Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Today, I was supposed to fish the Susquehanna river on my kayak, but Carl Johnson called and had a need to fish the Wicomico River….something he had not done in over 13 years!! It was Carl who took me to the Wicomico for the 1st time back in the early 80’s.

We met up at 0630 in Fairfax and off we went pulling Carl’s new 17’ Rhino beast of a boat. He has a custom made flat bottom river boat….more on that later! They were calling for possible showers in the AM but when we got there, I could not find a cloud in the sky! But there was some wind and some chop on the river.

Our target was white perch but I was also in the hunt for stripers!!

After the customary stop at the Chaptico Deli, we headed down to Chaptico Wharf and put the boat in the water. The 1st spot we tried looked really fishy but we got nada!



Did I tell you that I have never caught a white perch in the Wicomico in May?

Before we moved over to White Point Bar, I was telling Carl about meeting Capt. Jeff Hammett on the water and how I had fished with him a few times. As we motored downriver, I noticed a 35’ Evans anchored out in the middle and sure enough, it was Jeff. He was fishing for croaker and I introduced him to Carl.

White Point Bar (WPB) gave up nothing even though the tide was in our favor. This is not looking good!!

So on to St. Margaret Island we went where I knew there are usually some perchies and stripers. I was right and Carl hooked into this monster striper!



OK, skunk is off anyway but Carl wanted a perch and a few casts later, he got it!



I finally put one in the boat but they had no size to them. It looked like this was going to be a long, slow day!!

On the way back to our starting point, we stopped at WPB again to see if the perch may be hanging around. We only caught a few but we managed to do a good deed. As we were floating across the bar (1-3 feet) two boats were headed directly at the bar and I started to waive them off. Luckily they stopped or they would have both broken their lower units. One of them was not so lucky (bigger boat) and ran aground…as the tide was falling!! It was obvious that this was a novice boater and he was in trouble. Maritime law dictates that you must help (or call authorities) if someone gets in trouble on the water. Carl and I discussed a plan and we pulled them off the bar and in to safety. Carl’s boat is 17 footer with a 60 Merc engine.....sweet boat!! The grounded boat was at least 21 feet and was a I/O. The captain was clueless, he was lucky we were there to help him or he would have had a long and expensive afternoon.

Enough excitement already, we need to catch some fish! We headed back to where we started and Carl caught some more teeny stripers along with a few perch. I caught a few perch too. We were just about to finish a particular drift when I announced to Carl that I was going to cast and catch a perch. All of the sudden, my reel starts screaming and I have a fight on my hands. Maybe I should declare that I was using a 5’ Ultra Light with 4 pound line. After a nice battle, Carl nets this nice croaker.



Remember, we are using 1/8 oz soft plastics (1-2 inches). That was a neat catch but I think I upset Carl. A few minutes later, then same thing happens to him and he lands his own croaker…he got even!



For the day, we caught 5-6 stripers (all Carl), 2 nice croakers and about 35-40 white perch. This more than surpassed my expectations because we really were too early for shallow water perching!!

As Carl went to get the truck, I made another boat rescue. Another 21 footer with and I/O had stalled and was drifting fast into a dock. I got his buddy (on land) to jump on the boat and we tied hi off and pulled him away before he smacked into the dock! Two saves in one day….not bad.

It was an incredible day on the water (very windy), mainly because I fished with my mentor for the 1st time in over 13 years!!

Ernie