Pacemaker Fishing Forum

For the last 3-4 years, on Kevin McMonagle's birthday....we go fishing! So Jim Rekas, Kevin and I today, headed down to southern MD to fish for white perch and stripers.

With these guys, the "process" is as important (or more) than the fishing. So in the morning, we stop at Chaptico deli to get breakfast sandwiches and bread pudding. Of course, that slows us down and we were not on the water fishing until past 8 AM which meant that we missed today's early shallow water striper bite. I know because I talked to Bob Morgan (Osprey) and he did well in the morning….he threw back so nice (BIG) fish because he already had a limit!!!

We started throwing top water and rattletraps at St. Margaret’s Island and zipped out…nada. On one of our drifts, this boat comes in and anchors right where we were going to drift by. What was he thinking? I was mad and somehow, I kept it in me. There is NO way anyone should ever do that!  And then, they had the audacity to ask how we were doing! I didn’t say a word and chalked it off to ignorance.

We went to the other side of the island and Jimmy took the skunk off the boat!



And then Kevin took his skunk off!



And then Jimmy got a nice hit from this croaker!



Jimmy also caught a striper here for his 3rd species!

I also caught a few white perch but the bite was weak. After talking to Jeff Hammett and Bob on the radio, they convinced me to get up to Swan point so off we went. It was a nice and smooth 25kph ride but somehow, my front passenger decided to snooze on the way there!



The 1st place we hit was the tip of Swan point where there was a lot of current. On the 1st cast, I caught a decent (but not a keeper) striper and then Kevin’s eyes lit up when he scored this double!



I thought we were in for some striper fun but the bite simply died off right there!

Jimmy did get some nice pullage from Mr. Kitty here…



And then Kevin’s drag starts screaming.….



…nice channel cat! But that picture took about 5 tries as Kevin had never caught a fish that big in his life and he had never held a catfish before. Check this out!!



Jimmy then pulled off the Cobb Slam…5 species in one day!



The Slam consisted of striper, white perch, croaker, catfish and blue fish! It’s not an official Slam but we had fun calling it that.

We headed back and stopped at Quade's for the anticipated crab cakes and they did not disappoint. We finished the day catching a bunch more white perch at various points in the Wicomico River.

The totals for the day:

Ernie- 32 white perch, 2 stripers
Kevin- 31 white perch, 2 stripers (on one cast) and a catfish
Jimmy- 33 white perch, 2 stripers, 2 croakers, 1 catfish and a little blue fish!

Another great birthday on the water!

Ernie