Pacemaker Fishing Forum

7/7/24, Magothy River Perching +

I was excited to see Ernie's perch report.  The shallow water perch chasers are a small, but dedicated group. 

Today my partner Jamie Gold was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:20 AM in the parking lot of our community marina.  I like it, early and ready to fish.  Our first stop was a bite-a-cast affair with tons of small perch, me on a spinning rod, Jamie on the fly.  Jamie hauled in a nice yellow perch too and we may have nabbed a couple of small stripers. 



Next stop has been a money spot the last few weeks for me, and it didn't disappoint.  I began tossing a small hard jerkbait and on the pause it got inhaled repeatedly.  The quality bumped up nicely to eating size, but it was a C&R affair for us today.  Jamie slung away on the fly consistently picking off perch.






As the bite slowed we motored between the next two eastward piers to find nadda.  But before abandoning the area, we tried the westward side and it paid off with a keeper striper (released) and some more excitement followed by a lull....high tide had arrived.  Before the next move I switched from a small striper fluke to my tandem perch set up casting to a piling that had seen multiple lures prior.  A light bump bent the rod over with confusion of angler -- was it  a striper?  catfish?  double perch?  Wow, it was two perches, both monsters!  How in the world did they decide to ignore or avoid all the other lures tossed their way?  Sadly #2 on the bottom managed to escape courtesy of a snapped line, but #1 on top came to net at 12.5".  Hello chubby, nice shoulders. 



We hit a few more stops with fewer bites, but some baby redfish to spark curiosity.   On the way in the big boats, jet skis and wake boarders were out in force, but after navigating the waves and wakes we stopped for a last pitch at a dock within a few hundred yards of home.  Bingo!  I hooked and landed a striper on the second cast and Jamie pulled two out on his flies.  A nice noon capper for a very pleasant morning of perching.  Cold beverages and subs added to the satisfaction.