Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I used to catch spot right in the marina. There were millions of em in there.

Last year I used nightcrawlers and caught all the spot I could ever want in shallow water/hard bottom near the pilings. This year they have been more spread out and much larger. I haven't spent much time looking for them lately and instead I have stuck to jigging. Check out www.chesapeakelighttackle.com for tips for the bay bridge (in the articles). Usually the fish relate to the pilings and you need to make sure you keep contact with your jig at all times because a lot of hits come on the drop and they are subtle.

Bkd's, flukes, and bass assassins work well on .5 - 1.5 oz leadheads. I fish the area often from a kayak, in fact I'm heading there tonight!

I start working the bottom on the upcurrent piling (I approach from the down current side). I work close in to the pilings and then all the way back bouncing the jig as soon as it hits the bottom (helps avoid snags) and then let it flutter back down. Some days an aggressive jerk is the tickets, other days a shorter more subtle bounce works better. If I don't have any hooks ups on several sets of pilings I'll start working different parts of the water column and areas outside of the pilings till I figure out the pattern.

Every day is different, but most of the time the bottom is where they are. Some days you'll get hit before you can hit bottom and others you really have to work for it. Good luck!

Haha details are usually pretty much the same! Jigged bkds, lost some, and occasionally I catch a fish or two. Tonight I fished the eastern side of the bridge. First set caught a few small fish, moved to the second set and caught a fat 31" rock. Decided to switch from my silver/blue flake 6" bkd to a 10" hogy that I had rigged on another rod. Next cast got another over 30! Worked some more and got one more over 30 from that set... then the snags set in and I forgot to bring my bag of spares. I was using the lures I had in my discard pile from the last trip and I ended up with 9 total on the night. I only got to fish for about an hour and a half though, so not too bad considering. I lost 8 jigheads, 6 bkds, 2 hogys, 2 snaps, and my fingers are cut from trying to sinch down knots for new leaders... need to get out more I guess.

Tide was ripping in with the wind and there was a west to east twist to it that caused all the snags. Good luck out there and I hope the fish are there waiting for you! Just follow what CLT (Kimbro) says and try make sure you keep contact with your jig at all times. Both fish on the 10" hogy felt like a bluegill peck.

Last edited by Redfish12 (Aug-17-11 8:58PM)

Sporting. Lots of mixed direction chop and some waves over the side. Definitely a leave your scuppers out day. Really wasn't rough, just one of those days where you're bobbing around a lot.

Thanks for the kind words. I hope you guys knock them out!

Last edited by Redfish12 (Aug-17-11 10:00PM)

Sure thing! Are you guys going to fish from a boat or kayaks? If you're kayak guys, you may be interested in the tournament I'm a part of - www.chesapeakebaykayakanglers.com. It is a non-for profit event and the proceeds go to the Make a Wish Foundation. We'll also be hosting a raffle with some great prizes that will benefit CCA MD. There are several categories so do not think you need to catch the biggest rock to be able to compete! Spot, Croaker, and White perch also carry prizes and spot and white perch have been pretty big this year in the area.

I try to get to the bridge once a week if I can. I'll be up there again tomorrow night if possible on my way to DE. Girlfriend has a bachelorette party so I have a weekend completely free to fish. I'm going to go Bryan style!

Bryan, know where you are fishing? 540-239-7517 if you want to come out with our group

Redfish12 wrote:

Bryan, know where you are fishing? 540-239-7517 if you want to come out with our group

I'm heading to Cape Henlopen early tomorrow morning to do some yak fishing. The next few days after that I'll mostly be fishing from shore at various spots in lower DE.