Maryland March Fishing thus Far

[Quillback]

I remember that Blackwater being mentioned and the article said pretty much what you are saying - to get to the good snakehead fishing you needed a kayak.  Didn't realize fishing for them had gotten popular, but makes sense, they fight hard and are good eating.

[Johnsfolly]

24 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Didn't realize fishing for them had gotten popular, but makes sense, they fight hard and are good eating.

The state does not want you to release them alive after landing them. However, seems like a lot of guys are trying to develop a trophy fishing program and do release them or protect them. I don't have a quick link to the report, but the data suggest that the populations of game fish and panfish have declined up to 90% over the last decade in areas where snakehead occur. Only fish like carp and catfish seem to show no signs of effects by snakeheads. 

[Quillback]

That's interesting that people are releasing them.  Hopefully over time the other species will adjust to them and won't be such easy prey, because it doesn't sound like the snakeheads are going away or can be exterminated.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I believe they walk on land and can survive out of water for a long time??  Am I thinking about the right species @Johnsfolly?

[Johnsfolly]

2 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

I believe they walk on land and can survive out of water for a long time??  Am I thinking about the right species @Johnsfolly?

That's what is said about them.

[Johnsfolly]

A little late on this post - occurred last Sunday and Tuesday. With a poor perch performance in Delaware we fished a local creek that gets a decent spawning run of white perch this time of year (photo from a previous trip).

We still had a lot of bloodworms and at $14 a bag we were going to use them 😉. Fished high low two hook rigs with a 1 to 2 oz sinker. Over the years we found a hole upstream of where all the other folks fish. This hole always has some fish holidng in it and I rarely see anyone fishing it. Livie got on the board first since her baits were right in the honey hole. It was  fat 8.5 inch perch and it went into the cooler. We normally see many 8 to 10 inch white perch from this creek and those were the ones headed for home. Livie followed up that catch and another and another before I caught and released my first perch of the day. After about 8 fih from the hole her bite died down and dad caught up. At the end of a couple of hours the tide had fallen off a bunch and effected the overall bite. We decided to head home. Livie had an even dozen and kept four and I had 10 perch kept three, also two mummichogs, and a satinfin shiner.

For @snagged in outlet 3 here is Livie with the only double perch hook up for the day🙂.

 

I took an hour off on Tuesday and we headed upstream on the same creek but up near the lake and spillway. Livie had a frog tied on her rod and was trying for snakehead in the lake. I was fishing trout magnets under a float using a green/black body. Just trying for some panfish while she chucked the frog. Livie had a couple of blowups on the frog but no hooksets 😒. At the lake I only caught one small largemouth bass.

Livie tried the lake on the other side of the spillway and I tried the trout magnet below the spillway and got nothing. I tried a 3 inch swimbait and had something hitting the tail. Switched out the trout magnet body and put on a green pumpkin crappie slider with a chartruese paddle tail. Caught three nice redbreast sunfish.

We then went down below the spillway and fished the hole above this fallen tree.

I caught a few bluegill including this guy on the slider.

Livie was having a tough time. So we went over to the other bank to try for more redbreast and possibly fallfish. We switched to redworms on the trout magnet jig heads. Caught a bunch of bluegill and redbreast in the pool area. Shifted down stream to fish the faster water where I typically get into fallfish. It didn't take long and I landed my first and smallest fallfish of the evening. These guys are related to creek chub and bigger ones often fight much better than trout at least oz for oz.

Livie and I both caught fallfish from about 7 to 10 inches.

With the sun going down didn't stop to take photos before a quick release and another cast. I watched my float drift the riffles and then into the pool head and it disappeared. I set the hook and thought that I had on a giant fallfish for this creek. Turned out to be one of the holdover stocker trout. The disappointment was short lived since this was the first trout of the year for me, but I haven't targetted them at all.

 

[Quillback]

Nice bluegill, getting close to the time I like to fish for them here.  I'm ready for some fried gill fillets!

[Johnsfolly]

6 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Nice bluegill, getting close to the time I like to fish for them here.  I'm ready for some fried gill fillets!

We get a good bluegill bite in the lake and used to get a great redear bite. The weeds have taken over some of the better spots. Our redear catch numbers dropped last 2 years. Though we were in FL during the best time of the spawn for the redears last spring. We need to find this year where they are bedding under these new circumstances.

[Quillback]

Love redears, some nice ones come out of the Bella Vista lakes, but they aren't nearly as abundant as the gills.  

[Johnsfolly]

2 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Love redears, some nice ones come out of the Bella Vista lakes, but they aren't nearly as abundant as the gills.  

Ours don't approach the size of the ones that you and Ham caught previously.