First Fish of 2016

Yesterday, an old fishing friend, Ron "One Fish" texted to ask me if I might go out with him, and a friend Bill, on Bill's boat, out of Buzz's Marina today around 10 AM. It was cool, in the low 40s when we met at Buzz's, and pretty still.

It turned out we were going to trailer the boat to Pt. Lookout State Park at the end of the Potomac River, and launch it there, to replace a long and expensive run over water for a shorter drive in the truck and a shorter ride over the Bay. The weather, however stayed about the same.








We found fish right off, accompanied by a few diving birds (gulls and gannets).  We caught a bunch of small fish there (and one decent), but went looking for better fish further out near the channel.  Under a few birds idly sitting on the water, we found a mother load of fish.

Initially, the bite was slow as we arrived near slack water, but it picked up as the current picked up. The majority of the fish in this lot was 24 inches or better, some well into the 30 inches. Of course, it's not a season in which we can keep fish, so we didn't really stop to measure. I caught this fish, like all the fish I caught today, on a "heavy metal" Diamond Jig, twitched near the bottom

Ron with a good one he caught with a 7 inch Bass Assassin and a 1.5 ounce jig head.

And finally (but not really) Bill with a good one. Honestly, I don't know if this was on metal or rubber; he switched off and caught fish on both.