The rockfish were running back to the open ocean after spawning in the river and creeks and Paul invited me to troll the lower Potomac River near Point Lookout for big stripers.
The weather was overcast but calm in the morning but we had to keep a close watch. Thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon and we did not want to get caught on open water when the wind whipped up and the water turned nasty.
There were a lot of boats on the water for a Friday and most of them were working the channel edges and bouys from Piney Point up towards Point Lookout. Everything from big charter boats to small skiffs were slowly pulling lures through the water. A majority of the boats were using planner boards to get a lot of lines into the water to cover a wide swath of the river. One of the boats we passed had about 24 rods out on planer boards.
Fishing was slow. We marked
fish at various depths and it would drive me crazy when,
after switching lures to run shallow, the fish would be
running 10-20 feet below the lures. Then after switching to
deep runners the fish would all be running shallow. We also
spread various lures across all depths but only came up
with one hit that was on for only a few seconds.
We continued to troll across the channel as we made our way
back to Cobb Island. Just outside of the island where the
Wicomico and Potomac Rivers meet we
anchored up in shallow water and fished for croakers.
Paul had all the mojo, pulling in two nice fish which I
took home to grill for dinner. All I got were a couple
of dink fish that put up a good fight on a light action
spinning outfit.
EQUIPMENT: Heavy saltwater trolling rods
with Penn GT Levelwind reels. Big artifical baits for big
fish.