out of Crisfield for the most part. Smith and Tangier Island have been seeing the most of my boat while casting for school stripers in the shallows.

 

I love this time of the year because the water is very clear (before the algae blooms of summer) and you can often see the rockfish strike your lure or fly as it is retrieved past the underwater stumps, or over the eel grass beds. We have had fish most trips to 25 inches, with the biggest of the week a 26 1/2 inch beauty weighing in at seven pounds. While these may not be large rock by bay standards, on the flats of Tangier Sound they really put up a battle on light tackle.

 

Four inch shad tails and Storm Shads have been the ticket for spin fisherman, while the fly anglers have enjoyed success with Clouser Deep Minnows and Cactus Striper patterns in white, chartreuse or a combination of same (what else). Catches of twenty to fifty per day have been the norm, with the higher numbers being had earlier last week. Still no specks for me but I’m hoping that will change soon.

Posted are a few photographs of this past week’s action.

 

Bay water is warming! From the Little Choptank to Tangier Sound we consistently found surface water temperatures from 68 to 72 degrees. This is perfect for the speckled trout that are starting to show in the Honga River and parts of Tangier Sound. I had three trips this week with mixed success, mainly weather dependant. The wind blew both Friday and Saturday, turning the shallows to a coffee latte’ color. The fish were there but not feeding heavily for reasons I’ll explain below.

 

I fished out of the Little Choptank Wednesday with Joe Bruce of the former Fisherman’s Edge. Always a great day on the water with Joe as his casting ability and quick wit reminds one of Lefty Kreh.  Caught 50 or so stripers from 14″ to 26″. All shallow water fly and spin fishing. Several were caught on topwater. There was lots of baitfish (silversides) in the shallows so the fish should stick around for awhile. The silversides could at times be seen taking to the air in an attempt to escape the marauding rockfish. Great fun to watch!

 

Here’s Joe with a 26″ striper that he caught on a Stillwater Smack-it popper.

Just got done a busy week on the Susky Flats! Fished all half day trips – sometimes two-a-day – Tuesday through Friday. For the most part fishing was fantastic! The first three days the wind blew NW like a strong spring cold front that wouldn’t leave. We fished Tuesday and Wednesday in steady 20 to 30 K winds but hardly noticed because the fishing was so good!

 

Catches of up to 75 fish a trip (4 – 5 hours) kept clients happy. While most of the stripers were schoolie males averaging 3 – 6 lbs., there was the occasional fish to 12 pounds that would surprise the happy angler and test his drag setting. Biggest of the week was 29 pounds and unfortunately (somewhat) I was the lucky angler. Big fish was caught on a gold Tony in eight feet of water.

 

We caught fish on topwater lures like Stillwater Smack-It and Storm Chug Bug, Bass Assassins, Tony spoons and flies. Largest fly-caught rock of the week goes to Jack McKenna for his 8 pound striper on Friday evening. Fish were wide-spread as we found them on the north, west and southern edges of the flats. I think towards the later part of the week the real big fish were beginning to spawn, as the catch ratio for myself and the other guides was much in favor of the school-sized fish.

Still a fun week and I am already looking forward to returning next year. I will probably be keeping my boat in a slip in Havre de Grace next April, so I can skip the constant driving back and forth. Thanks to all who joined me this year and I hope to have you back next season.

 

I’ll be starting my Tangier Sound trips next week and I hear from some friends that the rock are biting! I’m hoping for some speckled trout this spring, so if I hear of, or run into any good concentrations of this great game fish I’ll post here. Also, if anyone would like to try their luck at a big red drum (25 lbs. +) I’ll be running evening trips out of Crisfield during the month of May. This is mostly fishing near the bank with peeler or soft crab baits – not some guys cup of tea – but you do have the chance to catch a monster drum, along with specks and stripers. Let me know if there is any interest and we’ll discuss our options. Here are a couple of the bigger stripers that we caught on topwater right at dusk.

Tight lines,

 

Kevin