The last 10 days have seen some unexpected catches and some of the best fishing of the year! I am starting to see another pattern change develope. As the majority of the bigger bait moves out of the rivers into the bay, the Rockfish follow them. We have been seeing less and less fish on shallow structure and more and more fish as deep as 30′. Reports suggest this is true at just about every river mouth on both sides of the bay. The one exception is the upper,upper bay. Here fish can still be caught on shallow structure and this can be a reliable bite until Thanksgiving. Think Patterns Not Places!

Last Monday I fished the upper, upper Bay with my good friend Lisa Doricchi in her sweet 20′ Maritime skiff. We moved around to 3 different rivers finding a few fish here and there with more keeper size fish in the mix too! Shallow Rip Rap shorelines with hard bottoms and fast moving current held the most fish. Think Patterns not Places…

I caught this Speckled Trout in the Elk River while snap jigging a 5″  Z-Man streaks…

I have also heard of Flounder north of Poole’s Island and small Black Drum in the Bohemia River. These are surprising catches this far up the bay. This area is truely “The Great Nursery”. Just a few days later I was fishing with Dan Kilroy in the lower reaches of the Chester River and we found a school of bigger fish chasing Bunker. One loan Bunker flipping on the surface gave away the location of these fish. For about an hour, we caught them on Snap Jigs,Thumper Jigs, X-Raps and Top-Water lures.  This was excellent fall Striper fishing on a beautiful evening!

I was off the water for a few days until Wednesday (11-01-2017) when I fished with two very good anglers Ron Buffington of Jamie Lynn Sportfishing and Capt. Tony Morieta of MoreFin Charters. My last trip with these two was very good, this one was even better!

 

Excellent fishing was found around Kent Island on both the north and south side. While Snap Jigging was the most productive technique but we also had bigger fish on Top water Poppers and Chugger style baits. For once the spook type lures were not the best choice. I even caught a couple good ones on the Whopper Plopper 130!

Here is Capt Tony with a good Topwter Fish!

Finding larger bait was key to catching the larger Stripers… we found both while fishing with Capt. Tony Morieta from MoreFin Charters on Wednesday.  Give Tony a call at 443-801-7772 or  WWW.MOREFINSCHARTERS.COM he will put you on the fish! We had double and triple hook ups on big fish most all day…Grey skies helped make a good bite great! Pictured below Ron and Tony with a nice pair doubles that were caught together.

Ron and I both hooked up while Tony was taking pictures he hooked up…TRIPLES!

 

We called in our good friend Dan Kilroy and while drifting near us he caught this 38″ “Beast of a Rockfish”

On the way home, Ange Harclerode called and ask me to take his friend Rick Shimer out to catch some Stripers in the Creekboat. This is big water for the little boat but Rick and I did almost 25 miles on the tiny craft chasing Rockfish. The bright skies and “Bluebird” conditions turned the fish off and brought out many more fishermen. The bite was sporatic with fish and birds up and down. We managed a good number of Stripers of all sizes up to 30″ and kept 4 for the table, two just over 28″and two at 23″. These fish are fat! I must admit… “as I looked down at the little 4” screen on the depth finder, in a boat you can barely stand up in”… I felt somewhat outgunned. At one point I was surrounded by beautiful Jones’ Brothers, Parkers, Sea Hunts and others… Then I hooked up with another good fish and all those feelings went away! I had a lot of friends on those boats…

The fishing is just settling into the full fall pattern and the catching is great!  The best catching of the year is going on right now!  I hope to see you in the shop or on the water. Let’s go fishing!