Fishing the Bay Bridge
I felt just the slightest tap 16 feet down, and set the hook. First there was a solid resistance. Then everything just went to hell. My rod slammed down hard, almost hitting the gunnel as I did my best with one hand to keep the heavily arced shaft somewhat horizontal. As my other hand was steering the boat away from an impending collision with a Bay Bridge support, there was little else I could do.
Eventually, under relentless pressure from the fish, I ended up pushing the rod tip underwater to keep the line away from the side and bottom of the hull until the skiff cleared and I could get a second hand into action. My drag setting was near the max, and I was shocked by the fish’s power to still take out line. I could barely hold onto the handle.
Finally I managed to motor away from the columns. With both hands now on the rod, I struggled it near vertical and braced to fight this fish to my net. The striper, however, had other plans.
Unbelievably, when it felt the increase in resistance, it redoubled its effort, pulling out yards of mono against a nearly maximum drag setting for 20-pound mono. It then went back through the bridge columns, cornered on a pillar, dragging my line over it and breaking off without so much as a fare-thee-well.
Thus ended a piscatorial beat-down.
When fighting big rockfish on light tackle, my advice is this: It’s like being hooked up with a bulldozer. They don’t have a lot of top end or gas, so if you’re patient and let them run, you’ll eventually land the fish. But if you try to just stop ’em, they’ll smash your tackle.
The accuracy of those words was now a double dose of salt in my wounded pride. I knew better. You can’t stop a rockfish over 30 inches with light tackle.
Hooking up near large, concrete structures studded with corroded fixtures, barnacles and otherwise rough, abrasive surfaces changes everything in a fish fight. Another critical factor is the torque a big rockfish can place on an angler’s arm. In close quarters with severe drag settings, the angler is on the wrong end of a six-foot-plus lever.
If the fish can place merely 10 pounds of force against its end, the angler can have something like 60 foot-pounds of force at the handle. Ultimately you have to let the fish run, snap your rod shaft or break your line. When it runs, your only hope is that your line will withstand the abrasion if it contacts large objects. Under severe stress, 20-pound-test mono seldom does.
And that is why, as we speak, I am respooling one of my Ambassadeur 5600 reels with 50-pound Power Pro braided line. I’ve dealt with this problem before. Thirty- to 50-pound braid has the innate hardness and Teflon coating to keep everything together long enough to get one of these brutes disengaged from the intervening structures and to the boat.
I’ve often written that I’m not a fan of braided lines when fishing bait. Fluoro and mono are much more bite productive. However, when it becomes a choice of handling fish around structure, the decision to use heavy-test braid on my reel makes sense.
Braid will hold up much better than mono when it comes across an abrasive structure. It’s harder and has extra coatings to protect line integrity in just such situations. You can let the fish run and still retain contact and impose good drag settings. The fish will wear down, and you get the control you need. You’ll still lose a few to be sure. But that’s the name of the game. It wouldn’t be a sport if you won all the fights.
Fish Finder
The rockfish bite at the Bay Bridge continues. Despite a constant fleet of boats numbering sometimes over a hundred, anglers are still catching limits of nice-sized fish on cut menhaden, crab and live-lined white perch.
Trolling works too, dragging bucktails with small to medium Sassy Shads in white and chartreuse.
Jigging is also producing some nice action wherever they’re marking good fish, usually in 20 or so feet of water. Rock have been cruising the Eastern Shore off of Gum Thickets down to Poplar Island and the mouth of the Eastern Bay. Jigs of up to one ounce in white, chartreuse, yellow or combinations of the same around the mouths of tributaries are hooking and getting releases numbering into the double digits.
White perch have been inconsistent in their locations but beginning to take spinner baits like the Perch Pounders and Rooster Tails as well as bloodworms, razor clams and peeler crab.
Crabbing remains unspectacular. Catches of up to a bushel are possible, though not frequent.