Maryland March Fishing thus Far

[Johnsfolly]

So this weekend we were hit with a bad storm yesterday, high winds, rain then sleet, then blinding snow, then back to high winds. Today it's clear but still cold and until about an hour ago windy again. We just hunkered down and did little. I went through some photos from last weekend and early this week to post a fishing report. I took off Monday and Tuesday and had plans to fish a few spots since the weather was decent. 

The first trip was to piggyback a birding trip with fishing. Livie and Sue got me a pair of nice Nikon binoculars and gave them to me Friday night knwoing that I would want to take them with us on Saturday. They were and are great and we used them a lot already. Prior to this first trip, I have been talking with a couple of guys here in MD that have collected different sculpins around the state. Having never caught a sculpin in MD so far, I found some locations based off of their information and one spot was about 8 miles up the road from the birding location. Livie and I donned waders and got into the stream to dip baits around any boulders and structure that could hold sculpin. I did not have my polarized sunglasses so I had to decide to either stick with water I could see bottom or to fish by feel. After 10 to 15 mins, I put my bait into a hole made up of a log and two boulders. I didn't have to worry about seeing the bite since it hit it hard and I had my first ever blue ridge sculpin in hand and in the bag.

Livie tried that same spot and a few others in that first pool and then along the rocky bank, but nothing. We didn't even see other fish. We decided to hit the rocks at the tail of another pool. I found an eastern blacknose dace and got it to bite, none of the photos were any good. Livie got a bite from a similar setup as I had upstream. However, she failed to set the hook. She put the bait again near that same hole and we both saw the sculpin come out and take the bait. So in 35 mins we had caught only three fish, but we both caught lifer sculpins 😁!

Later that afternoon I fished a mountain creek and only caught more eastern blacknose dace. 

Monday we pond fished. We went to the pond near us that usually has decent crappie and bluegill. We fish it now since later in the year it is covered with lilies and practically unfishable.

We were fishing trout magnets under a float. I had on a pink headed jig with a green body with a black back. Livie had a silver jig head with a white and chartreuse body. We started at a spot near the parking lot where we normally get bigger crappie. The drill is pretty simple, cast out near the weed edge and give the bait a coule of short pulls and let it sit, then repeat until you catch one or get to a spot of unproductive water. I caught a few bluegill at this spot but Livie didn't catch any.

She went to our next spot and lost a crappie right at the bank. I caught one more bluegill and joined her.

She switched to a piece of worm on the jigs and caught a couple bluegill and a fiesty little bass, but only when she put the bait within the lily field.

I caught a couple more bluegill and a decent golden shiner before the rain came and we left. We didn't get out one more time like I had hoped but all in all we had fun fishing my long weekend.

Can't wait until we have less dramatic weather changes to be able to get back out again!

 

[Quillback]

That dramatic weather moves from west to east.  It has been crazy around here.  

[Johnsfolly]

26 minutes ago, Quillback said:

That dramatic weather moves from west to east.  It has been crazy around here.  

Seems like we are about a day to a day in an half of what is going on in the midwest. Because of the buffering from the bay we don't get as harsh a time than you guys might.

[FishnDave]

That's a nice Golden Shiner! 👍

I flyfished 3 places yesterday.  Caught @ 8 nice Bluegills at the first place.  2nd and 3rd spots, I didn't see or catch anything.

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, FishnDave said:

That's a nice Golden Shiner! 👍

I flyfished 3 places yesterday.  Caught @ 8 nice Bluegills at the first place.  2nd and 3rd spots, I didn't see or catch anything.

Thanks Dave. We got skunked on crappie which was our target. I'm hoping that someone hasn't done a good job at cleaning them out from this small pond.

[Johnsfolly]

Humbled again but this time in Delaware. Saturday we headed to Delaware to fish a spot on the upper Delaware Bay/lower DE river. There have been reports of white perch and we wanted some for dinner. We hadn't renewed our DE licenses yet but had planned on a stop at a local sporting good store we had goggled on the way. We get to the store and it was vintage 1950's with moth eaten taxidermy, old wooden shelves, shotguns, ammo, local notifications, etc. My kind of store🙂. After browsing we asked if they sold fishing licenses. Nope! you have to go to the hardware store about a mile away. Its a great hardware store and they have a decent fishing section. Got directions and headed to this great hardware store. They did have a decent fishing section with a variety of gear from heavy boat rods to trout rods and lures to match. They had the largest spinning reel that I have ever seen. Can we get fishing licenses? Nope! the system has been down all day. Try Walmart about 4 miles away. Now I do frequently go to Walmart to get non-resident fishing licenses. Most of the time is spent trying to find someone that can process the request and sometimes that can be A LOT of time. So with trepidation we went to the fishing counter at the Walmart (we saw a "romance store" on the way called Bendover 🤔). There was a guy in the fishing section and he attended to our license request immediately😁. While there I picked up a kid's fishing rod for my granddaughter, but that's another story.

