Maryland Rockfishing

Fishing on my Friends boat “Prime Time”?? We got extremely lucky to find a pod of hungry??Rockfish and every rod had a fish. My friend just installed autopilot on the boat just in time. He engaged the autopilot and grabbed a rod himself.?? We had 5 people on the boat and everybody had a job for the next 5 minutes.

I managed to?? land a trip with my friend and my brother on a charter out of Solomons Island ??called Miss Suzsie captianed by Gregory Buckner. He has a reputation knowing where and how to catch Rockfish. The boat left the dock at 5:30 am and we finished around 12:30 pm with a limit of rockfish.?? Thanks Greg for a good time on the water on Easter Sunday !!!

Here is the Catch !!

Another Picture of the Big Fish 47 and 1/2 inches 40 Lbs !!!!

Rockfishing??Season opened on April 16, 2011 to a very windy rainy day. I decided to keep my boat down in Solomons Island until May 15.?? My trip from my home port of Joppa to South of the Bay Bridge will take a little over 1 hour of time. At Solomons I can have lines in the water in as little as 20 minutes. Also the gas we would burn running 40 miles south is helps on the wallet also. unfortunately the following week was plagued by windy days and small craft advisories. I am not a fair weather fisherman but I do like to enjoy myself and not feel like I have just fought a 10 round fight.

Our first lines were in the water Saturday around 4 pm. I spoke to some of the locals in Solomons and most are fishing a little north near the Gas Docks. It was actually very calm for a “Small Craft Advisory” rolling 2 foot waves not too much of a problem. We finally boated a 32 rockfish around 7pm. Since this was the first fish of the year we released it. Hopefully luck will be on our side.

Solomon trip was a little rocky at first. The forecast was high winds with a small craft until midday. We left the dock around 6 am to meet??building bay chop. The waves built till around the forecasted 3 foot mark and our boat was pounded. Tim the captain wanted to run south but quickly changed his mind once the boat was launched a couple of times off the 3 foot crest.

We started fishing a 27 rod pattern with 150 foot planer boards on each side of the boat. I personally think this is overkill but Tim’s pattern catches fish and he is not changing it. We trolled around for a couple of hours with no bites till the wind started to subside and the bay began to lay down. I was 3 inline out of 6 person charter. I caught a 33 inch fish.

Here is the prize!! I was the last person to catch a fish on this day, so the total fish we caught was 3.

Still not fished out from Sunday. My friend Brian called Tuesday AM he has a spot open on his boat for an 11 AM fishing trip. I checked the weather and wind reports everything was perfect. So I jumped into my car and motored over. The boat ride out to the fishing grounds was perfect, flat as glass, I was a little cold because I elected to were shorts without my trusty sweat pants backup.

We started trolling around Love point. Surprisingly, I counted at least 10 boats out with a few commercial charters on the water too. I thought this must be the spot.?? My friend???s boat can troll 6 rods all on planers boards.?? We trolled for about 2 hours without a bite not even a knockdown.?? Everybody wanted to try a new spot.?? We picked up the gear and headed south to Manapeake. Conditions south of the bridge were a little different. We had a 1 to 2 foot chop steady 15 knot wind. I set the trolling gear back in the water and waited for some action. Forty minutes pass and I hear the sound of the plainer clip releasing and drag peeling off the reel, We have one ???Tight???.

This was??the only fish for the day no skunk on this boat.

Once again the rock fishing opens. Unfortunately the high winds kept??my boat??off the bay on Saturday.?? The reports I received on Saturday had wave heights between 4 to 6 feet.??

Sunday’s wind report was better but I knew I was going to get beat up. ??I did fish Sunday with luck. My boat returned to port with two keepers.

I started fishing just south of the Bay Bridge around Manapeake . We trolled a 9 rod pattern with my outriggers set up instead of planer board because of the waves.?? Our farthest lure was a spoon directly behind the boat around 200 feet. Next were the long riggers around 150 feet both with tandem parachutes white?? or chartreuse. ??Next two ??were the closest ??rigger lines ??about 120 feet?? with?? umbrella rigs?? white and chartreuse.?? The next two were boat rods about 80 to 100 feet tandem ??lures?? white with a purple ??shad and a chartreuse. ??The two last boat rods were heavy mojo lures about 60 feet.

Our first fish hit the short rigger white umbrella?? rig around 10:30 am. Our position was between the moored ??freighters. The fish was about 33 inches.

The last fish hit a chartreuse tandem rig around Manapeake. It was also around the 33 inch mark.

Overall a great day on the bay ??if you take the wind and the waves away. The boat traffic was not a real problem too. Although the ride to port was another story very rough ??and almost unbearable at times.

Keep fishing!!!

Jim G