Pacemaker Fishing Forum

How close did we come to not fishing today? VERY CLOSE! But Jim Rekas challenged us not to whimp out to the weather and we accepted the challenge...so we went.

Jim and I met Tony Ruth and Paul Cuddihy at Gravely Point at 0715. It was a cool and clear morning (totally not what the forecasters had told us) and we set out for the river waters above Key Bridge to try for stripers, blue cats, herring, white perch and even shad.

After a brief run, we started trolling in the no wake zone in hopes of getting a striper but it was not meant to be.

There was a regatta (Cherry Blossom) going on so we had to be extra careful with all the crews out on the water.

Our 1st stop was near Spout Run to see if we could jig up some herring or white perch. But we came away empty handed. So we moved further up river and made a few stops with the same results….ZIPPO!

On to Fletcher’s! That's water that I know well so we went to seek out the white marked tree and there were a few boats including the “animal” himself, Mike Bailey. Mike was shad fishing and was nailing them. I am sure he was up early to catch stripers as he does on most days.

We rigged up a few lines for shad, a few lines for perch and a few lines for blue cats and we started to seriously fish. I started to throw a spinning rod with two shad darts and immediately hooked a double but one actually broke off and I was able to land the other which was a nice big hickory shad. SKUNK OFF!! A few casts later, I landed a very nice American shad and we were starting to feel better about our chances. After a while, Tony started to get hot and caught 3 nice hickories in 5-6 minutes. A few minute later, Jim caught a hickory and Tony kept catching a few more. When the tide went down, it all shut off so we began to drift down river. All of the sudden, Paul gets into a nice Hickory and everyone has caught a fish. Whew!

Tony and Paul managed to also catch 1 white perch each.

We saw a couple of unique events on the water, one good and one potentially bad.

The good: the boat next to us landed a 30.4 lb, 43” striper right in front of us. When they landed it, we were hoopin’ and hollerin’ for them. Nice fish!

A few minutes later we hear a bang and a splash and it turns out that the same boat got rammed by a fours boat (crew). The rowers were not paying attention and almost knocked the 2 fishermen into the water. Most of the folks that row on the river are good people but once in a while you get some snobs. These guys were smiling after they hit the boat. So I told them it wasn’t funny ad that they had to be more careful. Rekas was ready for a brawl.

We trolled on the way back and managed to lose 1 lure but never got a hit.

We also ran in to two outstanding fishermen that I know and they only caught one 18” striper and three smallish blue cats.

But who cares! We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the day. It started to sprinkle (way to miss it weatherman!) around 3 and off the water we came.

This was a very enjoyable day with the cast of characters on board. We have known each other for over 25 years!

Ernie