Chesapeake Bay report with Capt. Russ Wilkinson, May 24th 2009

From Capt. Russ:

"With Spring migration patterns in motion and fishing in the upper bay impacted by a May worm hatch, lower bay fishing looks very good right now.  Water temperatures are in the mid 60's and reports of black and red drum as well as Atlantic Croaker and speckled trout are coming in.  I was glad when a trip to fish the Barrier Islands at the mouth of the Chesapeake came up.

Locations:  I watched the tides and felt good about a moderately early start.  Fishing the Barrier Islands is a go!  We left the dock on an incoming tide which quickly turned into an outgoing.  This required keeping a close watch, since two feet of water runs out pretty quickly, which can turn a nice fishing area into a boat aground.   

Rod and reel outfit: nine and ten weight rods with large arbor reels.

Ideal line types: sinking lines are ideal.  You do have to watch your casting and stay out of the grass.  A sinking line cast into grass beds becomes a disaster.  It not only takes time to clear but spooks any fish in the area.  Remember this is shallow water fishing.  It is only two to three feet of water, with good visibility.  No self-respecting fish will stick around if the grass is being jerked hard and wads of it are being retrieved to the boat.   Also I rigged a floating line in case the casting was a little off. 

Flies: Used crab patterns.  My selection included one with a bunny tail, fairly large, which sinks nicely.  Moved with a twitching movement on the bottom it will entice drum to eat it.  The floating line had a smaller crab pattern which sinks slightly.  This combination with its small hook on the pattern and the floating line makes it less volatile to the fishing we were trying to do.  In the face of a drum the crab pattern will get eaten. 

Color selection: Purple and black on the sinking line and natural crab color (green) on the floating.

Best location/methods: Checked the deeper water as we moved slowly back into the barrier islands for drum possibly feeding in the holes as the tide was starting to move.  If fish were located on sonar we would use the sink line in order to get deeply into the pockets.  Remember drum look at the bottom for a meal.  Once we were back into the shallow water of the first island, poling and/or motoring extremely slow was the method.  Poling is a plus when in prime areas like this.  Pay extreme attention to those areas where a small tidal creek enters the area you are fishing.  This is a meal ticket for drum.     

Fishing technique:  We watched for schools of drum that might be foraging together as we moved along the grass beds.  A school of drum might be quite large.  If we had found such a school we would cast quietly, well in advance of the school and start twitching our fly as they arrive on it.  We moved even slower using the pole at the mouth of creeks watching for any "V's" on the water or shadows that might be moving around.  These can indicate individual fish.  We would blind cast to the area quietly as we moved the boat along. 

Results: In our nearly four hours of fishing in the back country we found four Red Drum, the largest was over 30 inches.  Next time I will start earlier, on the incoming tide.  We simply ran out of water too quickly today. 

To learn more about Capt. Russ Wilkinson, please visit: www.chesapeakebayflyfishing.com/