Greetings from BAYMEN and Capt. Dave!

On board this morning, Baymen Dick Bowman (USMC) for light tackle (and fly) striped bass (and shad!). If you have been following my Baymen Reports for the past 31 years, you know that the name Dick Bowman comes up often. He is a regular and we fish together about ten times a season. It is always an adventure and always a lot of fun!

At first light, a NW breeze, a dropping tide, clear skies. Water temps 58-68 around the bay. Air temps 56 degrees. Wow. Had my coat today and should have worn an extra shirt.

If you read yesterday’s Baymen Fishing Report, you know the bay was loaded with striped bass. I expected more of the same today. Wrong. Nature runs on it’s own schedule set in motion long ago by The Almighty, and mankind is so removed from it, we don’t understand how it works much of the time. Today, at first light, the entire three bays were nearly void of striped bass on the dropping -1.1 tide and post two days on the full moon. Exact opposite of yesterday.

I attempted to duplicated yesterday’s success and we hit the same Spot #1 right out of the gate as we did the previous morning. Yesterday the fish were STACKED for 45 minutes, today it was void of fish! 

Spot #2 we managed one nice striped bass at the edge of a flat. Spot #3 zip. We ran to Browns Bank again today, and again fish were up on the shallowest part of the bank in 6″ inches of water. We tried to reach them until my skiff bottomed out and then we got out of there to avoid getting washed over by small rollers.

Spot #4 – Yesterday the fishing turned on like wildfire on the incoming tide in this spot. Today – Zip! One small school of fish swished past and were never seen again. We got one fish.

Spot #5 – FINALLY! As we pulled up into working fish and birds I instantly could tell by the topwater breaks that these were Hickory Shad. And not just any shad. These were GIANT SHAD! Dick told me to throw a fly while he worked the light tackle and we were giddy at our good fortune to finally get into fish and joked that we were “The Shad Kings” LOL… We landed a bunch that had to go 18-20″ inches or better. Monsters and I wish I had my 5 wt fly rod instead of my BVK 8 WT. But still a ton of fun hooking up and watching these Poor Man’s Salmon jump clear of the water.

Spot #6 – STACKED WITH BASS!!! Half acre schools working under birds with bass busting (?) or rolling in topwater. A simple task of quietly setting a drift working with the wind and tide and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Wrong again! To our utter amazement the striped bass up to 36″ inches would take nothing as we drifted through them time and time again. It was very frustrating. But we are anglers and we figure things out. We began to change up our techniques. Then we began to change up our tackle – a lot of changing up tackle! We finally hit on a couple things that landed us a couple striped bass: small and white, fly or lure. And vary your retrieve. Three quick retrieves, pause… Repeat. We worked this way over scores of fish bumping into each other and we got a few fish. But very few. We could not see the bait for the life of us. It had to be micro -sized…. Then it hit me: CINDER WORM HATCH!!!!! I remembered the giant hickory shad were spitting up cinder worms on the deck of the boat in spot #5. I paid little attention to it because the hickory shad are not too selective even in a worm hatch. But striped bass? If you have been there you know!!! Cinder worm flies are the ticket when you know there is a worm hatch to match. But a worm hatch was the last thing I expected to see today. But we were relentless and with a lot of work we landed enough bass to make all the frustration worth it,

We called it a great morning and I turned the key to fire up the engine and head for home. DEAD BATTERY! A call into TowBoat US and they came out and gave us a jump pack and we fired up the engine and were on our way. I replaced the battery and we are back in business and ready for our next charter. All part of a guides life.

Total catch and release today was 18 fish. A mix of striped bass and giant hickory shad. All on the worm hatch. Even with water temps way too cold for a worm hatch – or so I have always thought.

Tight Lines and see you on the water!

Sincerely, Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, baymenlife.com 31 Years Guiding The Bay. Still Learning Every Day.

Soli Deo Gloria!