Riding the Storms Out

A low pressure system stalled just south of us this week, and drenched the area with nearly 11 inches of rain. Our consequences have not been too severe. Sunday night, our yard flooded with about 6 inches of rain water, but our drains and sump pumps held so there was no damage, not even to the briefly submerged garden. A glance at the CNN website today shows the above picture of Sandy Point State Park, just 3 miles away, under water. I'm thinking someone dragged that picnic table out too close to the Bay. We've had slightly higher than normal tides, but that's mostly a result of prevaling winds from the South. (See my earlier post regarding winds and tide.) We had much higher water levels in the Bay earlier in the year. I expect fishing and crabbing to take a hit for a while, but nothing too serious here. Nevertheless, there has been a lot of damage and suffering for those who live along the rivers or in low-lying areas of Washington & Baltimore. Traffic Sunday night was a nightmare, even at midnight as we returned from taking Cory to the airport. If they can't get people in and out of the city due to storms, how do they expect to evacuate in the event of terrorism? -S

Crab Traps 101

You know, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to figure out.

1. Go to store, buy crab trap.
2. Open trap door, put in bait.
3. Throw in water.

Easy right? Well, I guess not for me. I'm no stranger to the water. I grew up fishing, my first job was operating a bait shop, my second job was managing a boat dock, my third job was fishing commercially - you'd think I knew something about it! But, to be completely honest, the Chesapeake Bay is kicking my butt. Yesterday I was browsing the Crabbing board on the Tidal Fishing web site when I noticed a thread about why there is a seperate "holding pen" in most crab traps. The answer provided is that crabs have a natural tendency to swim upward when trapped, so it takes them away from the bait and keeps them from escaping out of the funnels they came in. ..... Ummm, upward??? ............... For three months now I've been putting the traps in the water with the holding pen DOWN! I wonder if the crabs are thanking me for the free meals? -S

Nice Perch

One thing I am getting good at is catching White Perch off our dock. These fish look and behave a little like the white bass (stripe) I fished for back in Tennessee. The weather here has been rotten, but I found long enough breaks between the rain squalls Monday evening to catch our dinner. My most effective perch fishing method so far has been to cast a "Beetle Spin" tipped with a small piece of shrimp. I allow it to sink to the bottom, then pick it up just fast enough to get the blade to flash. If there's a fish nearby, he'll hit it. Because of the rain there was very little boat traffic Monday night, and the Bay was very active. I saw my first sea turtle. About as big around as a hubcap, it came up several times around the dock and didn't seem to feel at all threatened by my presence. There were also many cow-nosed rays swimming around lazily and a new species of fishing bird that I haven't noticed before. I'd fish for a while, then duck under the boat awning when the rain got too hard. I probably caught upwards of 30 perch, but I only kept the 8 largest. We accompanied our perch filets with fresh squash, cucumbers, and onions from the garden. Yum yum! -Shawn

Extreme Rope Swing

Cory was here this weekend. Our neighbor David who is an old friend of Dianne's was having a get-together at his place. He lives on a high bank overlooking a deep creek in the Bay. It's a nice location with lots of huge old Oak trees overhanging the water, a perfect place for a rope swing. Since Dave's an engineer by trade and something of an adventurer, he decided to enhance the swing by building a launch tower complete with different take-off levels, and add a pully system for easy return. Cory couldn't resist!

Company Coming

One of the reasons we wanted to live by the Bay was hoping friends and family would come visit. I'm very happy to see that they are! This week my Aunt Barbara from Georgia along with cousins, Kris, Danny & Colten are spending time with us. They've hit many of the usual tourists spots in DC, but I think they're just as happy sitting on the dock fishing. Fortunately, the Perch are cooperating as they've probably caught 50 or more over the course of the week. I asked what they wanted to do tonight, and offered a few suggestions since it's their last night here. "Baltimore? The Inner Harbor? An Oreoles Game? More musems or monuments?" They looked at me like I was nuts. "We just want to stay here and fish," was their reply! I strongly support that decision. -S

A Busy Week

As I hoped, things are now very busy at our little house by the Bay. This past week, my brothers and their families came up to visit. The Perch were hitting very well off the dock, and both Creig & Michael caught fish. Even 2 year old Leah reeled one in! In addition to the Perch, we've seen several Cow-Nosed Rays swimming around the dock. Creig hooked one on his ultra-light outfit. We tried chasing it in the boat before it spun off all the line, but the Ray won the battle!

One evening we took the boat down to Cantlers. It's a very well known dockside crab house not too far from Annapolis. I like Cantlers for several reasons, the food and atmosphere being first, but also because the Cantler family has a very nice display of relics - dating from colonial times - that they've brought up from the bottom of the Bay with their oyster tongs and crab pots. We ordered a couple dozen crabs in addition to other seafood, and Dianne showed everyone her excellent method of cracking them. They were great. On another night we cruised up to Baltimore, around by ESPN Zone, Hard Rock Cafe, etc. then tied up beside a water-front restaurant in the Inner Harbor. Afterwards, we crossed over to Fell's Point for ice cream at Maggie Moo's. On the way back I swung very wide around the mouth of the Patapsco making sure not to repeat last weekend's mistake.

