Pacemaker Fishing Forum

My brother-in-law, Ross, is a keen fisho and in town with his family from Sweden, so we headed down to Chesapeake Beach yesterday morning to try and catch some Rockfish for a family fish fry. Was dead calm at 5:45am when we arrived and we were bailing Spot soon after in 16-18ft of water directly out front. Spot were thick on the bottom so we just drifted. Within an hour we had about 20 swimming around in the cooler. There were a few Croaker and White Perch in the mix too but no real size to either.

A light breeze had started up but it was a still a pretty smooth run across to Poplar Island, and we were soon set up in about 40 ft of water with the rest of the fleet. The sounder lit up with arches a little to the south of the crowd, so we anchored up and set out a 3 rod spread with 2 swimming freely, and 1 on the bottom with a running sinker. Took awhile to get a bite, even with the sounder still showing fish passing through frequently, but sure enough the bottom rod started to act a little funny and soon after had our first keeper of the day at 22". The bottom rod was dropped back down and within a few minutes got another hit - an undersize 16" Rockfish - that we released quickly. I pulled in 1 of the other lines and put a sinker on that rod too. The action was much more steady after that with 2 rods on the bottom, and after getting used to the subtle difference of using circle hooks, Ross joined in and we soon had 3 of our 4 fish limit.

With 10 spot still left in the cooler, we decided to be a little more picky in hopes of a larger grade of fish. After catching a bunch of barely legal and sub legal fish, Ross dropped a 25-26" fish right by the boat which had only latched onto the bait and wasn't actually hooked. The fish stayed suspended for a second but alas I was too slow with the net and were now down to our last Spot. Ross saved the day though and caught another healthy 23" fish, and biggest fish landed of the day, to round out our limit.

By now the wind was whipping pretty good so we made a slower run back across the bay to the more sheltered 15-25ft of water on the western shore with hopes of catching a few more Croaker and Perch with the last of the Bloodworms. Only found one keeper each of Perch and Croaker in the mix before we ran out of bait. Headed in around 12:30pm and home by 2pm.

Good times and was a nice Father's day!


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Ross with the last Rockfish of the day


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Fish fry tonight!