Father's Day Fishing 2024

[Johnsfolly]

We had a great weather weekend. One of not so many this year. I took my daughter fishing. We drove to an island area where the Chesapeake is a bit more salty. I had fought and ultimately lost a decent cownose ray at this spot last year. I was hoping to tangle with one again on this trip, albeit with different result 😉

On the way down we pass several shallow brackish water flats and grass that are always loaded with minnows, mainly mummichogs and sheepshead minnows. There are also quite a few fiddler crabs. We hadn't caught any sheepshead minnows yet this year and stopped to catch a couple in a series of pools that get close to the road. Though they were spooky and the mummichogs were much more committed to taking the bait, we both did catch a couple of fat female sheepshead minnows using tanago hooks with tiny pieces of bloodworm. No photos so maybe we didn''t catch them 🤣 

We continued down to the spot that I wanted to fish. I dropped Livie to recon a spot that we like to fish in this area near several rock jetties. I left her with the tanago rod just in case. She saw some promising fish and I decided to park and fish there a bit as well. She was seeing very thin and small fish, maybe 1.5 to 2 inches in length. They were swimming along in the floating grass. I thought that they looked a lot like the cobia that I caught last year down in VA. Those fish were also swimming in the floating grass. Should have brought a net. Maybe next time. 

We fished a #20 on a dropper above a 1/4 bell sinker on one rod and the tanago on the other rod. We both caught our first spot, atlantic silversides and striped blennies for the year. 

I did catch only my second striped killifish ever. I caught my first in this same location two year's ago. We could not get Livie one which would have been a lifer for her😒.

We did ultimately make it to the spot that I was hoping for a ray. Fished a whole juvenile spot on th 8 ft surf rod and shrimp on our 7 ft rod, but was a no go on the rays. I did catch a few larger spot and this one croaker.

All in all an enjoyable day. No lifers but enough variety to keep us happy. I hope that other fathers on the Forum had great Father's days as well.

 

[bfishn]

Man, that's a lunker silversides (compared to inland). 🙂

[FishnDave]

That Blenny is COOL! 👍

[Johnsfolly]

2 hours ago, FishnDave said:

That Blenny is COOL! 👍

Livie has been catching all the nice male blennies lately. I caught the drab female🤔