Another fun trip was an evening in DC where we visited the National Cathedral and Dianne provided her now famous "Monuments By Moonlight" tour. On their last day here we made a fruitless attempt at chumming for rockfish while the girls made a trip to Eastern Market. After we gave up on the fish, we cruised on down to the Annapolis City Dock. This week my Aunt Barbara and cousins Kris, Danny, & Colten are visiting. We have many more adventures planned! -S

Worse than I thought

Planning to file the skeg down straight and try to smooth the prop dings some. My neighbor says they make stainless skeg covers that might work to fix the outdrive. I think a machine shop might be able to straighten out the prop. Still, an expensive repair. I feel really dumb but I keep thinking how much worse it could've been. -S

Danger in Rough Water

Saturday we decided to take the boat up to Baltimore. I guess it's about 10 miles to the Inner Harbor from our dock, so it looked like an easy trip. I studied the charts and plotted our course. The forecast was for 10-15 mph winds, but it wasn't too rough in the Magothy. We had a pretty easy cruise until we got to the mouth of the Patapsco which is the river leading to Baltimore harbor. The wind was whipping at about 30 MPH here and the waves were as high as any I've seen yet. (I later learned the NWS revised the forecast to a small craft advisory for the Bay for the remainder of the day.) Although somewhat jostled, we managed to make our way into the sheltered downtown harbor.

We had lots of fun cruising downtown around the Aquarium, Hard Rock Cafe, ESPN Zone, etc. and passed several excursion boats and water taxis. There weren't too many power boats out because of the high winds, so we had our choice of travel lanes and docking places. The best discovery is that it only costs $5.00 to tie up at the inner harbor, while it's at least $15.00 to park a car. We decided to have lunch at Feld's Point and even found a place there to tie up free. We ate and shopped for a while, then I took a nap while Dianne read as we waited for the wind to lay. After an hour or so, when it only seemed to be getting stronger, we decided to head home.

Even though we were traveling with the wind on the way back, the waves were much higher. We were really bouncing around. Going fast put us on top of the waves but airborne much of the time. Going slow really wallowed us up and down on the slopes and caused waves to break over the bow. Seeking to shorten the trip, I made the mistake of cutting the corner too sharp as we entered the Bay from the Patapsco. Even though I was about a mile from shore, the depth finder dropped suddenly from 27 feet to 6 feet to 3 feet. I shut down quickly but the big waves rolled us deeply so that the motor hit rocks twice before I could get it trimmed up. I was sure I had destroyed the outdrive or at least the prop, but it seemed to be okay as I idled us on high trim out to deeper water. I loaded her on the trailer last night and noticed a few dings on the prop. I'll inspect further in better light. We were lucky, and I made a mental note to watch my charts and GPS more carefully in the future.

On a much more sobering note, it turns out Saturday's high seas might have been fatal to one of our neighbors. While I was fishing yesterday evening I noticed Coast Guard search planes and helicopters patrolling just below the Bay Bridge. Watching the news last night I heard that a well-known newspaper publisher from Arnold was missing after they found his boat unmanned and adrift Saturday afternoon. I've been out in rough water on the lakes, but the Bay is obviously another league altogether. Last night the water was as smooth as glass and it didn't seem like the same Bay as I explored some of the coves and marinas near our house. -S

To Catch A Fish

Caught my first Chesapeake Bay Rockfish yesterday. A picking buddy, Dave Wolf invited me along on Captain Brian Sutton's "Debra Christine" out of Chesapeake Beach, MD. Dave had chartered the trip for people he works with, and graciously invited me to join the party. We fished from 5:00 until about 10:00pm starting out trolling with umbrella rigs for Rockfish, then bottom fishing with shrimp and crab for Croakers. I hooked up 3 Rockfish and landed one, then caught another 6 or 7 Hardheads. The final count was 2 keeper rockfish and 29 Croakers. Brian said that wasn't an especially productive evening, but I was happy to see some fish with respectable size! Dave plays multiple instruments and sings, and also shares a lot of my musical tastes. Also joining the excursion was Mike Garris who fronts a popular local jamgrass band. Mike picked with Del McCoury for several years, so we know a lot of the same people. I enjoyed talking to to them and others aboard about music and fishing. I also learned a lot about techniques and places to fish in the Mid-Bay area and had a great time! -S

To Catch A Crab

I finally caught my first one Wednesday. I think it's taking them a while to get up on the cooler waters of the river, but they're definitely here. I'm experimenting with two different kinds of traps. The smaller one on the right is more popular on the West Coast, and includes a hinged door that only swings inward. Once the crab gets in, he can't open the door to get back out! The bigger, chicken-wire cage has a two funnel entrances so the crabs can swim in but not back out. It also includes a place to hold bait. I think I will like this trap much better, and it's the one that caught the first crab. I'm just not confident that they can figure out how to open the doorto get into the other cage! One thing I noticed, crabs are mean when they're caught! This one was jumping and snapping his claws, even spitting at me! Next I have to get a live cage of some kind to store them until they become dinner! -S

Garden update & the arrival of Menhaden

My initial thoughts were that my garden wasn't going to do much. As I mentioned earlier, I had to haul in dirt so I thought I might not have enough, or the right kind of topsoil. For the first 3 weeks nothing grew much at all. But those fears have been allayed now. While we were away last weekend a friend stayed at our house and graciously watered the garden. We returned to find that his TLC and the warm weekend weather had resulted in lots of growth. We have immature peppers and tomatoes and I think I'll have to cut back the cucumbers some because they're threatening to take over. I haven't done too much except water regularly and add a couple of plant food treatments. Unless something drastic happens, my mini-agricultural cost/benefit analysis is looking pretty good.

On the fishing front, as I was mowing last night I glanced out at the water to see big schools of surface bait fish on our side of the Magothy. It's the first time I've seen them. In Tennessee, we called these schools "shad," but here they are referred to as "Menhaden" or somtimes "bunkers." I think they are a very similar species. Since there were fish feeding in the schools, I grabbed my spinning outfit and started casting a small spoon from the dock. I was rewarded with some of the biggest White Perch I've caught yet. From what I'm learning, rockfish will move into the river soon to feed on these schools. When that happens I don't know how I'm going to get any yard work done! -S