Fishin' with Rick

Rick, Jr.	Rick (Rich), Sr. June 25, 1925 - January 2, 2002 We miss ya', Dad.	Rick (Ricky), III
Return to Rick's Home page Fishin' Links Fishin' Log I stopped keeping my logs on the website but started adding them occasionally on my Facebook Page. Here are my older fishing logs: 2005 Fishing Log 2004 Fishing Log 2003 Fishing Log 2002 Fishing Log 2001 Fishing Log( 2000 Fishing Log (58 trips) 1999 Fishing Log(83 trips!)_ 1998 Fishing Log (109 trips!) 1975 Fishing Log 1973 Fishing Log coming soon 1972 Fishing Log 1971 Fishing Log 1970 Fishing Log 1969 Fishing Log (slim pickin's) 1968 Fishing Log (46 trips!) 1967 Fishing Log( 111 trips!) 1966 Fishing Log(67 trips!)	In the good 'ol days it was just dad and me. We have the same name but everyone called dad 'Rich' and they called me Ricky. That worked well although I preferred Rick to Ricky. Dad seemed to be Rich all along and that was ok with him. Now things got a little complicated about 18 years ago when another Rick came along. My son is 'Rick' also although we tried calling him 'Ricky' but he didn't like that any more than I do. So the point of all this is that Rick could be just about anyone, but when it comes to fishin' Rick means me and the other two Ricks. Confused? Rick is a genuine fish'n nut. One of the many benefits of being part of a Ricksom is that our collection of Fishing in Maryland Awards are all in the name -- Richard Holt. "Hmm! I wonder which Rick caught that 5 lb. 2 oz pickerel?"  My dad and I actually have a few of those award citations for which we haven't a clue who actually caught the fish! Must have been me. 8-) My son, Rick, started his collection of Award Citations this summer with a big White Perch he caught. Had it made out to Rick Holt III, sneaky little guy! My favorite fishing is for Chain Pickerel in the tidewater of the upper Chesapeake. Click here for some pickerel fishing tips.

Fishing Log 1998

Most Recent entries are on top:
(go to the bottom for ancient history)

Date:12/20/98
Time: 4:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 50 degrees, glassy calm
Tide: Incoming, High due about 8 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Extremely low water level all day. Only about 18" of water at the end of the peri
Fish Caught: Nothing

Ricky and Bryan fished the pier this evening for a short time. They bottom fished from the end of the pier with minnows. That was really the only possibility since you could see bottom from anywhere you stood on the pier. Besides there being an extremely low water level all day, the water was crystal clear and calm as glass. Ricky said he had one nibble, but had nothing to show for it. They get an A for effort.

Date:12/15/98
Time: 4:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45 degrees, onshore breeze gave the water a slight chop and chilled the air
Tide: Incoming, High due about 4:45 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: High water level almost to pier stringers, a little cloudier water than the 13th due to wave action
Fish Caught: One nice Yellow Perch

We broke the December skunk! The pier had us skunked so far this month, but Ricky broke the skunk with his perch today. We fished minnows on jig under bobbers, but the one line he fished with a plain hook (no jig) was the one that caught the fish. As the sun set it got chilly, but it was fun knowing we'd caught a fish there in December. This year we have caught fish from the pier every month except January/February, and we missed that by one day with a fish on March 1st.

Date:12/13/98
Time: 3:15 pm - 4:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45 degrees, glassy calm
Tide: Outgoing/slack, high about 3:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Medium water level, but very clear, could see grass on bottom at the stepdown
Fish Caught: Nothing, but we each had one good bite on a bobber rig

We gave the pier a try this afternoon. The last couple trips to the pier didn't get reported because they were so brief and unproductive. The last couple times we fished we had no action here. We each fished two lines with bobbers and minnows. We experimented with depths and locations, but only had two bites and missed both of them. We haven't caught a fish from the pier since mid-November, but that doesn't stop us from trying!

Date:12/12/98
Time:9 am - Noon
Location: Magothy River, Cornfield Creek
Weather: 48 degrees, cloudy, wind 0-15 W
Tide: low about 7:45 am, fished the incoming tide
Water Temp/Conditions: Water temp 48 degrees. Very clear, could see bottom in 3 ft of water
Fish Caught: 3 pickerel ( 16" - 18"), 10 yellow perch ( several over 10"), all fish released.

The air and water temps were 48 degrees. Brrrr! The wind started calm but picked up as the morning progressed. Father and son fished our favorite haunts in Cornfield Creek. We didn't see any other fisherman in the creek today.  Fished over grass with minnows under bobbers. Some lines with jigs and others with plain hooks. We had plenty of action, but the fish were finicky today and we missed more than we caught. The action was enough to keep us warm on this rather cold morning. We returned to the pier about noon for a hot chocolate and called it a day.

Date:12/5//98
Time:11 am - 5 pm
Location: Magothy River, Cornfield Creek
Weather: 70 degrees, Partly cloudy and later sunny,calm.
Tide: low about 1:30 pm, most of the fish caught on the incoming tide
Water Temp/Conditions: Very clear, could see bottom in 3 ft of water
Fish Caught: 9 pickerel (16" -21 1/2"), 16 yellow perch (9" - 11 1/2"), one white perch, all fish released today.

Father and son fished the creek today. Originally we had planned on heading up river and hitting a few of the creeks we seldom visit, but we decided to try a little closer to home before heading out. We never got any farther than Cornfield Creek. We fished some of our favorite haunts, anchoring just off the remnants of grass beds,  fishing small jigs with minnows, and catching plenty of fish.

The fish seemed to go for the slow approach today. We had the most success dangling those jigs under a small bobber. The hot spot today was James Pond, a shallow cove that is about 6' at it's deepest and filled with grass. Eight of the pike and a dozen or so of the perch were caught there. If you venture in, watch the shallow entrance. Go between the two pilings staying close to the one on the right and head straight for the boathouse.

We finished the day in the twilight along the eastern edge of Holland Point where we nailed a beauty of a 21" pike and one whopper yellow perch. Several of the yellow perch today were over 10" and one was just a hair under a foot long. There is not a more beautiful fish than a fat sassy yellow perch. And there is no more beautiful fishin' weather than what we experienced today. What a great day!

Date:11/28//98
Time: 9:30 am - 3:30 pm
Location: Magothy River, Cornfield Creek
Weather: 65 degrees, sunny, light winds.
Tide: Incoming, high due about 2 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: could see bottom in 3 ft of water
Fish Caught: 1 pickerel (21"), a dozen or so yellow perch and white perch, all released.

Father, son and nephew Bryan fished Cornfield Creek today from the boat ramp up to the Gibson Island Harbor. We had a fair amount of action from perch, but couldn't seem to wake up the pickerel today. Bryan caught our only pike, a beauty of a 21 incher in James Pond. We also caught some really nice size white perch there. Most places we stopped we managed to connect with a yellow perch or two. Almost all fish were caught on small horsehead jigs tipped with minnow.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day on the water. We tucked ourselves in various coves and shoreline to avoid the light winds that were blowing so most of the day we were fishing dead calm water. Blue skies and shirt-sleeve temps made this a banner day. All fish released today.

Date:11/22//98
Time: 10 am - 2:30 pm
Location: Magothy River, Cornfield Creek
Weather: 55 degrees, sunny, light and variable winds.
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 2 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: 50 degree water temp at the pier, extremely low water level
Fish Caught: 6 pickerel from 14" - 22", 6 yellow perch including one of close to 12", all fish released unharmed.

Father and son fished Cornfield Creek today. The tide was near high when we started but the water level was lower than an average low tide. We almost couldn't get the boat off the lift to start. We fished over grass in 3-6' of water along the inside of Holland Pt. and on a natural shoreline on the N. side of the creeek across from the boat ramp. We fished two lines with bobbers and minnows (2 minnows on plain hooks on a spreader.)  and we took turns casting with a third line using a Mepps Spinner with red/yellow/green blade and yellow tail. Both techniques caught fish. The largest pickerel was caught on a bobber rig. All fish released. When we returned to the pier the water level was so low we could not get the boat on the lift.

Date:11/20//98
Time: 6:00pm - 6:30  pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 50 degrees, almost calm, steady drizzle
Tide: Incoming, High due at about 8:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Pitch dark, no moon, high water level
Fish Caught: Nothing, but we might have almost got a bite

Ricky insisted he wanted to fish a bit after dinner this evening. It was pitch dark, cold and rainy outside, but he had a plan. He dug thru his tackle box and found a lighted bobber. He turned it on and put a couple of minnows on a spreader below. The neat thing about bobber fishing is that sometimes the bobber does go under. That's what we waited for on this cold rainy night. Ricky tried all his favorite hotspots around the pier, but alas there were no bites tonight.

Date:11/19/98
Time: 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 55 degrees, light onshore breeze
Tide: Incoming, High due at about 7:45 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility was about 18", high water level
Fish Caught: One white perch and one beauty of a yellow perch of about 10"

Father and son fished the pier briefly this evening. The evening started with a tragic discovery. When we pulled the old minnow trap (with the ends plugged) that we used to keep a few minnow in, we found the bottom had rusted out and all the 'minner's escaped. Bummer! I ran back to Fishbone's to resupply and Ricky stayed and cast a jig for a while with one of the ultralights.

We fished three lines with bobbers and spreaders with two minnows under each bobber.   Ricky caught our only two fish. I cast most of the time with a yellow/white maribou tail horsehead jig tipped with minnow. I had two good fish on very briefly, but never saw either one.

Date:11/16/98
Time: 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 55 degrees, light breeze
Tide: Last moments of the incoming tide, High tide due about 5:15
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility was about 18"
Fish Caught: Skunked!

Father and son fished the pier this evening. There was a beautiful red sky at sunset. We had a high water level and just a slight breeze. A great evening for fishing, but terrible for catching. We fished three rods with bobbers and minnows and I cast with a small yellow/white horsehead jig (same lure I caught a stiper on yesterday.) We tried shallow. We tried deep. We even fished from the end of the pier for a while.We had one bobber disapear for a moment just as it started to get dark. That was the only bite of the evening!

Date:11/15/98
Time: 3:30 pm - 5 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees, strong W wind
Tide: Incoming and slack, High was about 4:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility was about 18"
Fish Caught: One 15" striper

I hit the pier alone this evening. I fished two bobber rigs with spreaders.  Two plain hooks with minnows under each bobber. I had no action on those rigs. I also fished my ultralight with a yellow horsehead jig with yellow over white long maribou tail. I tipped it with a minnow and within the first 1/2 hour I had caught my only fish of the evening -- a fiesty 15" striper. The air temperatures where mild, but the brisk wind made it difficult to fish the grass beds on the west side of the pier. There was also a good chop on the water.

Date:11/13/98
Time: For about 1/2 hour just before dark
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45 degrees, onshore breeze (S), chop on the water
Tide: Outgoing, High was about 3 Pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility was about 18"
Fish Caught:One nice size chain pickerel and 2 yellow perch of about 8"

Father and son fished the pier this brisk evening for about a half hour. We fished several rods with minnows under bobbers and I cast for a while with a small black horsehead jig tipped with minnow. All the fish were caught on the bobber rigs. The evening started with a bang when on Ricky's first cast the bobber disappeared as it hit the water. He battled a beauty of a pickerel to the pier, but the line broke when we tried to lift it. Action was slow in the dwindling light, but we landed two small yellow perch before wrapping it up and heading for the warm house.

