If the Fish Won't Bite. . .

. . .Snag 'em in the ass.

I snagged a walk-on trip with Walleye Pete out of Solomons Island this morning with Trevor, Tom, Kenny and Josh. Fishing having been poor in the Eastern Shore Islands recently, Pete elected to go north.

Sunrise almost makes getting up at 3:30 AM worth it.

We hit the old familiar "Location X" on the way up, and caught a few fish there. Trevor and Tom mug for the camera.

We then headed across the way to the remains of James Island, much diminished from the last time I walked on it, and fished where I have trod before, in a gap that used to be above water. One blow up on top water lure was all we got there

 From there we headed further north to Sharps Island Light, an abandoned light house where there use to be an island thought to be the inspiration for Jame Michener's disappearing Devon Island in "Chesapeake"

We had a couple of fish there, but no real masses.

Plan D was to go out to the deeper waters on the western shore, and look near schools of Menhaden, and find Striped Bass feeding around them, which had worked yesterday for Pete.

This worked to some extent. A few pods had a few stripers, but eventually we found a large mass of them stacked from top to bottom. Unfortunately, they weren't very hungry, and we only caught a few. Using a snagged Menhaden as live bait brought one big fish to the surface. My butt snagged fish was one of the only legal fish caught there.

 Eventually we lost these fish and couldn't find them again, and headed for home, past "Location X" and the Gas Docks. In this photo, watermen work a pound net, with Dominion's natural gas storage tanks in the back ground

Through Solomons Island harbor, full of millions of dollars worth of boats.










Coasties on patrol.