“Where are the fish?”

I got an e-mail the other day that inspired this article. A
vacationer wrote in that he went to the Indian River Inlet one evening to
cast lures and was disappointed to only catch a couple small fish. He went
to the Ocean City Inlet the second day and saw birds working everywhere and
fish breaking, but he could not reach the fish. He wrote: “I knew that if
these fish were coming in with the incoming tide, they would soon be at the
Route 50 Bridge. Moving to the bridge was the right move. We began jigging
gotcha plugs right below the bridge, and, in about a two-hour period, we
landed over 40 bluefish. The largest of these fish was about 20 inches
long. We went back to the bridge the next two days for both incoming tides,
and we each landed probably 60 to 70 blues.”

Many anglers sit in one spot all day and wait for the fish to
come to them. Sometimes you have to move to the fish! I remember reading a
“post” in one of the talk lines the other day of an angler that wasn’t
catching any fish. He put on his binoculars and watched two anglers pull in
two big stripers within 30 seconds of each other a little ways down the
beach. THOSE anglers were likely fishing in a good slough or casting over a
perfect little drop off.

If you are fishing an area and nothing is happening for hours,
it’s time to move! Sometimes you only need to move a little and sometimes
you need to move a lot. If you are fishing for blues, trout, stripers, or
shad with lures it is important to look for bird action. Diving sea gulls
mean bait in the water and bait usually means fish! The bait is driven to
the surface by hungry fish below. You can tell if fish are in the bait by
looking closely to see if you see them roll, jumping, or splash. A big roll
could be a striper. Little “hops and splashes” may be snapper blues and
shad.

If the fish are not big stripers, but snapper blues, trout, and
shad, you do not want to use a big ‘ol 6-inch swimming shad lure or a
3-ounce Gator spoon. Get in your tackle box and dig out Gotcha Plugs in the
7/8 to one and a quarter ounce range, spec rigs, or 3 to 5-inch soft bodies
tied in tandem. Small bucktails in the three-eights to half-ounce size will
also work if you dress them up with a plastic curltail worm. Small spoons
will also work.

“My bucktail lure and my spoon are too light. I can’t cast them
out there!”

Tie your lure on a 30-inch piece of monofilament and tie an
inline sinker (1/2 to one and a half ounces) to the other end of the leader.
Attach a snap swivel to the end of your line and snap the inline weight to
the snap swivel. Now you have some extra sinker weight to cast out there,
but your sinker will not be so close to your lure to ruin the action. Never
tie a big ‘ol snap swivel directly to your lure either. It is better to tie
the lure onto a piece of leader material and attach the lure to one end of
the leader and put a swivel on the other end of a piece of leader material
at least 30-inches long. (Swivels help eliminate line twist, but can
distract a fish from biting!) If you absolutely must tie a snap swivel to a
lure use a small black one.
(Note: Just because bluefish have a few teeth it’s not necessary to
immediately scramble for steel leaders. When you are casting a lure, it
takes a lot of chomping for a fish to get beyond the lure and chew through a
leader. Monofilament or Fluorocarbon leader gives a lure more action and
gives you a better change to catch other fish such as trout, shad, and
stripers. These other fish can be quite “leader shy.”)

“I’m casting and casting but nothing is happening.”

One common mistake first time anglers make is to cast and
retrieve, but not give the lure a change to sink first. Especially during
the day, some of the fish are deeper than you can see. Your best strategy is
to cast up current and let the lure sink for a count of 10 before touching
your handle. The current will also help the lure to sink as it moves back
towards you naturally in the current. Often times, a fish will grab a lure
as it is falling as it looks like a wounded bait falling down into the
current. Plus remember, fish swim INTO the current when feeding, not WITH
it. If you cast upstream, the lure will fall right in front of a fishes’
mouth as it points into the current. If you cast downstream your lure will
rise too quickly plus if you do pass the lure over the fish it will be at
its tail, not its head! And that end of the fish can’t see!

“Fish come in with the tide and go out with the tide!”

This sounds elementary but lots of fish do seem to do this in
the inlets and in areas close to the inlets. At the beginning of an
incoming tide the fish tend to hang close to the mouth of the inlets. Then
as the tide rises, the fish seem to feed further into the inlet. As the
tide gets to it’s half waypoint and towards high tide, the fish come further
and further into the bay. If you’re fishing Ocean City, this means the
“bite” will start at the end of the North Jetty and then move towards the
“Indian Totem Pole” in the mid-section of the Inlet. Next, the action may
get really good at the end of the cement wall and at the Oceanic Pier. The
next flurry of fish may happen at the Route 50 Bridge and also the Homer
Guldesky Park on the west side of the bay. As the tide turns and starts to
go out, the fishing action will reverse. The Bridge will be good first, then
the Oceanic Pier, and then the center of the Inlet, and finally the end of
the rock jetties. (Of course, this doesn’t happen all the time.)



At the Indian River Inlet, as the tide first comes in, anglers
can first have good luck out on the rock jetties. Then as the tide comes in
further the action begins near the Bridge. As the tide floods the best
action can be at the Coast Guard Station and down by the Campground. As the
tide starts to go out, the reverse can happen.

Watch the birds! This is very important when casting for blues,
trout, shad, and stripers. If there’s no bird action, observe the water.
When you are drifting in a boat for fish, an angler will look at the depth
finder and search for drop offs and areas of bottom change. When you are
casting lures from a rock jetty, these same drop offs and areas of bottom
changes can be where the fish are. You can’t see it on a depth finder, but
you can see it as eddies and rips. (Little areas of turbulence on the
surface.) This comes from the bottom changes underneath!

Casting lures into dead calm water can be slow fishing. Casting
lures into rips and a little chop usually has better action.

The same is true on the beach. Lures can catch fish on the
beach, but you can’t just catch a fish anywhere. You want to work the lure
where there is some structure and bottom change. Casting a 4 or 5-inch soft
body with a lead head into a slough or drop off at high tide on the beach
can be very productive early in the morning or towards dusk. Casting a lure
over and over again on a flat beach can be a total waste of time. (Except
for the fun of it of course!)

Whether you are fishing with lures or bait, it’s not just luck
that catches you fish. Sometimes you have to move with the fish. Be
observant. Watch the birds, the water below you, and other anglers as well.
If you see 20 anglers huddled into one area on Tuesday afternoon but nothing
is happening, you can bet something was happening there on Monday! Keep
your eye on that spot!

Good fishing….