Date:11/8/98
Time: Mid-afternoon for about an hour
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45 degrees, light breeze, occasional spit of rain
Tide: Outgoing near the low slack tide
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility about 3 ft. We could see what was left of the grass near shore and from the end of the pier we could see some of the light colored shells on the bottom
Fish Caught:2 fat sassy white perch

Father and son fished the pier this afternoon just before the low tide. Water level was very low and the water was clear so we fished from the end of the pier. We fished minnows under bobbers, minnows on the bottom and cast minnows on small jigs. Ricky caught his first fish, a nice perch of almost 10",  on the bottom. His second fish was caught with a grass shrimp under a bobber. I had a couple maybe taps on a horsehead jig with minnow, lost a couple minnows, but didn't catch a thing.

Date:11/7/98
Time: 10 am - 2:30 pm
Location: 19' water off southern edge of Snake Reef, mud bottom
Weather: 45 degrees, Strong West wind, clouds and sun
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 2:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility about 2 ft.
Fish Caught: 3 seatrout 14" to 16 1/2", one 12" croaker,   one 17 1/2" striper, half dozen pan size stripers, several white perch

Father and son fished the bay today in the lee of the western shore on the southern edge of Snake Reef. We marked some fish and set up for chumming. The wind was whipping from the west and the tide was roaring down the bay. The short fetch from the shoreline helped keep the waters from rolling, but we fished with a steady, sometimes fierce, wind at our backs all the while.

The first fish in the boat was a seatrout. We followed that with some small stripers and then I latched onto a striper that was close enough to keeper size that we measured him. Since he was just a bit under 18" we released him. We fished one line with alewife and one with razor clams. Most of the fish were caught on clams. For a couple hours  Ricky fished his second line with a live white perch of about 4". That line never saw any action.

We lost a ton of bait to some very sneaky fish. Since we landed several white perch and some very small stripers we figured it was probably small fish stealing the bait.  We tried adding and removing weight to get to 'the big ones.'  We pulled a couple more nice trout and a whopper of a croaker from the bottom.

About 1:30 the wind really picked up and we drug anchor twice. Ricky managed to get it to bite again pretty quickly, but that pretty much broke our chum line. We persisted for another hour or so, before calling it a day. We hugged the shoreline back to the Magothy and the ride was uneventful, but when we rounded Mountain Point and headed into the West wind we took a pounding. The river was white with foam, and rollers and whitecaps were marching toward the bay.

The water was so low when we got to the pier that we had to wiggle the boat onto the lift. Just as we were leaving the pier to walk to the house the winds calmed as if to laugh at these bone cold anglers....

Date:11/3/98
Time: 5 pm - 5:20 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45 degrees, breezy
Tide: Incoming, high due about 6 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility about 1 ft. The grass is no longer visible, but you can feel it on the retrieve.
Fish Caught: Skunked!

Father and son spent about 15 frigid moments on the pier dunking minnows in various and creative ways.  We failed to connect with anything although I did get a few taps on a horsehead jig tipped with a minnow. We didn't have a minnow net to dip the 'minners' which meant we each had cold fingers from the start.  No action, cold fingers, bagged it when it got dark. Skunked today!

Date:10/28/98
Time:Noon till 3 pm
Location: Chesapeake Bay 22' water off the end of Snake Reef. Mud bottom.
Weather: 60 degrees and sunny. Brisk breeze from the SW. Occasional whitecaps most of the time and during gusty periods there were whitecaps everywhere. Rockin' and rollin'.
Tide:  Started on the incoming tide. Good currents. Currents slacked about 1 pm and were just getting rolling out when I quit.
Water Temp/Conditions: a couple feet visibility
Fish Caught: One 18" striper. Nothing else!

I fished the bay this afternoon. The run to Snake reef was easy with the wind at my back, but I felt it when I anchored. I didn't spend much time looking for fish. Basically I stopped at the first sign of fish  off the end of the reef and set up for chumming since I had only a couple of hours to spend. I was unable to get clams for bait so I fished one line with alewife and on with a glob of bloodworms. In the entire time I fished I only felt two bites. I lost a bloodworm on the first bite in the first half hour..

An hour or so later I notice a flash at the chum pot and looked down to see a nice striper working right at the pot. I dropped the line with a glob of two bloodworms down   right near the pot and wham I was onto a fish. Not much of a fight, but he was a keeper of 18".

At about 2:15 I noticed some gulls working out near the channel and a small boat ran to them and stayed with them. Since I needed to leave soon anyway, I decided to pull up and see if I could catch some of that surface action. It took me about 20 minutes to get the chum pot and lines pulled in and pull the anchor. By that time the action had stopped and the gulls dispersed.  I drifted the area for a while with a bucktail but didn't connect with anything. Turned around and beat my way back into the wind and the Magothy. I definitely needed my foul weather gear for the ride!

Date:10/27/98
Time:5 pm - 5:20 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees, calm
Tide: Low due about 4:45 pm,
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility about 1 ft.
Fish Caught: 1 nice white perch

Father and son fished the pier briefly (20 minutes) before dinner. Almost not action on minnows. I cast a horsehead jig with minnow and didn't get a tap. Ricky got his only fish from the end of the pier fishing a minnow on the bottom on a flourescent orange spinner hook. Water level was fairly low.

Date:10/23/98
Time:8:00 am - 1 pm
Location: Chesapeake Bay 21' water btw. Lower craighill range light and the channel
Weather: 50 deg and light west wind at first. Warmed to about 60 and the wind picked up and was gusting from NW
Tide:  Started on the incoming tide. Currents continued running in well past the 8:45 am high tide. Fished the outgoing currents for only about an hour.
Water Temp/Conditions: a couple feet visibility
Fish Caught: Approximately 24 stripers and 6 white perch released. Stripers ranged from 8" - 17", White perch were all keeper size.

Father and son fished the bay today. It was an easy run out to the lower craighill range light. There were several charter boats anchored nearby when we pulled up. Just about the time we tried to anchor the wind began to pick up and was blowing pretty hard from the West. Our first attempt at anchoring failed when a large wave pulled the anchor. We realized at that point we were probably a bit close to the channel anyway, so we motored west a hundred yards or so and set anchor again. We held that position the rest of the morning in spite of some pretty rough water and major wakes from boats and ships.

Action started pretty quickly. We each fished one line with clam and one with alewife. The clams caught the majority of the fish. All the action was from stripers and white perch. There was only one fish we were tempted to measure, the rest went back without a check. Maybe a half dozen of the fish were in the 15-16" range. Most of the other boats left when the tide went slack and the wind picked up.

The wind really picked up and and started gusting about noon and the tidal currents lanquished right up till we pulled anchor at about 1 pm. No keepers today, but we enjoyed some action from some pretty rockfish. Ironically when we got back to the park about 4 pm it was calm on the bay and all the boats were back out there fishing.

Date:10/20/98
Time:4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees, strong wind from the NW
Tide:Incoming, high due about 8pm, water level was low
Water Temp/Conditions: Cloudy due to the wind and low water level
Fish Caught: 3 nice size white perch, released

My morning chumming trip was cancelled when the power went out in the neighborhood and I couldn't get the boat off the lift. Ricky and I decided to give the pier a try before dinner. The wind was whipping and the water level was very low when we arrived. I had some bloodworms from Fishbone's so we headed for the end of the pier to try a little bottom fishing. Action was very slow. The three perch we caught were very good size, but we hardly had any bites at all for the hour we fished. I cast a jig and minnow for a while and we fished one line near the grass with a minnow under a bobber, but the water was so shallow there you could see the ripples in the sandy bottom next to the grass.

The most fun of the day was when we pulled the minnow trap and found it full of grass shrimp. Ricky dumped them in the minnow bucket and we watched the minnows devour the shrimp. A real feeding frenzy. Not quite like a school of breaking stripers and blues, but heck we were pier bound and had to make do.

Date:10/16/98
Time:4:45 pm - 6 pm with a dinner break
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 65 degrees, pleasant with just a slight breeze
Tide:Outgoing,high was about 5 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: about 1 ft, good water level, enough that the grass was submerged.
Fish Caught: 6 yellow perch, 15 white perch, all released

Father and son fished the pier for a while this evening. Had some nice action on good size perch. Everything we caught today was 'keeper' size. We fished minnows under bobbers and cast the small horesehead jigs tipped with minnows on the edge of the grass. Action was really picking up as the sun went low. Nephew Matt joined us for a while and caught a couple nice perch too.

Date:10/14/98
Time:4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees, brisk W wind
Tide:Outgoing, low due about 9:00 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: about 1 ft, high water level, not to pier stringers, but all grass submerged.
Fish Caught: 3 white perch, one yellow perch, all released

Father and son fished the pier this evening. We had to work for the few fish we caught. All fish were caught on a small horsehead jig, red head with chartuese tail tipped with a minnow. The west wind made fishing some of the best grass edge a bit difficult since it's tough to cast the light jigs into the wind.  Bobbers and minnows were blown about too much by the wind. In any case, it got a little chilly after about an hour of persistently casting that we decided to call it a day.

Date:10/13/98
Time:4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 65 degrees, partly cloudy
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 8 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: about 1 ft, high water level, almost to pier stringers.
Fish Caught: 2 chain pickerel,2 yellow perch, 5 white perch. All were released.

Father and son fished  the pier this evening before dinner. Water level was high and there was an onshore breeze that put a little chop on the water. We fished minnows under bobbers and cast a variety of lures. The bobber rigs produced. But I didn't start connecting with anything on the lures till I dropped down to a tiny horsehead jig and tipped it with a minnow. We caught several fish with that lure till the dinner bell rang. All fish were caught on the edge of the grass.

Date:10/12/98
Time: 9:30 am - 3 pm
Location: 22 ft. of water off the end of Snake Reef and a little further North than yesterday. Just south of Downs Park.
Weather: Breeze from N
Tide: Incoming and slack, High was at about 12:30
Water Temp/Conditions: a couple feet
Fish Caught: Limit of one 19" and one 20" striper, a couple dozen more stripers some of which would have been keepers, two bluefish, 2 white perch.

Returned to the area today and fished alone. I fished the incoming tide this morning and the wind was still blowing from the North so I was basically fishing under the boat most of the morning. Didn't seem to matter. I had action from stripers all morning. Had my limit in the first hour or so with a 19" and 20" striper. Razor clams were the ticket today. All but one striper today hit on clams. But boy can they steal you blind. I continued to fish till I ran out of bait and released several more keeper size fish and a bunch of 'almost' keepers as well as smaller ones. Only caught two blues today. All the action was from stripers.

Date:10/11/98
Time: 11 am - 6 pm
Location: 21 ft. of water off the end of Snake Reef
Weather: Windy from N
Tide: Outgoing, High was at about 11:30 am
Water Temp/Conditions: a couple feet
Fish Caught: 26 " striper, and about a dozen more undersized including some 8-9", about 10 bluefish of 13-14", a couple white perch and a bunch of small croaker and one spot.

