Looking out on the Chesapeake Bay or the Atlantic Ocean reveals little about where the fish are feeding on that particular day, tide, or weather condition. While you can always follow the fleet, sometimes it pays to locate your own fish by using the navigation chart in your GPS or go old school and use a paper chart produced by NOAA.
Trying to figure out where the fish may be and when you can go after them begins by locating structure on your chart. This normally includes shoals, wrecks, drop-offs, and hard bottom or rocks. Choosing where to start is determined by the type of fish you want to target and the stage of the tide and current direction.
Should spot, croaker, or white perch be on the menu, look for rocks or other hard bottom. These fish feed on all sorts of critters that live around this type of structure. This includes worms, crabs, little fish, and shrimp.
Once you locate your first choice, enter the coordinates into your GPS and take off. Should the first choice be a dud, make sure you have entered several more productive looking locations before leaving the dock.
When finding more mobile fish such as rock and blues, you are looking for channel edges, drop-offs, and perhaps the same rocks and hard bottom you already entered for the bottomfish. Trolling is a good method for locating fish because you can cover a lot of water in a reasonably short time. Working the edges of channels has always been and continues to be the best technique for finding some action.
Look for the steepest drop you can find and enter the beginning of this edge in your GPS. Find the spot where the drop becomes more spread out and enter that as well. Troll over the edge from shallow to deep and back to shallow again while watching your SONAR and GPS. If you mark bait or fish work that area over well varying your lures and depth of presentation.
Make note of the tidal stage and current direction. Predator fish generally try to ambush their prey by holding as much as possible out of the current in a position to grab a meal as the current pushes it past.
This information is critical to any type of fishing, but especially jigging. You want your jig to move along exactly the way bait would to make a natural presentation to the target species. To do this you should start up current of the channel edge, bridge piling, or dropoff and allow the current to move your jig down and past the blues or rockfish. Keep your reel in free spool, and control the speed of the drop with you thumb. If you use a spinning reel, keep the line running between your thumb and index finger with just enough pressure to feel even the slightest tap. Most hits will come on the drop.
So let’s just say it’s opening day of the trophy rockfish season, and you find the Bay covered up with boats, many trolling with planer boards and running 15 to 20 lines. How do you compete with that in your 18-foot center console?
You find you own spot by using your chart. A small boat pulling five or six lines can maneuver in a tighter space than a big charter or private boat. Look for a short dropoff or a turn in a channel edge where the majority of the fleet can’t work properly. Go there and make short runs over that structure until you catch a limit or find nobody home. In the latter case it’s off to Plan B.
A quick check of my Captain Segull’s Chart shows this kind of structure located at Brickhouse Bar, Gum Thickets, and Bloody Point. I am sure a few more less-popular spots can be found with a little time spent looking over your chart.
Those who like to chum up their fish will be looking for dropoffs where they can anchor up current to allow the chum and bait to drift into deeper water right along the edge. Here too the current direction is critical. You will want the deep water to your south on outgoing water and to your north on the incoming. Most locations will only produce on one tide or the other so you will have to move when the tide changes. Have several locations in your GPS just for this purpose.
A little pre-planning can result in a successful trip.
by Eric Burnley