Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Headed for Nomini Creek at oh-dark thirty this morning, arriving at about 8 a.m. Launched and headed for the Route 202 bridge. Found the water very muddy and the water temp at 46 degrees. Incoming tide and flat calm. Pulled out our striper topwater baits and started casting. After covering all of my usual striper haunts with topwaters and getting nothing in return, we switched to Rat-L-Traps, bucktails, Sassy Shads and Rebel Fastrac minnows. Nada, Zilch, nothing!

Could not find any bait near the bridge, on the wood pilings nearby or on the points. Decided to head upstream to the Route 203 bridge. Repeated the first scenario with the same results. Continued upstream to a rip that normally produces. Nothing!

Decided to head to the back end of the creek and fish for bass/pickerel/perch until the tide started running out good. On the way back, I noted that the water was very low for it being almost high tide. Once in the back end, it got even scarier. It appeared that the tide was at dead low, even though we knew it was coming in for another hour. We fished the area thoroughly with various baits with no success. While paralleling the pickerel week banks, a bedraggled critter swam out of the marsh grass right beside the boat. It looked like it had really been put through the mill. We attempted to guess what kind of critter it was, pretty much agreeing that it was too ugly to be a beaver. It must be a muskrat, but it was awfully big for a muskrat. Must be a nutria. The animal continued moving very slowly, just in front of the boat. It zig-zagged until I moved forward, then it moved forward and started zig-zagging again. I finally decided that it was trying to lead us away from it's lair. Sure enough, once we got about 100 yards from the initial contact point, we heard and saw a tremendous tail slap and we got our answer. This was the ugliest beaver either of us had ever seen. I mentioned to "Moose", my partner, my theory about the beaver and we both looked behind the boat. There, swimming quickly back to the origin, was our ugly beaver.

We continued fishing the creek until just after high tide, when we figured out that the prevailing wind was holding the tide out and the high tide was about two feet lower than normal. This meant that the outgoing tide was going to go out in a hurry since the wind was helping it. We decided to get out of the area before we got stranded. (There ain't no Boat US Towboats in this creek).

Headed back down to the Route 203 Bridge, fishing it thoroughly with no success. Headed to a dock and a bunch of old pilings where I have caught yellow perch and bass in the past. We worked the pilings good with spinnerbaits, crankbaits and shakey heads. No luck. We worked the dock pilings with shakey heads, while the tide swirled hard against them. We each cast up to shore on the downtide side of the dock and brought our baits back very slowly. We were basically dead-sticking them, when Moose noted that his line was moving. He set the hook and a good bass rolled on the surface. I asked if he wanted the net and at that moment, I felt a tap. I set the hook and the twin to his fish rolled on the surface. Both of us fought our fish and lipped them beside the boat.

When we held them up, we noted that they each would have gone well over four pounds. A beautiful pair of healthy bass. After taking pictures, we released the fish to grow and fight again. After catching these bass, we were in no hurry to leave the area. We continued to pound the available cover for the next hour without success.

We finally had to come to the conclusion that there were only two bass there and headed back down to the Route 202 Bridge. Once again, we tried a full range of striper baits and could not get a bite of any kind anywhere in the area. After spending about two hours casting the entire area, we decided that there were no stripers there and opted for head out of the creek, into the Potomac River. On the way out of the bay, there is a long riprap point which had a serious rip around it. We worked this rip for about an hour with Rat-L-Traps, bucktails and Sassy Shads without success.

While working the rip, we had the occasion to talk with anglers on six different boats coming back into the creek from the river. From information received, it appeared that there were no stripers in the river at all today. Nobody on any of the six boats had caught so much as a minnow-sized striper, despite all manner of gear and bait.

As the sun was rapidly heading toward the horizon, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the ramp. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was gorgeous. The company was excellent. And we each caught fish.  What more can we ask of a fishing trip?

Pix may be seen at: http://www.webhosting-123.com/nhbaphoto … amp;page=1