Father and son fished the bay today. When we first got to Snake Reef the bay was very rough since the strong N wind was pushing against the incoming tide. We waited it out and after the tide changed things settled down a bit and the boat swung around for a comfortable chumming position. We put one chum pot out with the large mesh bag and in less than an hour the chum was completely gone. I think that bucket of chum was a bit too 'wet' when it was frozen. The next chum bucket went out in a small mesh bag and we ladled chum from a third bucket to keep the fish interested.

Action was basically pretty slow. We had enough action to keep from falling asleep. We tried using some razor clams for bait and found that it got us plenty of hits, but if you didn't manage to hook the fish at the first sign of a nibble you lost your bait every time. We went thru a lot of clams. The clams did attract the attention of the stripers, but most of them were small, some almost tiny.

I got one nice striper(26") on alewife and Ricky had one at the boat that was obviously just under the minimum. He was going to release it when it flipped the hook and disappeared. That one nice fish (my biggest fish ever!) made this a mighty fine fishin' trip.

Date:10/10/98
Time: 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasantly cool , breezy
Tide: Incoming, low was about 4:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: about 2 ft.
Fish Caught: 3 keeper white perch

Father and son fished the pier this evening.  Water level was low and the water was clear so we headed for the end of the pier with the minnow bucket (our first minnows of the fall season). We tried fishing them under a bobber and also casting with shad darts and jigs tipped with minnows. I found I got a few hits if I kept the jig right on the bottom so we rigged our lines with a plain hook and a split-shot and fished them right on the bottom with a very slow retrieve. The few perch we connected with were nice size, but action was very slow

Date:10/7/98
Time: 7am - 2pm
Location: The Diamonds (as best I could tell)
Weather: Windy from SE
Tide: Outgoing. high due about 12:15
Water Temp/Conditions: a couple feet
Fish Caught: 40 keeper stripers and 115 bluefish, 1 flounder (click the pic below for a better view)

Father and son joined our friends with the AACPD DARE program on the charter Bounty Hunter out of Chesapeake Beach. There were 20 of us in the group which was a bit much even for this large boat for a chumming trip. As best I could tell we anchored in about 28 ft of water in the area known as the Diamonds. We were south of Sharps Island light and their were plenty of other boat chumming the same area in spite of the windy conditions.

Action was steady most of the day with lots of bluefish up to 20" or so and an occasional striper. At about the time the tide changed the stripers really turned on! In that last hour or so we caught probably half the 'keepers' for the day. The bite on razor clams was the hottest during this last hour, but alewife did catch them too. As soon as we had our limit we stopped fishing and headed in. Captain Glenn James runs a first-class charter operation. With his son as 'mate' he had us on fish within minutes and was extremely conscientious about releasing stripers unharmed. No stripers that were obviously undersized ever left the water for more than a few seconds.

I won the tournment for the day in the category of largest striper (23 5/8 inch) and largest odd-ball fish ( flounder). One of the ladies on the boat took the largest bluefish title and she walked away with the 'most fish' title too. I helps to be fishing next to the chum pot.8-)

Date:10/3/98
Time: 5:00 - 6:30 pm with a dinner break
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant
Tide: Outgoing. high due about 5:30
Water Temp/Conditions: about 1 ft.
Fish Caught: About 100 white perch, 20 were 'keepers'

Father and son fished the pier casting darts tipped with grass shrimp. We caught a fish or lost bait on almost every cast from practically the same spot on the edge of the grass. We had a bucket on the pier where we tossed the 'keepers.' Although we never kept count I'm sure we tossed back 5 small perch for every 'keeper.' This was some fast fishing!

The grass is thinning a bit, but still reaches the surface on low tide.

Date:9/30/98
Time: 6 - 7:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Onshore breeze
Tide: Outgoing. low due about 8:30 pm, high water level almost to pier stringers
Water Temp/Conditions: Cloudy from onshore breeze, high water level
Fish Caught: About 3 dozen white perch and a fingerling striper. About half of the perch were nice 'keepers'

Father and son fished the pier today after dinner. We picked up some nice bloodworms at Fishbones. Ricky bottom fished with a single hook. I cast a small red/white shad dart tipped with bloodworm. A slow steady retrieve got them today. Even Ricky with his bottom rig did better by slowly retrieving it. I left for about 30 minutes just before dark and left Ricky with a sweet spot near the grass bed where I had pulled in a couple really nice size perch. He moved into that spot when I left and continued to pull in some real nice perch. I returned to pick him up just after dark and made a couple of casts and caught a couple more nice ones. Lots of action today. Good fun! All fish were released.

Date:9/29/98
Time: 6:30 - 7 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant 80
Tide: :  Low was due at about 7:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Water was fairly clear and low, could see bottom in among the grass
Fish Caught: 2 puny perch and a fingerling striper

Father and son fished the pier briefly this evening after dinner. We had a pint of grass shrimp from "Fishbones.". Ricky fished his shrimp under a bobber. I cast a dart tipped with shrimp. Action was slow although you could see schools of minnows and fingerling fish everywhere. The water level was fairly low and that put us on the end of the pier for the little action we found. Gave it up after about a half hour.

Date:9/27/98
Time: 6:30 am - 1:30 pm
Location: 21 ft of water off the end of Snake Reef.
Weather: Warmed up to about 90 and humid, yuck!
Tide: :  Started on a slack tide, fished the incoming tide thru slack and the first part of the outgoing tide.
Water Temp/Conditions: Visibility was at least 2 ft., tidal currents were very weak
Fish Caught: One 18" striper, two 17" stripers, a couple smaller stripers, 16" seatrout, a couple of nice bluefish, a mess of small croaker and spot and one small white perch.

Ricky, Brian and I fished the bay today. Weak tidal currents were the big story today making chumming a little tricky. Thru most of the tidal range our lines sank straight down even with no extra weight. This made it difficult to fish the water column effectively and to experiment to find where the fish might be feeding in the chum slick. We set one pot on the surface with a large mesh and one about 10 ft down with a fine mesh.

We had just enough action to keep from getting bored most of the time. Ricky caught the first nice fish -- a 16" seatrout. This was his first ever 'keeper' trout and he loved it!  We had a brief flurry of action with some bluefish after that and also pulled in a couple of small rock. At one point when the tide seemed to be moving a bit faster than usual for today we had some action from 'almost' keeper stipers. We returned several 17" fish before I landed our only keeper stiper of the day -- exactly 18".

Whenever the action slowed or we needed some more bait one of us would fish with a bottom rig and some bloodworms to catch some croaker and spot. All the croaker and spot were small. We kept the spot for bait since it holds on the hook much better than cut alewife (and smells better too!)

So in the cooler today was one striper and one seatrout. I filleted both and found that I got more meat from the 16" trout than I did from the 18" stiper. Most of the rock this summer have been downright skinny.

Captain Rick and his boat.

Two shady characters holding my fish.

Ricky and his seatrout fresh for the ice chest.

Date:9/22/98
Time: 6:15 pm - 7:15 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant 75, after an afternoon of rain
Tide: :  Incoming, high due about 9pm
Water Temp/Conditions: high water level, almost to bottom of the pier stringers, visibility was about 18"
Fish Caught: 13 nice fat perch and a couple small ones and a small croaker.

Ricky fished for a while after dinner using a white leadhead with a white twister tail and nailed a mess of nice perch. I joined him for about a half hour and we fished till dark. I caught a few perch and a small croaker on the same lure. Most of the fish were holding close to the pier and most of the fish were caught 'jigging.'

Date:9/20/98
Time: 6:30 pm - 6:50 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant 80
Tide: :  Incoming, high due about 8pm
Water Temp/Conditions: high water level, almost to bottom of the pier stringers
Fish Caught: 2 nice fat perch, one puny one.

Ricky fished briefly after dinner this evening casting a tiny white lead head with a white twister tail. Says he had lots of follows and hits and connected with two beauties in the brief time he fished.

Date:9/15/98
Time: 7 am - 11 am
Location: 21 ft of water btw. Snake Reef and the Channel Marker
Weather: Pleasant 80
Tide: : Outgoing, low due about 10:30 am
Water Temp/Conditions: about 3 ft.
Fish Caught: Half dozen nice bluefish, one 20" striper, a large ray and a bunch of small croaker.

Katie, Ricky and I went back out to Snake Reef this morning. The weather called for SW winds of 10 kts. with waves of 1 ft. What we saw were whitecaps coming from the SE on top of rollers coming up the bay that were3 ft tall. What the heck, we headed out anyway. Once we got settled (in pretty much the same area as the last trip I took to this area) we got use to the rockin' and rollin'. The whole morning we only took on water from a wave one time.

We chummed with a new chum bag that had a much bigger mesh. I liked the way it worked much better that the old bag. With the rough water it was a bit uncomfortable, but eventually we caught a few fish. Katie was the first to get one in the boat. She landed a nice bluefish of about 14 1/2 inches. Very shortly after that she hooked into something huge. It just took off and never stopped. Spooled her light spinning rod and snapped the line at the end. Boy, was she excited! About 10 minutes later I hooked and landed a huge ray on a heavy bay rod..

We continued to catch an occasional nice bluefish and I fished with a bottom rig when things got slow and pulled in a few small croaker.The tide was really rippin' down the bay today.  Even with the strong SE wind the boat lay with the outgoing tide rather than the wind. This meant the waves were rolling in on the stern of the boat. About 10 am the tide slowed and the wind grabbed the boat. This made for awkward fishing, but the action picked up briefly before the tide went completely slack. That was when Katie hooked our only striper of the day. Her proud dad took the pictures below.

Katie with a 20" striper.

A Cow-nosed Ray puts up a fuss at boatside.

Katie got a nice bluefish too!

Ricky and Brian fished on Saturday and Sunday. I joined them for a while on Saturday and we caught a mess of little white perch and a couple sunfish. Sunday they repeated the feat and added fingerling stripers and croaker to the list. Couldn't seem to get any action with the usual techniques but they discovered that a bit of bloodworm dangled under a bobber got constant attention from the fish. So guess how we fished this weekend!

It is great to see that the shallows of the Magothy are such a nursery for fish. I guess I'm just a kid at heart since I really enjoyed catching the little buggers and tossing them back to catch another.

I fished alone today. The weather was beautiful as I set up for chumming off the end of Snake Reef. I was the only boat in the area when I set up, but within about 30 minutes a couple of head boats (out of Grasonville) set up within spitting distance. Since the tide was due to change soon I set up only one chum pot and mostly bottom fished with bloodworms. I had one line set up with alewife but it never got any action. I had pretty steady action with croaker and in an hour or so used up the few bloodworm I had with me.

I had filled the livewell and began throwing some of the small croaker in there figuring I'd use them for bait at some point. Eventually the tide changed and about the same time the wind shifted around to the South. The boat was situated fairly well so I set up a second chum pot and got serious with the chumming.

One of the first fish I caught was a beautiful seatrout of about 17". That was followed by a nice bluefish and a couple big croaker. The rest of the day is a blur. At some point a school of bluefish moved into the chum line and the action on bluefish was non-stop for a couple of hours. I have no idea how many I caught. I got them mostly on cut croaker, but also fished a bit with a jigging spoon and also a chartreuse maribou tail leadhead. They were all between 12" and 15".

