46

sports

outdoors with Lou Rocha A Lesson Producing

JVheh Things Are Tough

No mailer how much you know, the more there is to learn That slogan should he indelibly tattooed on the fofehead of every fisher ' man. especially those of us who think they know a lot and for . those who think they know everything One of the fascinations of fishing is that it is ever changing Each day on the water gives the angler that much more time to learn And. if anyone has doubts, go fishing a few times. What gives license for this philosophy lesson? Actual |y what has been happen mg in Delaware Bay with • the weakfish may well have caused H. Some boats are scoring well on weakfish in Delaware Bay while others are not Some individual fishermen are doing better than others We attribute a

lot of this to angler skill. Some fishermen are just better than others They practice, they hone their skills, and above all they take direction and ask questions. ON A RECENT trip to Crisfield. Md . to fish the Chesapeake Bay for ••trout" as they call our weakfish, we got a lesson in how to produce fish -when things arc tough. We shouldn't have needed any lessons, one might say After all. we've been catching weakfish fodj^) years up and down the coast, day and night, on all ktnds of rigs What’s to know that is new? Jim Francis, a fledgeling charter boat captain, who has been on his first job as skipper of Ray Sterling's Sterling's Silver, a charter boat out of Crisfield, had

some “new" tricks to show us as soon as he found out what the trout were doing on the day we were to fish for them. We found lots of marks on the depth recorder paper, showing trout at all levels. There was little, if any, encouraging radio chatter to indicate lots of success. Boats anchored near us were not obviously catching. Ray bypassed the anchor-up and bait fish technique and went to drifting for weaks. That’s duck soup. I thought, because we do this all the time in Delaware Bay. I went to my traditional bay spinning rod, bay bucktail and plastic worm, tipped with a bit of bay shedder RAY TOOK OUT a graphite rod, a revolving spool fresh water reel loaded with dacron line and the biggest bucktail (lead head jig) I had ever seen. It was a full five ounces. Ray tipped his jig with a yellow plastic worm and shedder, dropped it into the 85 to 90 foot water we were fishing in, and proceeded to haul back in a few minutes on a 12-pound trout It didn't take long to "borrow" a similar outfit from Ron Poisker, who operates a foreign car clinic in nearby Salisbury, Md. Ron, too, had been fishing the dacron-bait caster combo with a big Hammered Hopkins lure. He had a small spoon tied about a foot ahead of the bucktail, and he, too did well. The fourth angler aboard was Lynn Hess, a nurse practitioner, also from Salisbury, Md. She too, put aside her spinning rod, and went to dacron and graphite 1 CAN’T SAY we were high boat that day for Crisfield, but few boats that day did as well. While most of the fleet anchored up in traditional Crisfield manner, our skipper kept us well north of the fleet drifting from the shoal

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water into 85 and 90 feet. While we recorded few fish on the bottom at that level, we did manage 27 weaks, and they weighed close to 300 pounds total. We also lucked into two schools of weaks on the surface, and managed a few fish from those pods. S Jim moved frbm the Baltimore aipa 10 years ago to Princess Anne, Md., and began fislHng both the ocean and Chesapeake Bay. He started fishing with Ron in 1976, and they lucked into the dacrongraphite technique while fishing in their own boats a couple of years. A broken reel caused a switch to what would be considered a fresh water-light salt water outfit, and one certainly not considered as a deep water jigging outfit Graphite “telegraphs'' the light strikes of deep-feeding weaks, and the no-stretch quality of the 10 to 18 pound test dacron allows the angler to set the hook right

now.

We've used dacron before for casting, both in fresh and salt water on our bait casters, but never had we dreamed of putting this "new" technique to work. Once again, we learned from someone else. You can bet that we'll be jigging giant bucktails on the bottom with a dacron-graphite combination on our next trip to Delaware bay. It just might work. .. INCIDENTALLY, if you like to travel for fishing, Crisfield offers a lot. We were first introduced to the mysteries of Chesapeake Bay over 25 years ago by a then-young Doug Carson who started us fishing there at age 14 (his age, not mine) in a wooden skiff and a six horse outboard. Doug now runs a charter boat called the Fisherman from Crisfield. v Crisfield is a sleeping tourist attraction giant waiting to happen. One leaves from here for Smith Island and Tangier Island tours. The scenery is great if you like the unique in water-based industry. Fishing is excellent in Chesapeake Bay and the facilities are muchimproved from when we first went there. A letter to Betty Creed at Somerset County Tourism, Box 243, Princess Anne, Md. 21853 will get you information. If you're interested in fishing, call Jim Francis at 301-651-2871 or Doug Carson at 301-651-2871. You can get motel and area tourist and fishing information from Tim Carson, c/o the Pines Motel, Box 106, Crisfield, Md., 21817 or call him at 301-968-0900. FISHING REPORT: Weakfish continue to frustrate some anglers and heap rewards on others as they sag slightly toward the mouth of Delaware Bay. Upper bay anglers have already seen the movement. FortescueMaurice River boats are concentrating on fluke with a few weaks mixed in. Inland waterway fluke fishing has picked up with more keepers showing each day. Topper for the week was the 124-pound fluke caught

OUTWEIGHED — Dave Jorgensen, 11, of Wildwood Crest shows the 754-pound black drum he boated while fishing with his granddad, Tom Jorgensen, on his boat the Bee Gee. Dave was fishing clam bait ir Delaware Bay when he made his catch. The fish was weighed in at Joe Rodia's Tackle Shop in Rio Grande.

by Don Smith of Woodbury, N.J. while he was drifting minnow baits on spinning gear in Corson's Inlet. Don was fishing from a boat out of Frank's Boats, in Strathmere. It was one of five caught in the boat, but the group quit when the big one came aboard to take it in to be weighed. Candy at Frank’s Boats said the "regulars" are doing as many as 40 to 50 fluke per trip while most boats are bringing in at least a dozen fish or more.

Bottom fishing continues to oroduce good catches of se.i bass, some ling, blackfish, porgies and occasional pollock and a few cod. Some bhiefish are also being taken by the wreck fisiermen. Night blue chumming has become consistently good, as has daytime trolling. With little daytime boat traffic for blues, some anglers are scoring well by casting and jigging with medium and light spinning gear for blues.

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