A Hard-Won Victory
I felt the light tap-tap on the line of my baitcaster and brought my arm up smartly. The rod jerked down, bending hard, and the line peeled off the reel, howling against a firmly set drag. Then the fish angled the line across a nearby barnacled pier and cut me off. I slumped down in defeat yet again.
This was our second lesson of the day and our fourth lost fish, but it wouldn’t be nearly the last. Tom Schneider, my pheasant-hunting partner, and I had been scouring the mid-Bay for rockfish without any luck. I’d finally called my neighbor, Frank Tuma, captain of the charterboat Downtime, hoping for news of at least a catfish bite. He surprised me.
“Good rockfish weighing up into the 30s, and lots of them,” he assured me, then he gave me the location. On the site, we joined a number of fishing boats of all types, most of them chumming and some landing fish. We moved into the scrum, drifting and dropping our baits into the murky Bay waters alongside a bridge support.
The tide was just slacking, perfect for the type of fishing we planned, as little weight was necessary to get our softshell crab baits down.
A blue crab enters its soft phase by molting or shedding its hard shell. That’s how it grows, gaining about an additional third of its previous size by ingesting water and swelling. The crab’s new shell hardens within six hours. If the crab is removed from the water, however, the hardening process is interrupted. That’s how we get to eat them when they are in that most delicious phase.
Some moisture is essential to keep the crab alive and fresh. But eventually, despite the best efforts of the seafood processors, the shell will begin to harden. The first stage of that hardening is the papershell stage. While the papershell is still fairly delicate (like paper), it’s already become tough enough to make for poor dining.
It is now just firm enough to easily retain a hook, preferably inserted through the first-to-harden joints of the legs where they meet the body. The crab still has the attractive (to predators) soft-crab scent but is now much more difficult to filch from the hook. This phase of the crab makes it a super rockfish bait.
The first mistake we made that day was in using too much crab. The papershells were quite large. In our eagerness to tempt a really big rockfish, we decided to go with a generous half crab. The stripers, unfortunately, were not amateurs. Grabbing an edge of the bait, they would jet off with a chunk. We would strike mightily to no apparent effect — except separating the crab into smaller bits, most without a hook inside.
Going to smaller crab chunks without legs and claws made the baits much more effective in getting a hookup. That brought us to the second lesson. I’m generally a firm believer in letting a rockfish run. My philosophy has always been that they should be given their head. Sooner or later (usually sooner) the fish will tire, and you can gradually bring it under control and into the net.
That technique is not at all wise if there is significant structure or sunken debris nearby to foul or cut your line. In this location there was plenty of all of that, and we soon lost a number of rigs to fish diving into the debris on the bottom or wrapping the line across the rough concrete bridge supports.
Soon, running low on bait, spare hooks and leaders, we cranked our drags down to near maximum. It had become all too obvious that if we didn’t stop the fish and get them under control immediately on hookup, we weren’t going to land them at all.
Making those adjustments to our approach, we eventually landed the first two fish, a 22- and a 23-incher. Despite our tactical changes and improved hookup rates, we continued to lose some of the bigger fish fights. A few of the brutes were so powerful that we just couldn’t stop them with our light tackle before they’d somehow cut themselves loose or broke our tortured lines.
We were in the end victorious, though, and finally limited out with a last fat and fine 30-incher. We felt battered and humbled with the experience that morning but we were also grateful. Good luck on the Bay is not a sure thing. But the adventure isexhilarating.
Fish Finder
The red-hot rockfish bite around the Bay Bridge is mostly worn out. With large numbers of boats, some from distant marinas, working the bridge piers, the fish have either been harvested or scared off. From the crowd’s various origins it would seem there are few other concentrations of stripers in the mid-Bay and that the next honey hole has yet to be located. Anglers are already switching to trolling, the best tactic for locating new fish.
Chumming and fishing with menhaden was the most popular method of getting a rockfish limit, with dropping pieces of soft crab second. Jigging BKDs and Bass Assassins in the same areas proved productive for anglers insisting on artificial baits.
Shore-bound anglers at Sandy Point, Matapeake and Romancoke are still getting fish, with jumbo bloodworms, fresh menhaden (alewife), soft crab and razor clams being the best baits.
White perch are showing here and there but are difficult to find. No sign of spot or croaker, and he catfish bite has also slowed with double digit catches more rare.
Crabbing is slowly picking up but not near the numbers predicted for the season — yet.