I was constantly retying hooks since the blues were tearing up the line. Eventually I dug thru my tackle box and found a 6" wire leader and rigged one of my rods with that. With that rig I caught fish as quickly as I could unhook one and throw the line back in. I had a ball! The fish were boiling right at the chum pot. Many times I just dropped the line over the side to deal with a bait or wash my hands and wham another one would grab it.

Never even saw a striper today, but didn't even miss them.

Date:9/10/98
Time: 6-7 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant 80
Tide: : First part of the incoming tide, low was at about 4:30
Water Temp/Conditions: about 2 ft., low water level due to the NW wind
Fish Caught: 30+ perch, 8" striper, and a puny croaker

Father and son fished the pier today. The last three days of NW winds have produced some very low water levels on low tide so we came prepared to bottom fish from the end of the pier. We picked up some bloodworms from Fishbone's and grabbed a couple of rods. Ricky rigged his ultralight with a single hook and a small crimp on sinker. I rigged a heavier rod with a standard bottom rig. Ricky was really nailing some fish! He caught two fish for every one I caught and I had twice as many hooks on my line! I think my big bulky bottom rig was spooking some of the fish in the shallow/clear water. Ricky was finessing them with his almost invisible rig. We had steady action for the hour that we fished. For the last 15 minutes Ricky was getting a fish on every cast toward the end of the neighbors pier and most were 'keeper' size. Great fun! All fish were released.

Date: 9/8/98
Time: 9:30 am - 3 pm
Location: N. of Baltimore Light (briefly) and in the mainstem of the Magothy in the lee (SE) of Dobbins Island
Weather: 70 degrees, extremely windy 15 -25 mph and gusty
Tide: :Outgoing, Low due a little after 3pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  about 2 ft.
Fish Caught: In th bay -- one 13" striper, in the river -- one 14" seatrout, one 12" bluefish and a small croaker

I fished alone today for the first time in a long while. My fishing partner had to go to school today! I knew it was going to be windy, but hoped that I might be able to fish in the lee of the western shore with the NW wind. I headed out to Baltimore light at a slow pace to stay dry since there was enough wind that there were just a few white-caps. I anchored in about 27 ft. of water just inside the first green maker north of Baltimore light. There were several other small boats in the area.

I was rockin' and rollin' from the start with huge rollers coming down the bay and a chop on top of that. I spent about 20 minutes getting my anchor to bite. Once I finally hooked bottom the boat really took a pounding! I set up one chum pot and baited a couple lines -- one with alewife and one with soft crab. I started getting hits almost immediately and very quickly landed a 13" striper. Then it really got windy!

The wind started gusting. The chop turned to all white caps and I took a wave over the bow that sent spray all over me. Reluctantly I decided to head for more sheltered waters.   Getting the anchor in single-handed under those conditions was a bit tricky! I motored in slowly with the wind off the starboard quarter and the boat ran like a charm. Over all I was pleased with how the boat handled the water, but a little more bow would be nice for running into the wind.

Anyhow, I moved up into the Magothy which was white with chop. The wind was whipping right down the river. I figured since I was already set up for chumming I'd find a spot in the river and see if chumming would work in the river. I found a spot in the lee of Dobbins Island that wasn't too bad although it was still windy as hell. I was in about 12 ft. of water near (as best as I could tell) the 10 ft. bar that is off the SE end of the island.

At this location I landed a seatrout, a bluefish and a croaker and lost quite a few baits to what seemed like smaller fish. With the gusty wind and rocking boat it was tricky feeling bites. The seatrout hit on crab and the bluefish hit on alewife. I fished here for a couple hours. I found that there was very little obvious tide flow in the river. Chumming really wasn't effective and the baited lines even with no weight dropped straight to the bottom.

Before going in for the day I set up one rod with a gypsy rig of bucktails and an inline sinker and trolled across the river a couple of times with no results. When I got back to the pier I found that the water level was so low I couldn't get the boat on the lift.

Date: 8/31/98
Time: 7:40 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant 80
Tide: :Last moments of the outgoing tide, low due about 8 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  clearer than usual, about 2 ft.. calm
Fish Caught: 2 white perch (one wasn't much bigger than the lure!)

Father and son were having withdrawal symptoms. We had to wet a line even if only for a few minutes. Just before dark today we grabbed the ultralights which were already rigged with some small traps and headed for pier. We cast for about 20 minutes with lots of follows and fish flashing behind the lure, but only two connects. Ricky got one deformed white perch about 8" which looked like it may have had a run-in with a bigger fish at one time. It's tail had a crook in it. I connected with a puny perch not much bigger than the lure. I think perhaps the bright crome lure might have had a bit too much flash for the clear water today.

Date: 8/25/98
Time: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Hot, muggy, windy
Tide: Incoming, high due about 10:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: 1 yellow perch, 5 puny croaker, and about 10 white perch

Ricky fished by himself after dinner this evening. All fish were caught bottom fishing with bloodworms and released. Only a few of the perch would have been 'keepers.'

Date:8/24/98
Time6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: West shore of Gibson Island   
Weather: Hot, muggy and the flies were biting better than the fish.
Tide:Incoming, not sure of the time
Water Temp/Conditions:  Less than one foot
Fish Caught: 3 white perch

Father and son dropped the boat in the river and zipped out to drift the shoreline of Gibson Island. The highlight of this short trip was seeing a mature Bald Eagle. Awesome! We cast an assortment of lures including small rattletraps, jigs, poppers and bucktails as we drifted the shallows close enough to cast to shore. Ricky caught a couple perch on a horsehead jig which he tipped with the only grass shrimp we had. We only stayed out about an hour and Ricky also caught a perch from the pier  on the same lure.after we got in.

Date:8/20/98
Time:7 am - 11 am
Location: Podickory Point and Snake Reef off Gibson Island l
Weather: Unseasonably cool and breezy from N.
Tide:Outgoing, high a little after 6 am.
Water Temp/Conditions:  A couple feet of anchor rope visible.
Fish Caught: 23" striper and on throwback of about 12"

Father and son fished the bay today. It was quite brisk and breezy where we first set up off Podickory Pt. in about 30 ft. of water. We had marked a few fish coming into the spot, but after an hour of chumming with no bites at all we decided to move on and find a little less choppy area. It was quite rough off Podickory.

We headed in to the mouth of the Magothy, thinking we might set up just out of the entrance channel. It was definitely calmer there, but there was a huge barge planting oyster shell just inside the last green channel marker. With all that commotion there we decided to try somewhere else.

With time at a premium we decided to hug the shoreline and head for Snake Reef. The winds had calmed a bit when we got there and set up just off the reef in about 21 ft. of water. After an hour or so we started getting some hits, but couldn't seem to hook them. We switched a couple of rods over to smaller hooks/baits and Ricky quickly hooked a small striper of 12". Not long after that he hooked into a bigger one. That one at 23" went on the stringer.  Just when things were getting going I had to pull out and head for the dock. It was a beautiful morning.

Date: 8/19/98
Time: Before and after dinner
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pleasant
Tide: Low water level due to the N. Wind. High was due about 5:30pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: a couple small white perch

Ricky and Brian fished a while this evening. They didn't have any live bait so they tossed an assortment of lures with little effect. The water level was very low.

Date: 8/18/98
Time: Late afternoon and evening up till dark
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Cool evening with a little breeze
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 10:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: Ricky caught 4 white perch, 2 bluegill, and 4 puny croaker. His dad caught a couple perch and a puny croaker

Ricky fished the pier late this afternoon before and after dinner. Action was slow. He was using a little horsehead jig tipped with nightcrawler. I stopped by Fishbone's about 5 pm to get some chumming supplies for our next trip and picked up a couple of tiny rattle-traps 1/8 oz. which Tom Hughes had mentioned in a recent fishing report. On the way back to the farm I stopped by the pier and gave them to Ricky. He tied one on his line, made a cast, hooked something big which wrapped his 4 lb. line around a pilng and that was that. Bye, Bye $3.99 lure.

I came back later that evening and he was still casting with that lure. He says he caught some perch with it. When I got there he decided to try some bottom fishing since we had some nightcrawlers that wanted to be eaten. He took the lure from his line and laid it on the pier. When he turned to rig his line he hit the lure with his hand and plop it went thru the crack in the pier. Bye, Bye, $3.99 lure #2.

We fished till a little after dark with the nighcrawlers on the bottom and quit when we ran out of bait. The fish were tiny this evening and stealing us blind.

Date: 8/17/98
Time: 7 pm - 9:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: muggy, buggy evening  
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 9:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: 4 white perch, 3 bluegill, and a puny croaker. One of the perch was 'keeper' size and everything else was small.

Father and son fished the pier this evening after a rain storm. Action was slow. We couldn't raise a fish with naked darts, jigs or spoons but when we tipped them with some night crawler and fished them slow we managed to land a few fish. Just after dark I beat the waters around the pier to a lather for about a half hour with a small Atom popper with no results.

Date:8/16/98
Time:11 am - 4 pm
Location: Snake Reef off Gibson Island and Belvedeare Shoal
Weather: 85 degrees, Cloudy with an occasional spit. Light variable winds
Tide: Incoming, High at about 2:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  A couple feet of anchor rope visible.
Fish Caught: 21" striper, two 14" bluefish, one 16" catfish, huge ray and a puny croaker

Father and son fished the bay today. We stopped by Fishbone's Bait and Tackle to lay in some chummin' supplies. Once on the water we headed for Grays creek to gas the boat before heading out to the bay. Our first stop was in about 23 ft. of water off Gibson Island near Snake reef. We marked some fish and set up the chum line with one pot high and one low in the water. It wasn't 20-30 minutes before I landed a 21" striper. That was the only striper of the day!

We lost some baits to what seemed like small fish. There were fish breaking all around the boat and in the chum slick. We couldn't get them interested in anything. We landed a couple of nice blue fish on alewife and also a whopper of a catfish. But the catch of the day was a huge ray which Ricky battled for about 10 minutes. We had it up to the boat when it dove under the boat and snapped the line.

The tide action slowed about 2 pm and we decided to move during the tide change. We cruised out over Belvedeare Shoal and headed south trying to mark some fish. There wasn't much showing on the fishfinder. The tide still seemed to be moving in when we set up and eventually slacked off to nothing. By the time the tide finally started to move we were pretty much out of chum. We lost a few baits to nibbles but never landed a fish. Wrapped it up about 4 pm and we were home by 5 pm.

All fish were released except the striper which is now filleted and waiting for me to eat it.

Date: 8/15/98
Time: 3 pm - 5 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: sunny, upper 80's
Tide: Outgoing, high about 1:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: 30-40 white perch, 3 bluegill, a couple small croaker

Father and son fished the pier for a couple of hours this afternoon. We picked up some shrimp from Fishbone's and grabbed the ultralights. We had steady action the entire time we fished. The fish were on average quite small. Maybe 10 of them were over 8 inches. I used a white/red shad dart and Ricky used a small yellow horsehead jig with a yellow maribou tail .We tipped our jigs with the shrimp.

There was the usual weekend party two piers down with swimmers and jet skis constantly riling the waters. The fish didn't seemed to mind a bit! But it was far from peaceful.

