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Poplar Island Kayak Fishing Trip.
Not knowing
if I would ever return to this area, I poured over charts, tide
tables, and monitored wind reports endlessly. And a
mission trip was established. While repairing rod tips, getting
all my ducks in a row... lunch prepared, fishfinder battery charge
that took forever this time, making ice, organizing my go-bags with
necessary and necessary equipment... I kept checking wind and buoy
reports with ADD characteristics. It was hard to get
to sleep with the pre trip adrenalin pumping. This
was going to be my furthest kayak trip from home, a challenge,
a true adventure.
Even at the launch it seemed I had tunnel vision
kicking in, not wanting to forget anything, get to the island, go
further, keep paddling... not until I caught my first fish did I
settle down. At least I did look back to take a picture
of a beautiful sunrise. (pic below).
Having spent nearly
30 years living at the beach as a surf bum, I had never explored
the Chesapeake. With numerous injuries, well my surfing
days are pretty much over. And I have fallen
in love with kayak fishing and exploring the Chesapeake Bay. Going
to Lowes Warf and visiting the really neat restaurant and bar at
Lowes Warf Marina and Inn will
be a day I will never forget.
I had some surfing buddies who used to captain
sailboats out of Saint Michaels, and heard about the beauty of the
area and the fantastic community. Of course that was
30 years ago, and I imagine that the main boulevard was quite different
back then, but that doesn't take away from the historic aspects
and the quaintness that St. Michaels still exhibits.
How to defeat an Army... well all you need is
one scorned woman. How to catch a lot of fish... well you
are asking the wrong guy about that :-) Although,
for me, it was a day of quantity, and not size. I caught fourteen
Rockfish, all small, lost a few more at the boat, a couple
of more that spit out the lure. I have caught lots of
Spot before, and croakers, but not this many Rockfish. Saw
lots of cownosed rays, luckily didn't catch any... I guess those
skate-whistles I installed work :-) They are fascinating
and beautiful creatures. Except when you hook one.
I stopped taking pictures of fish after the thirteen
incher. It's just not worth the trouble of getting out the
camera, and most importantly, stressing out the fish during the
whole process. I caught a fourteen incher that fell
into this later category of photo ops. And figured if
I got any keepers their photogenic appeal could be captured at the
dock.
Towards the end of the trip
I paddle to the furthers point south on the map (on the right).
Where I figured I would try for more Stripers and also
bottom fish for Spot or Croakers. This part of
the trip was coordinated with the tide coming back in and the schedule
wind increase to push me back to port at Lowes Warf. The
wind
hadn't picked up too bad. But combined with the tide, drifting and bottom
fishing doesn't really work to well as the line drifts back and
not so much on the bottom. I tried for a little while,
at the same time tossing out jigs for any other takers. I
started catching some nice sized spot that were worth keeping, but
with the drift and the line playing back and not on the bottom so
much...
I gave up on bottom fishing, released the spot, and paddled
slowly back to port.
Particularly, just enjoying an unbelievable beautiful
day with mild temperatures. It was July, and getting
a day not in the high 90's, or more, might not be repeatable. Slowly
paddling, the wind at my back, the tide in my favor, 3mph
was no task for the paddle back to port.
The aqua green water was strafed with colors
of sand in the shallows from the wind against a blue sky, and
billowing cumulus clouds on the horizon.
I explored some lagoons near the launch area,
just checking out the area. Nearly spent a half hour
watching a very large Osprey fishing, the beauty, and
grace, of those wonderful birds.
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