Chesapeake Bay Fly Fishing, Susquehanna Flats Striper Fishing

We’ve been busy fishing the Susquehanna Flats all week, and doing quite a bit of catching. The wind just won’t seem to stay calm this Spring, and temperatures have been much lower than normal all season. It has made for some cold mornings and tough conditions, especially for the fly fishermen on board. Nonetheless, we managed to catch some really nice striped bass.

Here are some of the highlights:

Russ Weber and Bill Spire were on board Tuesday. They paired up and landed some of our biggest fish of the season.

Russ, always a hot hand, landed numerous big fish on the fly, and is pictured on the left above with Bill with his biggest to date fly caught striper. We figured it to be 30 +lbs. It ate a purple/white 3/0 deciever. Bill finished off the double with a nice fish of his own he caught on a albino bass assassin jig, and then landed the monster below which taped out at 49 1/2 inches and was in the 50lb range. Bill holds claim for now to the biggest fish of the season for us. It will be a tough one to beat.

These fellows set the bar high. Good fishing Russ and Bill.

Dan Nadler, and friends Bill Castle, Gary Smith, and Ed Rich came in from Pittsburg on Thursday under the threat of big winds and rain to fish for three days. Toughing out the weather paid off for them, and they are pictured below ,as listed, with some of their best fish. We didn’t meet our goal of bottoming out the 30 lb. boga grip, but we were within 4 lbs. , not too shabby, and we caught a bunch of other fish.

and a couple more…

Nice job fellas!

Talley Kovacs along with husband Louis, and dad Rick who flew in from N.Carolina finished off a great week yesterday evening, catching stripers on the flats just shy of the catch and release line. Again, just barely beating the poor weather we were able to catch some fish. Talley and Louis, pictured below, both caught their first stripers on a fly rod. Pretty work. They look like old pros posing for pics.

Thanks also to Brett Coakley pictured fishing in the background above who helped put us on the fish last night.

No Bait Neccesary!

The fish took a variety of flies and lures all week. The old reliable chatreuse and white half and half proved lethal as always. Close second were black and white and purple and white 3/0 decievers. We fished all sinking tip lines in 250-300 grains.

Best lure bets were a half ounce soft bodied jig. Chartreuse (a given), white, albino, and black shad worked good too. Jerkbaits took some good fish, and the surprise catcher of the week was on a gold Tony Acceta spoon #14 which caught us lots of fish.

Most of our fishing were in 6-10 feet of water on channel edges. Not much action on topwater for us yet, though we didn’t try much. Today and tomorrow a blow out with gale force winds and heavy rain forecast. We’ll get back at it on Tuesday.

As always, I thank all of you who came out fishing and fished hard.