Date: 8/6/98
Time: Morning
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: sunny
Tide: Outgoing, high about 6:30 am
Water Temp/Conditions:  
Fish Caught: Half dozen white perch

Ricky fished by himself this morning. He had no bait so he cast a naked horsehead jig on one of the ultralights. He said he didn't fish very long and most of the perch were 'keeper' size. All fish were released.

Father and son set out this evening for about an hours bottom fishing with bloodworms. We made a short drift off Podickory with no action so we decided to take the pounding and head north into the wind to Snake Reef. We managed to get an anchor to bite by using our two 8 lb. river anchors tied together. This held us in about 10-12 ft. of water on the oyster bottom. We had steady action from the first cast. Ricky says it was the most fun he had ever had fishing! We pulled in lots of doublers and the spot (most about 10") put up a terrific fight. As the sun went down the bay calmed and we headed in just before it got too dark to cruise in fast.

Date: 8/2/98
Time: afternoon for a while and again in the evening
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: sunny, but not steaming
Tide: High was about 2:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  12 - 18".
Fish Caught: early in the day Ricky caught 14 beautiful perch, in the evening father and son caught another dozen or so.

Ricky fished by himself this afternoon and had a great day. He caught over a dozen pretty perch which we had for dinner the next day. He used 'cut perch' for bait to dress his dart.

Later that evening I joined him for an hour or so just before dark and we had some more great action catching another dozen nice perch using the 'cut perch.' again.

Date: 7/31/98
Time: 3 pm - 4 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Nice summer day,
Tide: Outgoing, high at about 12:30
Water Temp/Conditions:  Water had cleared a bit from the last couple days and visibility was about 18".
Fish Caught: 2 dozen nice perch

Father and son fished the pier and had some nice action on bloodworms and grass shrimp. Fish were holding close to the pier.

Date: 7/24/98
Time: 2 pm to 5 pm
Location: Snake Reef off Gibson Island
Weather: 85 degrees, Pt. cldy, breezy from W and NW
Tide: low due a little about 3 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 2 dozen white perch, a bunch of puny croaker, one nice spot and one small striper

Father and son fished the bay this afternoon. We started on the outgoing tide at Baltimore light. Caught a couple of perch there, but the action was slow. We then moved up to Snake reef out near the channel. We tried anchoring, but actually we ended up slowly drifting and dragging the anchor which just wouldn't bite for quite a while. Eventually it caught in about 19 ft. of water just off the drop off.( when we pulled it up later it was jammed full of oyster shell and clams.) We fished this anchored position and had steady action. When the action finally slowed we tried relocating on the reef in a couple of spots, but eventually we just drifted. Once the tide got running in steady it slowed our drift with the wind to almost a crawl which was nice. We continued to have plenty of action, but couldn't seem to lose the tiny croakers. It seemed like they were everywhere. It is amazing what a fight those puny little croaker would put up. We often would battle what we thought was a nice size fish only to pull up a puny 4 inch croaker. Oh well, it was fun! We used soft crab and grass shrimp. The crab was by far the most effective bait.

Date: 7/21/98
Time: afternoon for about 20 minutes
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Hot,
Tide: low due a little after 2 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 4 white perch.

Ricky says he fished the pier for about 20 minutes this afternoon and caught about 4 perch. He says it was just too darn hot to fish any longer!

Date: 7/20/98
Time: 9:00 - 9:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Hot, muggy, buggy
Tide: low water level, Outgoing tide, low due about 10:45 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 6 nice white perch.

Father and son fished the pier just after dark  for a brief time this evening. We cast small Tony PET spoons (1/24th ounce) on the ultra-lights. The fish were holding tight to the pier shadow and pilings. We caught about half the fish on plain spoons and the other half tipping the spoons with some grass shrimp and minnows from the trap. The fish were really nailing the spoons rather than the taps and nibbles we often get with darts and jigs.

Date: 7/14/98
Time: 6:50 pm - 7:20 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Onshore breeze, pleasant temps
Tide: slack, high due around 7 pm,
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 2 nice white perch, 1 small hardhead

Father and son fished for a brief time after dinner. We cast naked shad darts (light green body, black head) with a few follows and a couple taps. I checked the minnow trap and found two grass shrimp and a midget fish. I tipped my dart with a shrimp and quickly landed a nice perch. Ricky lost both the other baits to nibbles, but managed to land a perch and a hardhead on his bare dart.

Date: 7/12/98
Time: Afternoon
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, hot
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 4 pm,
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: a bucket full of white perch

Ricky fished the pier this afternoon using grass shimp on jigs. Caught a mess of perch. Many were nice size. He said he caught them all from almost the exact same spot on the pier. He kept all the fish today. Some went in the freezer and the rest were filleted for the evenings dinner.

Ricky, Katie and I chummed this evening. The West wind and the strong tide made for an uncomfortable anchor postion, but we managed to get situated. Ricky had a small striper on within minutes. Action was not fast and furious, but we did land a couple nice ones and fought a couple others to the boat before losing them. We were using circle hooks today and all the fish we landed were lip hooked. I suspect some of the lost fish can be attributed to the circle hooks.  One other boat anchored just north of us and they had plenty of action too. We headed in just before it got too dark to cruise in fast. The bay was rough this evening due partly to the wind and mostly to the boat traffic. Rockin' and rollin' all evening long.

Date: 7/9/98
Time: 8 pm - 10 pm
Location: Snake Reef off Gibson Island
Weather: Quite breezy, pleasant temps
Tide: Incoming, high around 9 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: A dozen of so white perch

Ricky, Brian and I fished the bay this evening. It was breezy and rough on the bay off Gibson Island. We anchored in about 14 ft of water off the edge of Snake reef. We were actually trying to anchor in a bit shallower, but we had a heck of a time getting the anchor to bite on the hard bottom. We fished on the bottom with bloodworms. Had a little action every now and then. We quit about an hour after dark and motored in slowly. Got in about 11 pm. Released all fish.

Date: 7/9/98
Time: Afternoon
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: ?
Tide: Low at 2:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: Some white perch, one nice 10 1/2" incher.

Ricky and Brian fished the pier this afternoon. I forget most of the details, but I do know Ricky caught one nice one that was almost 11".

Date: 7/8/98
Time: After dinner for about an hour
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Drizzle and rain
Tide: Outgoing, high due about 6:30 pm , fairly high water level most of evening.
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 1 nice perch and a punch of puny ones. one small striper

Ricky and Brian fished the pier for a while using nightcrawlers on the bottom. They gave up on fishing after a while and went swimming with the fish instead.

Date: 7/7/98
Time: Evening
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Warm, pleasant
Tide: Outgoing, high a little before 6, fairly high water level most of evening.
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: about 20 white perch, mostly nice size.

Ricky and a friend fished the pier this evening. They mostly bottom fished with night crawlers. He says the fish were on average a fairly nice size this evening. As usual all fish were released.

Date: 7/5/98
Time:Evening till dark
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Warm, pleasant
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 10 pm, fairly low water most of evening
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 2 nice white perch, 1 nice spot, and a zillion puny(fingerling) perch and croaker, and striper.

Father and son fished the pier this evening after dinner. Caught a mess of fish by bottom fishing of the end of the pier with bloodworms and shrimp.We had intended to go out for the evening in the boat, but the tide was too low to float the boat off the lift. Fished till just after dark,

Date: 7/3/98
Time: Evening
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Breezy and warm
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 8:30 pm,
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 5 medium size white perch and a zillion puny ones

Father and son fished the pier for a while this evening using grass shrimp Ricky seined earlier in the day. Most of the fish were caught jigging around the pilings and in the shadows of the pier.

Date: 7/2/98
Time: 9 am - Noon
Location: 'Bounty Hunter' Charter out of Chesapeake Beach fished the mouth of the Choptank
Weather: Sunny, 85 degrees
Tide: Incoming, high due about noon
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 538 fish! -- a mixed bag of croaker and spot

Ricky and I went out with the AACPD on their weekly 'field trip' for the "Hooked on Fishing, Not on Drugs" program offered at Downs Park. I was a chaperone. Ricky came along as a guest. Captain Glenn put us on a hard oyster bottom in about 28 foot of water off the tip of Tilghman Island. There were 27 kids fishing from the boat. Action was fast and the kids had a great time. They fished standard 2 hook bottom rigs with about 3/4 ounce sinkers, and bloodworms was the only bait used.  The kids averaged about 20 fish each for the 3 hours we fished.  A terrific day on the bay! See below for some shots of the action:

Click an image below to view a larger version.

Captain Glenn and mate on the 'Bounty Hunter' out of Chesapeake Beach.

Ricky with one of his fine fish!

The day's catch. 538 fish! Incredible!

Date: 7/1/98
Time: 4 pm till 9:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Breezy and warm
Tide: Outgoing, low at about 7:15 pm, fairly low water most of evening
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 5 medium size white perch

Ricky and Brian fished the pier this evening. Action was slow due to the low water level. Tipped their jigs with shrimp they seined.

Date: 6/29/98
Time: Before and after dinner(5:30 pm)
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Hot
Tide: Incoming, high due a little after midnight (water level almost to the pier stringers),
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 12 white perch, two yellow perch and 3 sunfish.

Ricky and a friend fished the pier today using jigs and also bottom fishing. They seined some grass shrimp for bait.

Date: 6/28/98
Time: Before and after dinner(5:30 pm)
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: mid 80's, partly cloudy
Tide: Incoming, high due a little after 11pm, (water level almost to the pier stringers.
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: about 2 dozen nice white perch, one yellow perch (small), a couple sunfish, 1 large eel, fingerling striper and croaker.

Father and son fished the pier. We started casting jigs and caught a few perch. After dinner we used a soft crab and a peeler and bottom fished off the end of the pier. We connected with quite a few really nice white perch. One Ricky caught was almost 11 inches!

Date: 6/23/98
Time: Before and after dinner(5:30 pm)
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Hot
Tide: Incoming, high due a little before 7 pm,
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 6-8 white perch, 2 sunfish

I fished the pier by myself for a brief time before dinner. Connected with about a half dozen nice perch on my ultralight with jig and grass shrimp. The kids came along and fished and crabbed for a while after dinner and caught a couple sunfish, a few perch and some crabs. Many of the perch were nice size today, maybe 8-9".

Father and son fished the bay this evening. We cruised out to the flats off Podickory Point and set up a chum line with alewife. We floated our baits with 1/2 oz and 3/4 oz sinkers, but finally settled on 1/2 oz as that produced the best results. Not more than about 20 minute into our evening Ricky hooked into a whopper. He battled the 24+" striper to the boat only to lose it when the fish made a final run. We quickly realized our terminal gear was not suited to the task and remove the tiny snap swivels that were part of the normal rigging on those light spinning rods. Ricky's fish had popped the snap open and straightened it on that last run.

With our terminal tackle now better suited to the task we set about our business. We lost a few more baits to fish before Ricky hooked into his next fish. This one was a 19 incher that went on the stringer. Quite a fighter too on the light spinning tackle. Ricky later topped that fish with one of 23 inches. (see the photo above.)

We also fished one rod with a standard bottom rig and bloodworms in hopes of catching some of those croakers that are apparently roaming this area. Never connected with any croaker, but I did manage to land a few nice white perch. Ricky also pulled in a small (maybe 12") rockfish on that rod.