I hadn't checked the tide and felt like the fishing may be a crapshoot. We finally got to the Woodland Beach fishing pier. Folks were fishing, but while getting our rods rigged up, did not see any action. There was a 15 to 20 mph wind with heavy gusts at times. We were in the middle of a falling tide. We only heard about one guy that caught five perch at high tide and only one or two more caught by anyone. We fished anyway. I missed on the three bites that I had. Livie did catch one perch. Not enough for a meal and it went back, but enough to get the stink off of the trip. 

We left soon after and found a great market in New Castle DE that we are definitely going to get back there again.

It was not a "successful" fishing trip per se, but we now have our licenses and have rods rigged for pier fishing in the future 😉.

[BilletHead]

4 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

Humbled again but this time in Delaware. Saturday we headed to Delaware to fish a spot on the upper Delaware Bay/lower DE river. There have been reports of white perch and we wanted some for dinner. We hadn't renewed our DE licenses yet but had planned on a stop at a local sporting good store we had goggled on the way. We get to the store and it was vintage 1950's with moth eaten taxidermy, old wooden shelves, shotguns, ammo, local notifications, etc. My kind of store🙂. After browsing we asked if they sold fishing licenses. Nope! you have to go to the hardware store about a mile away. Its a great hardware store and they have a decent fishing section. Got directions and headed to this great hardware store. They did have a decent fishing section with a variety of gear from heavy boat rods to trout rods and lures to match. They had the largest spinning reel that I have ever seen. Can we get fishing licenses? Nope! the system has been down all day. Try Walmart about 4 miles away. Now I do frequently go to Walmart to get non-resident fishing licenses. Most of the time is spent trying to find someone that can process the request and sometimes that can be A LOT of time. So with trepidation we went to the fishing counter at the Walmart (we saw a "romance store" on the way called Bendover 🤔). There was a guy in the fishing section and he attended to our license request immediately😁. While there I picked up a kid's fishing rod for my granddaughter, but that's another story.

I hadn't checked the tide and felt like the fishing may be a crapshoot. We finally got to the Woodland Beach fishing pier. Folks were fishing, but while getting our rods rigged up, did not see any action. There was a 15 to 20 mph wind with heavy gusts at times. We were in the middle of a falling tide. We only heard about one guy that caught five perch at high tide and only one or two more caught by anyone. We fished anyway. I missed on the three bites that I had. Livie did catch one perch. Not enough for a meal and it went back, but enough to get the stink off of the trip. 

We left soon after and found a great market in New Castle DE that we are definitely going to get back there again.

It was not a "successful" fishing trip per se, but we now have our licenses and have rods rigged for pier fishing in the future 😉.

          You know John we have had the go here, go there and over there too finding a license vendor. Anymore we just do it by phone or computer. Easy peasy. 

[Johnsfolly]

5 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

          You know John we have had the go here, go there and over there too finding a license vendor. Anymore we just do it by phone or computer. Easy peasy. 

I do buy a lot on line. Lately we usually have 4 to 6 different licenses in a year. Since Livie doe not have a driver's license, some online state sites won't let her get beyond needing that ID number. So getting it in person usually takes care of that issue.

[Quillback]

I recently saw or read something about snakehead fishing in that area and they mentioned some places on the eastern shore that were pretty good fishing for them, dang it wish I could remember where I saw it.  Anyway it sounded like they might be worth chasing and provide some good eating material.

[Johnsfolly]

12 minutes ago, Quillback said:

I recently saw or read something about snakehead fishing in that area and they mentioned some places on the eastern shore that were pretty good fishing for them, dang it wish I could remember where I saw it.  Anyway it sounded like they might be worth chasing and provide some good eating material.

They are getting into most if not all river systems that empty into the Chesapeake bay and Delaware bay. I have fished for them and have had some success down near the Blackwater area which is the most talked about area for snakeheads. (photo for Pete).

This was from bank fishing a small tidal creek that I caught a few years ago. Since that time that area has had a tremendous increase in pressure from the banks and from kayak fisherpeople. Now for that area seems like a kayak is needed to get into the back water areas to find these guys. The creek and small lake that we typically fish now has a population of snakeheads that is not as pressured. Livie was fishing the lake with a frog last evening for snakeheads. She had a couple of blow-ups but no hook ups, maybe bass or pickerel or snakehead. Going to be a big push to get her one or more now that she has her own rod to target larger fish. We have eaten them and they are a great eating fish.