Pacemaker Fishing Forum

All I can say is that we worked hard to catch a few fish! Here is the story:

This morning, we met up at the Solomon's ramp on the Patuxtent River in MD (100 miles from Ashburn). The plan was for Curly and I to fish in my boat and to meet up with Carl Johnson who had Luan and Benton as his crew. We were going to target white perch and also try to catch stripers, puppy drum, blue fish and flounder. At about 7 AM, both boats headed over to Cuckhold Creek, a place we have never fished. Immediately, we lost Carl so we started to fish. Curly banged a little white perch to take the skunk off the boat. But after catching a couple of more, there was nothing more so we moved to a beach area that showed lots of bait. I was throwing my OBX special flounder rig, the clacker with a jig tipped with a Gulp shad. The clacker goes down and I bring this bloody blue to the boat!



Since it was slow in the creek, we decided to steam 8-9 miles out to the bay to a place called Cedar Point Rips. I fished this once before. When the tide is right, there is a great rip (thus the name) where the water goes from 35 feet to 15 feet. Today, it was not ripping. We cast lures, trolled and drifted and got ZERO. So....back to the creek we go!

This time, we (really Curly) found some perch and they were a bit bigger....keeper size!



But things slowed down again and we went back out to the main river where we found another blue and a perch....big whoop!

We decided to drift some gulp since the wind and current made for a drift line. On the 1st pass, Curly yells that he is hung up! As I looked up, his rod was shaking and I said, fish on! I grabbed the net and helped him land this keeper sized flounder!



It was a 17 incher    but we didn't know the size limit and I asked about it on the radio. A nice fisherman told us it was 17.5" minimum so we threw him back only to learn later that the minimum size is 16.5"!!

We continued to make some drifts and we got a few hits which were most likely smaller croaker. Then...I got a hit and the fight was on! I landed this nice.....



....toad fish! Ugly bugger....and then he pooped all over my boat!

For the day we caught 22 white perch (Curly 18, Ernie 4), 2 blue fish (Ernie), 2 spot (1 each), Curly's flounder and my toad! The other reports we heard were not good, a few spanish here and there and some blues.

It was windier than they predicted and the bay was fairly rough but it was still a great day and a great learning experience.

Carl and his crew caught some puppies, 40+ perch, a 20" striper, a little flounder, a little blue and a toad fish. Hopefully, he will add to the story!

Ernie