So Young Rick got his limit on this trip. His dad didn't catch a single striper, but I sure had a good time helping Ricky land his fish. I think he may have done better because he tended to hold the rod in his hand rather than leave it in the rod holder as I often did. So he was able to feel what was going on with his baits. That 23 incher though hit when his rod was in the holder. When Ricky grabbed the rod the reel handle went spinning backwards since that reel has a broken anti-reverse. It banged up his hand pretty good and I could almost see tears in his eyes when he started to hand the rod to me because his hand hurt so bad. But I insisted he try and he toughed it out, landed the fish and nursed his throbbing finger after the battle was won. What a fisherman!

We were checked by the DNR police while we fished today as were all of the other boats in the area. We stayed till a little after dark which was later than most of the boats fishing near us this evening (There were maybe a dozen boats fishing here this evening.).

Date: 6/16/98
Time: Afternoon
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Breezy and warm
Tide: High around noon, high water level, almost to the pier stringers at high tide
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft., didn't check the temp.
Fish Caught: 1 sunfish, about 2 doz crabs.

Ricky fished and crabbed by himself from the pier today(mostly crabbed.) He didn't have any bait for fishing so he used my ultralight with the jig that just won't die and caught a nice sunny. He said the pier was hot and he was in his bare feet so he was walking fast along the pier to cool his toasting toes when the sunny grabbed his lure and put up a good fight.

He released the sunny and crabbed with a couple of hand-lines and the collapsible trap. Crabbing was pretty good and it kept him busy enough that he never did get back to fishing. About 16 of the crabs were 'keepers.'

Date: 6/15/98
Time: Afternoon
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: light breeze, 
Tide: High a little before noon, high water level, almost to the pier stringers at high tide
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft.
Fish Caught: None

Ricky fished the pier by himself this afternoon. He didn' have any bait, but persisted casting with my ultralight and the usual small horsehead jig. The water level was fairly high and he was fishing the outgoing tide most of the afternoon. He reports quite a few 'follows', but didn't hook even one of them.

He reports that he did have two 'very large' fish take a swipe at his lure just before it left the water. He insists they weren't pickerel because of the size and the silvery flash;  and he speculates that they were either stripers or bluefish or "one heck of a big white perch." He also reports seeing signs of feeding fish ie. fish scales, etc. floating on the surface. Is this a fish story or what?

Date: 6/14/98
Time: Afternoon and early evening
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: light breeze, 
Tide: Outgoing till about 5:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft.
Fish Caught: 6 white perch

Ricky and Brian fished the pier this afternoon. They caught a few perch on jigs/grass shrimp.They also caught a couple foot long eels in the minnow trap and managed to added a couple keeper crabs to the live box by pulling the collapsible trap occasionally and emptying the crab pots.

We took a break from fishing and took a boat ride out to Sandy Point light. The bay was pretty choppy and there were boats zipping everywhere. In spite of all the commotion there were boats anchored off Podickory point apparently chumming. We didn't see any action as we zipped by.

I joined the boys on the pier after the boat ride and manage to land a couple perch. I had a pickerel on for a short battle, but he threw the hook after showing himself on the surface.

Date: 6/11/98
Time: ?  - 5:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: light breeze,  calm at times
Tide: Incoming, low was at about 3:15
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft., water was much clearer than the last couple days., didn't check the water temp.
Fish Caught: 4 white perch., 1 sunfish

Ricky and his cousin Matt fished the pier this afternoon up till about dinner time. All fish were caught on lures without bait. Ricky got 3 perch and a sunny on a small red/chartreuse horsehead jig. Matt got his perch on a white/orange shad dart. They also caught a couple keeper crabs in a collapsible trap. All fish were released. The crabs went in the live box. Looks like over a dozen nice crabs in there today.

Date: 6/9/98
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 pm
Location: Podickory Point near the shipping  channel
Weather: Steady wind of about 15 K mostly from the south , 
Tide: Incoming, high due a little before 7:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility about 1 ft.,
Fish Caught: One 14 1/4" croaker

Father and son fished the bay this evening. The skies were clouding up as we set out from Sillery Bay. We headed for Sandy Point Light with two dozen bloodworms. There were a couple of boats anchored off Podickory Point in about 28 ft. of water. We set up for a drift just outside them in about 30-33 ft. of water. Our drift was basically on a line between the lighthouses.

Just about the time our lines hit the water the drizzle began. Rick III put on his rainsuit. I hunkered down inside my life jacket. On our first drift I hooked into a nice fish. He basically just grabbed the bait and the line suddenly got very heavy. No nibbles. No strike. Just all of the sudden a heavy weight on the line. Young Rick netted the beauty of a croaker, 14 1/4", and we continued to drift. Before I could get my line back in the water Rick was onto a nice fish.

The excitement turned to disapointment when his line went slack.  He reeled in the slack and discovered that his bottom rig had broken in half. I have to take the blame for that one. When I rigged the rods I had grabbed a bottom rig I made with some ancient 6 lb. test line. It was more suited for crappie than croaker, but I didn't think about it at the time. We made three more drifts thru the same area with only a couple nibbles.

We were getting soaked and it was cold so when Ricky said he had enough I quickly concurred and we headed in. We passed a few boats anhored in about 20-25 ft of water on the way into the Magothy, but didn't see any action as we passed. Since it was my mistake that cost Ricky his fish I let him pick the fast food spot for dinner. We pulled the boat and wrapped up the day at KFC.

Date: 6/8/98
Time: 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: light breeze, 
Tide: Incoming, high due a little before 6:30 pm, low water level
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., water was murky
Fish Caught: 2 white perch.

A slow day on the pier. Ricky fished alone again today. The low water level and wave action really limits the action. Rick fished mostly with a bobber and jig. He also worked his collapsible crab trap and caught one keeper crab. The crab pot only produced throwbacks today.

Date: 6/7/98
Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: breezy, rough water, cool air temp (actually wore a jacket!)
Tide: Incoming, high due a little before 6 pm, low water level
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., water was murky
Fish Caught: 11 white perch, mostly puny but a couple were really nice size.

Ricky fished the pier this date mostly by himself. He fished with a bare tube jig head gold hook under a bobber about 18" to catch most of his fish today. He tipped the jig with grass shrimp. Action was a little slow. The water was murky and because of the constant wave action and the low water level.

Date: 6/4/98
Time: 7:45 pm - 8:45 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: steady breeze from S, about 68 degrees, actually felt cool
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 9:30 pm, very low water
Water Temp/Conditions:  Visibility less than 1 ft., water was murky
Fish Caught: 5 white perch, 1 eel

Father and son fished the pier. A couple fish were caught on grass shrimp fished under a bobber (so was the eel) by the younger Rick. Dad Rick caught one nice perch casting a jig with shrimp and one other one bottom fishing with bloodworms. Fishing was basically pretty slow likely due to the low water and the fact that it was clouded by the onshore breeze all day. That tends to stir up the bottom when the water is low.

Date: 6/3/98
Time: 5:30 -7:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: brisk breeze from west, about 68 degrees, actually felt chilly
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 9 pm, very low water
Water Temp/Conditions: 76 degrees. Visibility about 1 ft.,
Fish Caught: 7 white perch

Father and son fished the pier today. We had to work for the fish we got today. For bait today we bought some soft crabs from Fishbone's. Although soft crab is attractive to the perch, it was not the greatest bait for use with the jigs we normally fish. It's tough cut it small enough. Ricky pulled the minnow traps and found a few shrimp which he used to catch the 5 perch he got. My two where caught on softcrab.

Ricky had an interesting catch today. Normally a snap swivel is one of the weak points in a fishing rig. Well, today it was the snap swivel that saved the day. One of the perch he pulled in was actually hooked with the snap! When he went to unhook the perch he found the snap it it's lip and the jig was sitting loose inside the fishes mouth.

The breeze picked up around 7:30 pm and it got pretty chilly so we called it a day. The water was still very low.

Date: 6/1/98
Time: 5 -5:20 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: light breeze, about 80 degrees
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 7:20 pm, very low water
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.. Visibility about 1 ft., had cleared up somewhat from yesterday
Fish Caught: 6 puny white perch

Rick and Rick fished the pier for a brief time before dinner. We didn't have any live bait so I jigged  with a shad dart on the bamboo pole and Ricky used my ultralight with the usual horsehead jig. The water level was very low with maybe 2 ft. of water at the deepest end of the pier. I had  a zillion puny perch take a pass at the shad dart, but only a few managed to get a ride to the pier. Ricky said he had one very large fish roll on his jig and flash a silvery side for a heart-stopping moment. Might have been a striper..Most of the fishing action today was right on the edge of the shadow of the pier.

Date: 5/31/98
Time: 4:00 -4:30 pm  and a short time around 6:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Southerly breeze of 10-20 kts., about 80 degrees
Tide: Outgoing, low about 6:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.. Visibility less than 1 ft., cloudy due to the onshore breeze
Fish Caught: 15 white perch, mostly small but a few nice ones and one 10 3/4 incher.

Father and son fished the pier for a brief time this evening and had a little white perch catchin' competition. We didn't have quite the action as yesterday, but there were plenty of fish. By the time we quit at 4:30 I was in the lead 5-3.

We returned later and fish for a while longer. Katie and Bryan also joined us. The competion was resumed and we quit after about 30 minutes when the score was tied 7-7. Bryan also caught one. The late evening action wasn't quite as brisk as earlier mostly because we didn't have many shrimp left. We had put our leftover shrimp in the livebox at 4:30 pm, but when we returned we found the box almost empty. I think the hinges on the lid are so stiff that there is a small crack left when you close the lid which was big enough for the shrimp to make the great escape.

We pulled up one of the minnow traps and found a few shrimp and a couple of minnows which kept us going for a little while longer.

Date: 5/28/98
Time: 7:45 pm- 8:45 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, light breeze, about 80 degrees
Tide: Incoming, high due a little before 10 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.. Visibility less than 1 ft., cloudy
Fish Caught: Steady action with small (some very small) white perch, yellow perch, 2 chain pickerel and a sunfish

Rick and Rick fished the pier for about an hour this evening. Young Rick fished with his 'jiggin' pole, I used my ultra-light. We had some grass shrimp in the live box from the other day. For the hour we fished we had steady action. Most of the perch were small, but about a half dozen were really nice and fat 10 inchers. For the first time in quite a while we caught a couple of pickerel. I caught the first one (actually I lost him as I tried to lift him onto the pier, but we won't mention that.) I made a comment to Ricky about how much fun it would be if he caught one on his cane pole. Darn if he didn't nail one in the next five minutes on his shad dart. Both the pickerel were probably about 14."

We ran out of shrimp just before dark and continued catching an occasional perch even without bait. In fact, I caught one of the biggest perch on Ricky's 'jiggin' pole when we swapped rods for a while after we ran out of bait. My nephew Matt joined us for a while using a cane pole and caught a small yellow perch. All in all a great evening's fishing -- 4 species and steady action in an hour on the family pier.

