"Tho' much is taken, much abides ..."
Tennyson's "Ulysses"
It was an autumn trip in the autumn of life.
Chuck Thompson invited me recently to try for stripers on Chesapeake Bay. As we launched his Everglades 243 from Sandy Point around 11 in the morning, Chuck suggested we head north toward the "upper bay lumps" to try to catch the last of the moving tide. That was fine with me.
This area north of the Bay Bridge includes such structures as "The Lumps," "Tea Table" or "Teakettle Shoals," "Gales Lumps" and "Belvidere Shoals," and some bay charts further list "Man O' War Shoals," "Seven-Foot Knoll" and "Nine-Foot Knoll" as well as "Brewerton Shipping Channel" and "Craighill Channel." These waters have long been a fall and winter favorite for me with abundant white perch and good numbers of legal-sized stripers.
As we moved through the unexpected chop we scanned the horizon for bird activity and monitored the depth finder, which documented the uneven bottom and scattered schools of baitfish. Chuck stopped several times to glass the horizon. Finally we saw a small group of gulls diving on bait.
We quietly moved in and started casting. We both used medium spinning tackle and kept switching lures. Chuck opted for small jigheads and kept changing the plastics attached. I used a ¾-ounce Li'l Bunker jigging spoon. We both tried swimming and deep jigging our lures with the latter technique proving far more productive. Throughout the day we both tried other lures but kept coming back to our original choices with the spoon being the consistently hot lure.
We took white perch steadily at every spot, with the jigging spoon. Though there was a range of sizes about a quarter were over eight inches and a good number were over 10 inches. Mixed in were lesser numbers of stripers, mostly about 10 to 12 inches. The blitzes were brief; usually after a half-dozen fish between us action ceased, and the birds moved on.
But soon our feathered fish finders popped up nearby, and we motored over for a repeat. We considered moving south of the bridge and looking for bigger quarry, but we didn't for several reasons. First, Chuck had done this the week prior, motoring over 80 miles, only to return to the best action on the upper bay lumps. Second, the bird action was becoming more frequent as the tide again began moving, and the stripers were getting bigger, many in the 12 to 16-inch range (keeper "pan rock" in the old days).
More importantly, as this stage in our lives, Chuck and I were content with the simple pleasures of the constant action. Chuck had barely survived a heart attack the year before, and I was on a boat for the first time after my second knee replacement surgery 10 weeks prior. Steadily catching and releasing white perch and small stripers was good enough and sure beat chasing all over the choppy Chesapeake.
Meanwhile, Chuck's wife Paula had charged him with bringing home some fish, and Chuck kept debating keeping some of those big and tasty white perch.
But then after about four hours of this action, the Chesapeake rewarded our patience and gratitude (or sloth). I switched to a horsehead spinner jig and plastic and on the first cast something grabbed it and began taking drag as soon as it touched down. It turned out to be a 25-inch striper, enough for the requested meal, and it was deposited in the fish box. Meanwhile Chuck noticed some serious big fish indicators on the depth finder.
Then Chuck cast and something really began taking drag. After a prolonged and spirited fight, Chuck got it to boatside, where it was clear this striper was far too big for our net. Somehow Chuck bent over the gunwhale and manhandled the fish into the boat. This striper measured 35 inches and joined mine in the fish box. (According to the charts, stripers those lengths on average weighed eight and 18 pounds respectively.)
As fast as it developed the action ceased. There were no breaking fish, nothing on the depth finder and the birds vanished. We motored around searching for about 20 minutes, pondered again going south of the bridge, then decided to count our blessing and leisurely return to Sandy Point and drive back to Westminster in the gathering dusk.
This area ought to fish well for at least the next six weeks. It's an opportunity to catch a mess of good-eating white perch, and, as happened with us, of taking some "schoolie" and bigger stripers.
Our choices of lures and techniques weren't casual. Guide, Richie Gaines, recommended that Li'l Bunker spoon to me as an effective imitation of favorite striper foods silversides and peanut bunker. It is small enough to attract sizable white perch and stripers, and its 1/0 hook discourages the runts. Chuck's range of sizes with jigs also allowed him to match different sizes of baits. The horsehead jig with its spinner blade on the "chin" has also been a star performer over the years.
Both this lure and the spoon draw strikes on the drop as well as when jigged, retrieved with a swimming action or even trolled.
I tried the smaller Smack It popper with the belly treble removed and watched stripers bat it around before finally getting hooked but removed it after a few fish, since the treble hook was causing some injuries. But when bigger fish are around the small and larger Smack It are big fish magnets, and I always have one rigged. Likewise when deep jigging for bigger fish in deeper waters a Stingsilver is hard to beat.
Maybe we old guys are onto something.
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