Article by Dale Timmons
A couple of friends and I spent two days on one of the Virginia barrier islands last week. We had good fishing for large red drum and beached over a dozen stripers, so I’m definitely not complaining, but another species, black drum, seemed scarce, and since I like to eat the small blacks, I was kind of targeting them. I managed to catch four small ones, but conditions and beach structure seemed ideal for the black drum, so based on that experience I might have thought that there weren’t many drum around or they had moved on north or offshore. A friend, however, talked to some anglers who had been fishing another island very close by, and they had caught a lot of blacks but very few reds or stripers. The point I am trying to make is that our success with a target species very often doesn’t have anything to do with the overall population of that particular fish, but with differences in seasonal, or even week-to-week migration patterns. These migrations can be affected by many factors, including water temps, water clarity, bottom structure, and especially the abundance, or lack of, food that the particular species prefers. In the case of the black drum, it might have been something as simple as a lack of bean clams on one island compared to another. If we have a good year on flounder in Ocean City, it may be because a particular set of factors brought the fish into that inlet. Warm, clear water and an abundance of shiners or small crabs, for instance. Another seaside port might have a poor season at the same time, however. Likewise, a good year on white marlin offshore is usually simply a matter of water conditions and the presence of plenty of bait for the fish to feed on, not overall population numbers. Those conditions might only be limited to a small area of the Washington Canyon, and if you were fishing up in the Baltimore Canyon you might think there were no whites to be caught. If the overall population of a species seems very high, however, it might really mean there are more fish and they are spread all over competing for food. On the other hand, it might only mean that the fish are concentrated for some reason that we do not see. A few years back, for instance, the whole mid-Atlantic from the Carolinas up to New Jersey saw good numbers of speckled trout in the fall. You would think that meant the population was high, but the following year, there were practically no trout anywhere. Did those fish just disappear? I doubt it. More than likely, something affected their migration, and the “good year” was just an anomaly that brought the usually more southern population of trout up the coast. Anglers who target stripers in the ocean in the late fall and early winter know that some years the fish come inside the 3-mile limit in good numbers and some years they don’t, usually depending on things like wind direction and where the bait is. This is another reason I am leery of “trawl surveys” that fisheries officials use to determine populations. If you make your tows inside the 3-mile limit on bare bottom, even though the captain tells you there aren’t any fish there, it will definitely affect your numbers. I guess the point of all this is that since fish have tails and live underwater, nobody really knows what is out there and where they are. Unfortunately, in these days of sometimes absurd over-regulation, whether or not a fisherman can catch a fish is not only determined by migration patterns, but by someone else’s guesswork…
The Cape Hatteras area has been experiencing one of the best cobia runs in a long time. Boat anglers have been doing especially well sight casting lures to “the man in the brown suit.” Unfortunately, the Park Service has been busily closing the best beach areas to ORV traffic, so your odds of catching a cobia from the surf have been greatly diminished. Rumors are that the feds have also been busy trapping or killing predators such as foxes and raccoons so the piping plovers would have a better chance of survival. Apparently groups such as the Defenders of Wildlife condone this action. My question is: when did the life of a plover become more valuable than the life of a red fox? Kind of a waste of time, anyway, I think, since the crows and black backed gulls will eat the eggs and baby plovers like candy anyway. Last week, I sent one of those automated letters to Maryland Senators Mikulski and Cardin asking them to support senate bill S1557, which basically would throw out the consent decree and let the Park Service go back to managing Cape Hatteras National Seashore under the Interim Management Strategy until they (NPS) issue a final rule for off-road vehicle use. I didn’t hear anything from Mikulski, but Cardin did send a form letter, which basically said through a lot of convoluted politician speak designed to make you think he really cared, “screw you, I’m sticking with the Audubon Society”, though not in so many words. I think Maryland voters need to clean house and get rid of all the incumbents come election time. Funny thing is, John James Audubon, after whom the Audubon Society is named, was an artist who was also an avid hunter, and he shot almost all of the birds he painted so he would have good close up models…he would probably turn over in his grave if he knew his name was being used to raise millions of dollars to pay a bunch of fat salaries and file lawsuits to keep the public off public beaches…
A gentleman asked me last week if I preferred braid or mono line. The answer is both. For my conventional surf reels, I still use mostly mono, either 15, 17 or 20 lb. test. This is primarily because I don’t trust myself casting for distance into the wind with braid. A backlash in braid is not a pretty sight. The exception is on a Shimano Trinidad 14, which I have loaded with 50 lb. braid and (knock on wood) I haven’t backlashed yet. For flounder fishing, it’s braid hands down, both on spinning and conventional. You just can’t beat the sensitivity. I also like braid for jigging with a metal or bucktail jig. I use both mono and braid for casting lures, depending on how and where I am fishing. For casting jig heads or Mirr-O-Lures in the surf for speckled trout, for instance, I still like 8 or 10 lb. mono, mostly to avoid the “wind knots” that sometimes plague braid. Fishing for the same species in the bays, however, where distance isn’t as much of a factor, I often use 15 lb. braid. Casting around the inlet jetty or the bridge pilings, I find myself using 15 or 20 lb. braid more and more. Braid also excels for ocean bottom fishing, but for offshore trolling I still like the forgiveness (stretch) in mono. Both lines have advantages and disadvantages. Mono is cheaper, but braid generally doesn’t have to be changed as often. Mono stretches and doesn’t pull as many hooks, but braid is more sensitive and allows you to feel both the bite and every headshake. Mono is easier for knots, but there are several that will hold in braid with no problem. My advice is to try it all…there are so many toys and so little time…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
