Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I have been looking forward to today for a long time. My long time friend (from High School), Mike Schulte and my new friend, Karl Kakadelis, joined me for an afternoon of DC fishing. The last time I fished with these guys was back in July with Capt. Lee (Palm Beach). We had a great day that day and I wanted to share some DC fishing with them today.

We put the boat in the water at Gravely Point shortly after 1 PM and headed over to the Washington Channel. Lots of boats on the river today (Labor Day and perfect weather)!! We fished the last 1/2 of the falling tide.

It didn't take long to get a hit but it was only a knockdown. When I checked the lure, there was some catfish bugger (term coined by Capt. Mike Starrett) on it so I knew we had been hit. A few minutes later one of the umbrella rigs gets hit and Mike deftly reeled this guy in.....



....the skunk is off!

On the next pass, it looks like we get hung up but the line moved a bit so I told Karl to start reeling the hog in.....but suddenly, Karl announces that the fish is not on and proceeds to answer his cell phone. I take the rod and I feel the pressure so I say "Oh, it must be a log!"...sure, a 17 pound log that moves!!       Anyway, Karl gets the credit for this one!



After that battle, I decided to sit up front  a la Curly!        This position gives me a chance to see it all....



.....and them one of the rods goes down so Karl gets his 1st striper but not a keeper.



Mike also got a non keeper but they were very well fed.



Most of the hits came before the tide flattened out and we left to try something else at near low tide. We decided to do some sightseeing and ran up to Georgetown so Karl could see DC from the boat. Did I say there were a lot of boats out today? They were 4 abreast at the Washington Harbor! We did troll a bit up there but we spent most of the time dodging boats, canoes and kayaks. Needless to say, we didn't get any action up there.

When we got back to the ramp, it was jammed packed and quite a scene. I told Karl to get the trailer and not to pay attention to any of the crazies. He did a masterful job of getting the trailer in the water and with Mike's assistance, we were out in less than a minute.

Labor Day brings them all out! Regardless, we had great conversations and a great time and even caught a few fish (2 cats and 3 stripers).