Date: 5/26/98
Time: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, breezy, about 80 degrees
Tide: Incoming, high due a little after 8 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.. Visibility less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: Steady action with small (some very small) white perch, yellow perch and a croaker

Father and son fished the pier for about an hour this evening. We picked up some grass shrimp from Fishbone's and were graciously provided with a couple extra boxes of 'day-old shrimp.' Young Rick grabbed his jiggin' pole (10 ft. bamboo pole with a small red/white shad dart). I fished with my ultralight and a small black horsehead jig with black twister tail. We tipped our jigs with the shrimp.

We had steady action. Most of the action was in close to the grass or very near the pier. We caught a zillion small perch, both white and yellow. There were a few 'keepers' to make it interesting, but we released all fish. The extra shrimp came in handy since we had hits on every cast and lost a steady supply of bait to the feasting fish.

The most interesting catch of the hour came when I sat my rod on the pier for a moment and the jig fell through the boards into the water below.  When I picked up my rod I discovered I had a fish on and couldn't fit him through the boards of the pier. Ricky did some gymnastic stretching over the edge of the pier and retrieved the small white perch.

Date: 5/25/98
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, breezy, about 80 degrees
Tide: Incoming, high due a little after 7 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.. Visibility less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: One yellow perch and one nice white perch.

Young Rick and I fished the pier this evening after the holiday festivities (and swimming for a while). I rigged up a couple of old cane poles with a jig and a shad dart. He and I fished for maybe 20 minutes with no luck. Then Ricky remembered that there might be some shrimp or minnows in the live-box. First we tried the two grass shrimp we found. Very shortly Ricky had a sassy little yellow perch which he released. With the shrimp gone he put one of the small minnows on his dart and within a minute or so had a nice size white perch on the pier. That was about it for this Memorial Day adventure..

Date: 5/18/98
Time: 4:30 to 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, about 80 degrees
Tide: Outgoing, low due about 7 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: 67.9 degrees. Visibility less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught: Several white perch (one 10 1/4") and a bluegill. Released all fish.

Young Rick fished the pier this evening before and after dinner. He caught a few white perch and a bluegill. He was mostly fishing the bottom with peeler crab. He caught the largest perch on a black horsehead jig with black twister tail . I made a few casts when I dropped him off and caught a couple perch myself. Released all fish.

Date: 5/17/98
Time: 6 am - Noon
Location: Craig Hill Channel N. of Baltimore Light till 8:30.  S. shore of Gibson Island for the rest of the morning
Weather: Hazy morning, Sunny and hot eventually.
Tide: Incoming, high due at about 11:30 am,
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp. Visibility was about 1 ft.
Fish Caught: Steady action with white perch and yellow perch. Kept 13 keeper white perch. Released all others. 1 catfish.

Father and son started the morning by trolling for a couple hours along the edge of the channel. No action at all. Several other boats were in the area too, and we didn't see any sign of action. Got bored with trolling and decided catching fish would be more fun so we headed into the river.

We fished the S. Shore of the Magothy along the clay banks just E. of the marked oyster bar. We stayed in close to shore in 3-4 ft. of water fishing over a sparse grass bed. We were almost within casting distance of shore most of the time. Lots of fallen trees along this shore.

Young Rick fished on the bottom to start with using bloodworms. He had plenty of action. I fished my little black horsehead jig tipped with grass shrimp and had plenty of action too. We caught lots of fish, probably 40 or so. Most of the fish were white perch and on the small side. We kept 13 of the biggest (maybe 8-9") and released the rest.

We also connected with a bunch of yellow perch. They were all puny, but they were a blast to catch since every one of them headed for the surface and jumped and danced to the boat. We ran out of bait and energy about Noon and headed in.

One of our most interesting stops was in the 'boathouse cove.' We slipped thru the narrow channel there and fished a while. A good part of this cove is shallow and the bottom is muck. Everywhere you looked there were large fish boiling on the surface. We guickly realized they were carp. None of them seemed to be interested in our bloodworms, but I did catch a nice catfish on my jig.

Date: 5/16/98
Time: 7 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Sunny, warm
Tide:.Outgoing, low about 5:30 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp. Visibility was about 1 ft. Grass visible near shore.
Fish Caught: 2 nice white perch.

Father and son launched this evening to bring the boat over to the pier for an early morning departure tomorrow. We made a few casts as we walked back from the pier as we were unloading the boat. Caught and released a couple white perch on jigs.

Date: 5/10/98
Time: 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Cloudy, light mist occcasionally, soaking drizzle at 5 pm
Tide: Incoming, high due at about 7 pm, water-level was high/almost to the pier stringers and changed little in the 2 hours we fished.
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp. Visibility was about 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  Steady action with perch, both white and yellow, but mostly puny size. Also reeled in a couple crabs.

Rick and Rick fished the pier for a while this afternoon. We fished grass shrimp   on an assortment of jigs and shad darts. All caught fish at one time or another. We also bottom fished a bit from the end of the pier and connected with a couple that way too. Most of the fish were small. Some, especially the yellow perch, were mere inches long.

Date: 5/1/98
Time: 5:00  pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Pouring rain!
Tide: Low near slack  Low at 6:15 pm
Water Temp/Conditions: 63.9 degrees Visibility was about 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  6 white perch, one crab

Rick and Rick stopped at Fishbone's and picked up some grass shrimp to do a little fishin'  before dinner. The tide was low and didn't seem to be moving. I cast with a black horsehead jig with black twister tail tipped with shrimp. Rick fished a gypsy rig with a chartreuse tube jig and a small leadhead with black over white sassy shad. We each caught a couple white perch. It poured rain the entire time we fished.

After dinner we cast for about ten minutes before gathering our tackle and heading home to dry out. We caught two more fish in that time. All fish were released although some were definitely frying size. The most interesting hook-up of the evening was a nice size white perch I caught on my jig. The jig has a willow leaf spinner about an inch or so long. I noticed that the perch wasn't putting up much of a fight and was surprised how big it was when I pulled him in. Then I realized that I hadn't even hooked him! His mouth was propped open with the spinner jammed crossways and that was all that was holding him on the line.

Date: 4/28/98
Time: 4:30 pm - 9:00  pm
Location: Baltimore light/Craig Hill Channel entrance
Weather: Sunny/60 degree
Tide: Low incoming. Low at 3:30 pm, High due at 9:10pm
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the water temp today. Visibility was less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  None/ not even a nibble!

Rick and Rick trolled the mouth of the Magothy near Baltimore light and zig-zagged   E/W across the channel working our way North. There were a few other boats in the area. No-one seemed to be doing anything. In hopes of making it in without being skunked we cruised in a little closer to shore and tried drifting some grass shrimp on the bottom for perch. No luck.

We headed in about 7:30 cruising into the setting sun. As we slipped thru the entrance to the Magothy I could see a boat to the north that seemed to be sitting still. As we got closer I could see paddles flashing in the fading sunlight. We pulled over to see if they needed help and offered them a tow.

We gave them a tow into Grays Creek and then headed back to the ramp. By that time is was dark so we had our first experience at navigating after dark. We called home on the cell phone to let everyone know we were ok. We were pleased with the way the motor ran today. I guess we've worked the kinks out. Beautiful evening, a little adventure and home safe.

Date: 4/26/98
Time: 3:00 - 5:30  pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Cloudy
Tide: Low incoming. Low at 1:45 pm, High due at 7:30pm
Water Temp/Conditions: 63.7 degrees Visibility was less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  7 white perch, 2 catfish

Rick and Rick fished the first part of the incoming tide this evening. Because of the low water we fished mostly from the end of the pier. Most of the fish were caught on bottom rigs with grass shrimp. We also fished nightcrawlers on the bottom, but I don't recall catching anything in spite of getting plenty of bites. I also caught a couple of the perch on my old reliable black horsehead jig with black twister tail tipped with grass shrimp. We quit when we ran out of shrimp. We cleaned four of the perch for Aunt Lee. All four fish had roe.

Date: 4/23/98
Time: 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Cloudy w/ an occasional spit
Tide: High and slack
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp. Visibility was less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  4 White perch, 3 Yellow Perch, 18" chain pickerel, 1 catfish

Rick and Rick fished the pier for a brief time this evening at high tide. The tide was up to the pier stringers and never really seemed to change while we were there. Action started with a white perch on the first cast of a grass shimp fished on the bottom. We also fished with one line using grass shrimp under a bobber and that produced also. I cast a black horsehead jib with black twister tail and willow leaf spinner tipped with grass shrimp and nailed a beautiful yellow perch of 11 1/2 inches. On the same lure I also caught an 18" chain pickerel and a 2 lb. catfish. Lots of action but it slowed and we heard the dinner bell ringing at about 6 pm. Released all fish except for two of the white perch which found a home with the Hydes.

Date: 4/20/98
Time: 4:45 pm - 7:00 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: Nice, sunny
Tide: Outgoing (low at 8:30 pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: 61.7 degrees. Visibility was less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  About 20 perch, mostly small ones of 5-7", 4 keeper white perch, a few tiny yellow perch

Rick and Rick bottom fished with grass shrimp. Lots of action, but most of the fish were small. We fished mostly from the end of the pier since the water level was so low. We ran out of shrimp and fished for a short time with some nightcrawlers. Rick hooked a nice fish. It threw the hook after a brief thrashing fight near the surface.  From the way it fought and the brief glimpse I got I think it was a catfish. Gave the stringer of keepers to Uncle Earl.

The grass bed is beginning to grow back. The grass is sparse, but some of it is a foot to 18" tall already. We also encountered our first crabs today. We tried fishing a minnow under a bobber and the crabs found it twice and mutilated the minnows. At first we thought it might be a pickerel, but we finally got a glimpse of a crab.

Date: 4/18/98
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 55 degrees, steady onshore breeze from the south
Tide: Low and incoming (Low at about 6:45pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp. 
Fish Caught:  Lots of nibbles on worms, 2 nice white perch and one itty bitty one

Rick and Rick fished the pier for a brief time this evening. We had lots of nibbles on worms and finally figured out what the pesky bites were from when I caught a 5" white perch on a horsehead jig tipped with night crawler. Rick had a doubler of white perch on a   bottom rig as the evening faded to darkness. One of them got off, but we stringered the one he landed. He quickly cast to the same spot and very shortly hooked another one. With two perch on the stringer we decided to call it a night since it was getting a bit nippy. We couldn't find anyone who might want a couple perch for dinner so before leaving we released them and they swam off to be caught another day.

Date: 4/12/98
Time: 7:45 pm - 9 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees , calm
Tide:slack and first part of the outgoing tide. (high at about 8 pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: Didn't check the temp.  Full Moon
Fish Caught:  Lots of nibbles on worms, one pickerel on a jig w/ minnow

Rick fished the pier for a while just before and after dark. Used some worms he dug from the compost pile. Rick says he got plenty of nibbles on the worms but couldn't hook a single fish. I got one pickerel casting a small horsehead jig tipped w/ minnow. Beautiful sunset.

Date: 4/11/98
Time: 6:30 am to noon
Location: Loch Raven
Weather: 58 degrees eventually but started out chilly, breezy
Tide:
Water Temp/Conditions: 52 -54 degrees
Fish Caught:  Nothin'!

Rick and Rick rented a boat and motor at the Fishing Center. Chilly start. Went right out to # 2 bridge but found it too cold and breezy. Sought shelter at various shoreline locations and fished mostly with crappie lures. Did get a few nibbles when I dangled the jigs under a bobber about 4 ft.

