Crabs and Rockfish- October awesomeness 10/24/14

Sad to acknowledge that it had been almost a full month since I had fished or crabbed at Deal Island.  However, I had been planning this one for a while and was thrilled to see that the weather was going to cooperate, except for some heavy winds.  And even the wind cooperated when I needed it too.  

Friday 10/24/14 started out a little cool and very breezy, small craft advisory breezy.  Based on recent trends, I knew that the crabbing would get good right around 2pm.  This gave me ample time to cut my grass.  Launched the jon boat at 12:30, abiding by the regulations against using gas engines between October and March.  New electric trolling motor, new battery, I just hoped that it all worked.  and, it worked quite well.  The 38lbs thrust motor pushed the heavy jon boat just fine.  crabbing was slow at first, although the first crab I caught turned out to be one of the biggest I had ever caught at an exact 8.5 inches point to point.  This was in front of the first dike.  After about an hour it was time to move.  I went down the creek and just beyond the two 45-degree turns, as going to the 2nd dike was going to take too long and seemed unnecessary.  Good call, as the crabs turned on here pretty quickly. After about another hour I had amassed nearly a bushel of the biggest, heaviest male crabs I have ever caught in all my years.  Crabs for dinner.  

Saturday 10/25/14- the wind had laid down and it was another gorgeous blue sky 68 degree day.  High tide was at 3:15 pm and my plan was to fish the incoming tide. So, I launched at 12:15pm.  Based on information from the locals, the hot tip was to troll around the islands in shallow water. I had rigged all of my lines with either jigs and worms, or Storm Lures.  I ran across Tangier Sound to South Marsh Island, seas were relatively calm.  I began drifting and used two rods, placing both in rod holders.  Maintained my trolling speed by keeping the engine running at about 1100-1200 rpm, resulting in an indicated 2.5-2.8 mph troll.  On one rod, I had a bucktail and yellow worm, on the other a Storm Lure  The Storm Lure prevailed as the popular bait, as I caught 3 rockfish on that rod before also putting a Storm Lure on the other rod.  I caught two more rock for a total of 5.  Four were between 18-20 inches and went in the cooler.  Fresh rockfish for dinner that night!!

Hoping to get one more crabbing trip in before it gets too late.  Target is 11/14/14.

9/25/14- last chance for 2014 to crab using a gas motor

With September predictably buzzing past me at an alarming rate, I decided to carve out a little 2-day break and head down to Deal Island.  Plan A was to crab on Day 1 (Thursday), and to fish on Day 2. Having scheduled this weeks in advance, I had little choice but to brave the mild nor'easter that welcomed me on Thursday.  After October 1, gas-powered outboards were not to be allowed in my favorite spot, the Deal Island Impoundment in Dames Quarter.  This is year 2 of this draconian restriction, intended to improve the experiences of the waterfowl hunter, despite my objections to the state of Maryland.  Oh well.  With the impoundment having been closed much of the summer due to littering and "vandelism", I expected there to be an abundance of crabs.  And, I was not disappointed.  
Having launched my jon boat (for the first time this summer) and navigated to the 2nd dyke, I began a slow but steady capture of crabs from my turkey neck handlines at around 11:30.  Then as 1pm approached, all hell broke loose.  The crabs began to hit my 10 lines so aggressively I had little time to move from one to the next.  Soon, they were either crossing all of my lines, or ripping the baits right off the strings.  This continued for another 45 minutes, at which point my bushel basket was completely full off some of the nicest crabs I had seen or caught in quite some time.  Had I wanted to fill a 2nd bushel, I'm certain I could have done so in short order.  By 2pm I was back in the truck, boat back on the trailer.

Day 2 broke bright and beautiful, a complete antithesis to the day prior.  After cutting the grass (which had not been mowed in 3 weeks), I prepared the center console for some rockfishing, including securing some difficult-to-find soft crabs.  Just then my buddy Capt. Danny Benton stopped by with a gift- a nice mess of white perch fillets.  YUM!  So, I stuffed those into the fridge and talked Danny into going fishing with me that afternoon.  Danny had never been aboard my boat, nor had we really ever caught any fish together. I was so excited that he was going to join me.  Fishing alone is nice, but its also great to have a buddy sometimes.

So, at around 2 pm I towed the boat down to Wenona for an incoming tide launch on this gorgeous sunny 78F autumn day.  I stopped in at Arbys and bought a bag of ice.  Everything was set!!!  We lauched the boat, and I allowed Danny to play fishing guide.  Oddly enough, he took me through the cut between Wenona and Little Deal ISland, into the Manokin, and all the way back into my favorite deep hole in Laws Thorofare, where I sometimes fish for hardhead.  I was glad for the guided tour, as I had never approached this spot from Wenona but had often thought about it.  So, we anchored, and as usual my next move was to get the tunes set up (I carry a DeWalt boombox for playing music while I fish).  Got the rods rigged, music playing, and then I open the cooler to pull out some soft crabs to cut for bait.  But wait- oh CRAP, the cooler is empty. No soft crabs.  At which point I realize I had left them in the other cooler, which is identical to the one I packed, minus the seat cushion on top.  Next thing I realize is that I also don't have the bag of ice I bought.  You gotta be kidding me???  I guess I was so excited about Danny fishing with me, that I picked up the wrong cooler AND left the bag of ice which I paid for sitting in the icebox at Arbys. Epic fail. Well, we had a good laugh about this.  This is SO not like me, I'm usually very thorough when prepping for going out on the water. Any way, we try spot after spot after spot, with the squid and shrimp I had brought.  No dice.  Either the rock did not want what we were offering, or we were in the wrong spot.  Going back out into Tangier Sound with our croaker bait probably would have been a good idea, but we were focused on trying to catch a rockfish.  So, as a consolation, I offered to cook up all the white perch Danny had brought me.  And that's exactly what I did.  I fried up probably 50 small white perch fillets at the camper, and we gorged on every single one of them as the sun was going down.

Saturday, I had to return home, so no chance to redeem myself on this trip.  A pretty crazy October has me tied up until end of the month.  I'm hoping to return 10/24 for more crabbing and fishing.  Only this trip, I'll have to use an electric motor crabbing.  And, the fishing will have to be either trolling near the shore or using some frozen peeler as bait.