Regulars (Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle)

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/15/11

Fishing Our Big Muddy

When the fish bite, you gotta be there to catch them

First came Irene, then seven straight days of even greater deluge from Tropical Storm Lee. With so much forced inactivity, I was on the brink of angling despair. When the forecast suggested our first day of precipitation-free weather, I loaded my skiff. Arriving at the ramp and launching at first light, I had no misconceptions about my chances. All the Bay’s tributaries had been swollen in flood stage for days. Water was the color of coffee with...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/8/11

Late for Dinner

With the editor’s husband on board, there was no leaving till I got him a fish

It was pitch dark when the last fish finally hit. Bill said, “Got him.” Then, even from my station in the stern, I could hear his drag sounding like a large, angry bumblebee. Line poured out of his reel as the rockfish swam hot and straight for the middle of the Bay. We had been fishing for about three hours, night had just fallen and things had been dicey the whole time. Bill Lambrecht, founding partner and editorial advisor of Bay Weekly, as well as the...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennnis Doyle - 9/1/11

Angling into Irene

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

It was the day before Irene was due to arrive, and though I should have been home cleaning out the rain gutters, gathering supplies and checking the generator, I wasn’t. Friend George Yu, who has as little common sense as I do about these things, had met me at 5am, and instead of making hurricane preparations we were skimming down the Chesapeake over the calm, pre-storm waters in my small skiff. I had a hunch that the low pressure front descending upon us would...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/25/11

So Much So Soon

They shouldn’t have been biting. But they were. And I was catching.

At so many levels I suspected the morning was going to be a waste of time. Plus, getting up at 5:30am, though always painful for me, is even more so when I’m not expecting to catch anything. I was going to try plugging the shallows for rockfish. It’s my favorite kind of fishing but an end-of-September activity, not promising during a long August heat wave. I was determined to go, however, and I went alone because you can’t really subject...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/18/11

Sporting Dogs I’ve Known and Loved

Let me start with Lance and Josh

I’ve spent innumerable hours hunting and fishing over the years, probably a good many more than any well-balanced man should have. My love of outdoor sport has always been more of a passion than a pastime, and I’ve had some great company with which to share it. Many of the friendships formed along the way with sportsmen and sportswomen have stood the test of multiple decades. But my strongest and fondest memories are of the dogs who were there with me. Lance the...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/11/11

All’s Well that Ends Well

When you go fishing, you’ve got to be ready to adapt

As we drifted away from the pilings, my son lifted his rod tip to feel if the spot he was live-lining was still down deep. His tip sagged, then his rod bent over and line started to feed out from his drag as we pulled away with the current. “I’m hung up again,” he said. It was all that needed to be said, for it was the third time in the last half-hour that he’d gotten snagged in that location. As I moved our skiff closer to get a better angle to free...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/4/11

A Dauntless Sportsman

The tidal current was in a difficult phase. We were live-lining Norfolk spot for rockfish at the Bay Bridge, the water was moving fast, and my skiff was drifting as we swam baits deep along the bridge supports. At the helm, I had to avoid colliding with the concrete columns yet stay close enough to allow my partner in the bow, Randy Steck, to work his bait near the bottom of the structures. Fishfinder The summer doldrums are here, but the fish don’t seem to mind....

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/28/11

The One that Got Away

Far sweeter than the ones I ate

The incoming tide had just started by the time I slowed my skiff at the Bay Bridge. Nervously, I hooked up a nine-inch spot on a 6/0 hook and eased up to one of the larger multiple pilings. It would take a big rockfish to eat this bait. Throwing the motor into neutral in the slack water just down-current of the structure, I lobbed my baitfish out between the large concrete columns. The spot swam off, stripping line from my freely turning spool and making for the bottom 20...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/21/11

River Monsters in a Mid-Bay Creek

Channel cats give a good fight and good eating

Wife Deborah and I were enjoying a lazy afternoon fishing one of the Bay’s many small tributaries when it happened. I had just made a long cast to a downed tree that, I hoped, harbored more of the fat 10-inch perch that we had been gathering for a fish fry. Fishfinder The big spot have arrived, and panfishing is on fire in the mid-Bay. Hefty croaker, large perch and the Norfolks are here in serious numbers now. At Belvedere Shoals, Podickery, Hackett’s, Tolley...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/14/11

Accounting for Rockfish Tastes

No perch will do if spot’s around

A friend and two buddies started their rockfish expedition by catching four, rather large, (for live lining), eight- to nine-inch spot and about a dozen, perfectly sized, six-inch white perch. Cruising to the Bay Bridge and starting with the big spot, they caught four nice stripers within 45 minutes. It took the rest of a long and frustrating day to manage the last two of their six-fish limit with perch as bait.1 Fishfinder The Western Shore continues...