We also tossed a few bass baits at likely spots but nothing ever indicated there were any fish in the lake except an occasional surface swirl. The water was a little cloudy and there was lots of floating debri from the heavy rain two days ago. I imagine it also lowered the water temps quite a bit too.

In spite of the lack of action it was a beautiful morning. When we left the lake the parking lot at the fishing center was full and cars were parked on both sides of the entrance road amost half way out to Dulaney Valley Road. It had been hard to find a sheltered spot on the lake that didn't already have a boat full of fisherman in it.

Most memorable moment -- when the battery on the electric motor died and I had to row back in. This brings back memories of the first time dad and I fished Loch Raven on June 16, 1966. Wow, that was over 30 years ago! According to my fishing log from that trip we caught one turtle. There was a big note on the page that said, "I'M SURE GLAD THEY DIDN'T ALL TURN OUT THIS WAY!"

Ditto!

Date: 4/10/98
Time: 7:45 pm - 9 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 60 degrees , calm
Tide: Slack and first part of the outgoing tide. (high at about 7:30 pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: ? Full Moon
Fish Caught:  Lots of nibbles

Rick fished the pier for a while just before and after dark. Used some worms he dug from the compost pile. Says he had lots of nibbles, but didn't hook a single fish.

Date: 4/8/98
Time: 4:30 pm - 5:45 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 70 degrees, beautiful , light breeze
Tide: Last part of the incoming tide. (high at about 6 pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: 57.7 degrees, visibility less than 1 ft.
Fish Caught:  2 pickerel, two white perch, one yellow perch and one bluegill.

Rick and Rick fished the pier for brief time this evening. We used some worms Rick had dug from the compost pile for bait. I caught all the fish on a small red horsehead jig tipped with worm. We also fished a line with a bobber and one on the bottom. We got lots of nibbles and I suspect many of them were bluegill since we couldn't seem to hook them.  

Date: 3/29/98
Time: 7am - 11am
Location:  Magothy River, Cornfield creek inside Holland point
Weather: 80 degrees, 15KT winds from W
Tide: High (6:30am) and outgoing
Water Temp/Conditions: 56 degrees. Visibility about 1 ft..
Fish Caught:  2 pickerel boated. Battled quite a few. Also one nice yellow perch All fish released.

Fished the shallows of the cove. Had a beautiful morning full of wildlife and bird song. It was fairly calm in the lee of the island. We had some action in a couple of spots we tried. Fished basically with the same techniques as yesterday. About 9:30 we pulled anchors and took a cruise out on the bay. With the west wind there was not much of a chop on the bay, but the river had a good fetch and piled up some whitecaps at Mountain bar.

Date: 3/28/98
Time: 10am - 4pm
Location:  Magothy River, Cornfield creek inside Holland point
Weather: 80 degrees, 20KT winds from SW
Tide: Very low, incoming
Water Temp/Conditions: 53 degrees. Visibility about 1 ft..
Fish Caught:  1 pickerel boated. Battled quite a few.

Rick and Rick fished this windy day mosthly inside Holland Point in the cove out of the wind. Had lots of action on a red horsehead jig with black and chartruese twister tail tipped with a minnow. But the darn fish must have been really sucking them in because I lost at least 4 lures to fish that cut the line. Also fished a minnow under a bobber and as I recall that's how we caught the one fish that made in into the boat. Released it of course since the season is closed..

Date: 3/19/98
Time: 5 pm - 6 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 50 degrees, beautiful sunset, calm
Tide: Low slack
Water Temp/Conditions: 47 degrees., it was so shallow we could see the clam shells on the bottom at the end of the pier.
Fish Caught:  None.

Rick and Rick fished the pier with jigs tipped with grass shimp. It was futile since there was almost no water, but it was so pretty we just had to give it a try. Had fun, but got nary a nibble.

Date: 3/7/98
Time: 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 45/light breeze from the NE, cloudy
Tide: Right around the high tide, may have hit the slack tide right on the nose
Water Temp/Conditions: a little clearer than last week, maybe a foot and half visibility. Rick checked the temp at about 46 degrees.
Fish Caught:  None.

Rick and Rick couldn't resist the tempation today. We picked up some minnows at Fishbone's and drowned them in the Magothy. Tide was almost over the pier. I lost a couple minnows to some very sneaky fish. Young Rick says he didn't even have a nibble. The light NE breeze cut right through us and we pooped out pretty quick. Skunked again. Blame it on the slack tide. 8-)

Date: 3/2/98
Time: 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay(Tar Cove), Magothy River
Weather: 50/light breeze/drizzle
Tide: First part of the incoming
Water Temp/Conditions: maybe one foot murky
Fish Caught:  None. Missed a couple pickerel we had on.

Rick and Rick fished the pier for a short time this evening in the rain. Had a brief flurry of action where I lost a fish and shortly afterwards Rick had one on in the same location. He fought it for a short time and we could see it was a pickerel. Unfortunately he lost it shortly afteward. Fished with the same bobber rigs we used yesterday.

Date: 3/1/98
Time: 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay, Magothy River
Weather: 60/calm
Tide: incoming but plenty of water under the pier( I think high tide was due a little after 8 pm)
Water Temp/Conditions: maybe one foot
Fish Caught:  18" pickerel released,  20"+ striper released, missed a couple nice ones

Rick and Rick fished the family pier for about an hour just before dark. Minnow on a small unpainted horsehead jig with a black twister tail dangled about 18-20" under a bobber was the combination that hit today.

Young Rick caught an 18" pickerel (heavy female) and fought a 20"+ striper to the pier. We couldn't land the striper since we didn't have a net. I tried to get him by the mouth, but after several attempts he managed to throw the hook. Nice fish.

I lost a nice fish as well. It was probably a pickerel since the line was cut near the lure. I had tied on a lightweight yellow horsehead jig with yellow and white hair with a loop knot. The line was cut below the knot. It was a solid heavy fish. Really!

Darkness and a birds-nest ended the trip.

Date: 2/28/98
Time: 9:30am - 1 pm & 3:30-4 pm
Location: Pier on Sillery Bay, Magothy River
Weather: Cloudy/calm 55 degrees
Tide: outgoing
Water Temp/Conditions: maybe 1 ft. visibiityr
Fish Caught: none

Young Rick fished the morning at the family pier.Had one rod with a minnow and bobber and cast a second rod with an assortment of spinners and jigs. Not a nibble!

I joined him for a short time in the morning and we fished again for a brief time in the afternoon (water was down about a foot by then). No action then either.

Date: 2/22/98
Time: 11 am - 5:30 pm
Location: Magothy River, Cornfield Creek to the headwaters
Weather: 50/sunny, not bad!
Tide: incoming mostly, high tide was about 3pm
Water Temp/Conditions: fairly clear
Fish Caught: 1 pickerel released

Rick and Rick fished the Magothy this date. Fished a while in Cornfield creek in the first cove behind Gibson Island. Not a nibble! Using minnows under bobbers and an assortment of lures. Next fished the boathouse cove(James pond) near the mouth of Cornfield creak. Checked by DNR police while we were there.

Cruised upriver and fished a few spots on the North side of the river in the vicinity of Mill Creek/Dividing Creek. Not a nibble! Went upriver as far as we could go and wet the lines. Not a nibble.

Decided it was such a beautiful day we'd go for a boat ride so we headed East to the mouth of the river and beyond. Circled Baltimore light and returned to Cornfield Creek.

We were determined not to be skunked on this day, but the sun was going down and it was starting to get quite chilly especially after that cruise at 25 mph. Went back to our old faithful spot inside Holland Point where we had started the day. Parked in about 5 ft of water and fished as we had all day. Young Rick made a cast with a minnow under a bobber and the bobber disappeared as it hit the water.

He battle that 18" pickerel to the boat and that wrapped up our day of fishing. Chilled but not skunked! Another great day.

Date: 2/14/98
Time: 12:30 - 1pm
Location: Sandy Point State Park jetty
Weather: 40/partly cloudy, breezy. Brrrr!
Tide: seemed low, not sure
Water Temp/Conditions: cloudy water
Fish Caught: none, but Rick missed a good one!

We had read reports of stripers caught here recently. Cast from the jetty out near the end for about 30 minutes. I lost my jig/sassyshad lure on a snag after about 20 minutes of casting.

Rick used a rattle-trap and had one nice fish on for a short run.

Too cold!

Date: 2/1/98
Time: 11am-3pm
Location: Magothy,  Cornfield Creek
Weather: clear 45 sunny
Tide: outgoing
Water Temp/Conditions: Just a little cloudy from recent rains
Fish Caught: none

Rick, Rick and Bryan fished in Cornfield creek. We were optimistic from the start because we had to loan a fisherman at the launching ramp our net to land a pickerel just as we were ready to launch.

Used minnows under bobbers and an assortment of lures, but didn't catch a thing!

As the sun dropped low a breeze picked up and these discouraged anglers called it a day.

Date: 1/31/98
Time: 10:30am - 3 pm
Location: Magothy, Deep Creek and Cornfield Creek
Weather: 40/mostly cloudy, breezy. Brrrr!
Tide: outgoing
Water Temp/Conditions: Just a little cloudy from recent rains
Fish Caught: 2 pickerel released

Rick and Rick tried out our new 17' CC. Had fun but it was cold on the river. Tried Deep Creek but caught nothing. Got checked by DNR there.

After lunch at the Hydes and warming up, Bryan joined us. We found shelter in Cornfield creek and that's where we caught the pickerel on a small horse-head jig w/ black twister tail. Fish seemed to be in 5-6 foot of water.

Caught those pickerel in the cove on the right just past the entrance to the creek on the Gibson Island side.

Date: 1/4/98
Time: 2-4pm
Location: Lake Waterford
Weather: clear/65
Water Temp/Conditions: skim ice in a few places
Fish Caught: None

Rick, Bryan and Rick fished for a while mostly using jigs. The park was crowded and there were lots of folks fishing but no-one catching anything. We walked along the north edge of the lake, but found few suitable places to fish. Lost a few lures to trees, snags and ice.

Date: 12/28/97
Time: 3-4pm
Location: Unicorn Lake
Weather: clear/cold
Water Temp/Conditions: water level in lake was down a couple feet. Clear.
Fish Caught: None

Rick, Rick and Katie fished for a brief time in the spillway. Picked up a   little grass but nothing else. Went to the dock which was covered  with ice and made a few casts, but the water was very shallow.

Date: 12/20/97
Time: Noon - 3:30pm
Location: Loch Raven Reservoir
Weather: 60/breezy/sunny
Water Temp/Conditions:
Fish Caught: None (saw a few crappies caught)

Lake was down a couple of feet. fished shoreline w/jigs from access near the closed road section just above the #1 bridge. Water was shallow within casting distance and lots of weeds. No fish.

Went down below the small dam and fished from the wall. Could see carp swimming among the weeds and funky turquoise/blue water. Had one fish strike at a black twister tail jig/spinner.

Went to #2 bridge and saw some folks catching crappie from the bridge. They had little step ladders to reach over the rail. They fished three small jigs with a sinker below. The whole rig was about 4 foot long. They would swing it out and pendulum it back in under the bridge. Saw about a half dozen crappie caught in the 15 minutes we stayed.

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