After a long weekend of family obligations, not fishing, and housework I woke up on Monday morning to gray skies, no wind, and temps in the 60s. I promptly called in sick and called my friend David to see if he’d be interested in playing hooky too. It didn’t take much convincing to get him to call out work so after a quick trip to Bass Pro Shop and a bite to eat we were on our way east to the Chesapeake Bay.

The plan was to scope out conditions while crossing the bay bridge. If the water was calm, we’d put in at the beach by Hemmingway’s restaurant and jig the bridge pilings. If it looked too rough, we’d continue on to Eastern Bay and the Narrows where it would be more protected.

Driving over the bridge I saw that the water was flat calm on the western shore with a slight chop on the eastern shore. We decided to give the bay bridge pilings a shot. It’s not often that the conditions on the open water of the bay are so kayak-friendly so we went for it. We were on the water by 1pm.

My fish finder was acting funny at first but it eventually started reading fine. Not sure what’s going on. We marked a lot fish and baitfish but there just wasn’t a whole lot of activity. I saw some birds working south of the sewer pipe but not much else so we just kept heading west, trying the pilings and schools of fish. While we were fishing we got a lot of honks from drivers on the bridge – simple tributes from fellow anglers who had been at work all day.

The paddling was very easy. We made it out as far as the first channel (@ 80 feet deep!) and were almost underneath the main suspension part of the bridge. It was a little intimidating being out that far but I’m glad that we gave it a shot and got back safely. On a nicer day we might’ve tried to get to the eastern shore rock pile. Next summer I’d like to try crossing all the way to Sandy Point.

After a few hours of paddling with no fish to show for it we decided to try fishing the pilings of the northern bridge on our way back in. This proved to be a good decision. I caught 2 nice 15” stripers off the first piling and David ended up catching one right after me – his first striper. He ended up catching another after it – a fat 17”.

On our way back in we started marking fish in @ 10’ of water so we made a few casts. I caught one 12” dink on my fly rod, a nice treat since I hadn’t caught a striper on a fly in a while. It was getting dark by then. Daylight savings had officially caught up with us.

We didn’t exactly slay fish but we didn’t get skunked either. I’d say that this trip was more about the adventure than the fish caught: skipping out on work to fish, being out on the big water like that, and watching a good friend catch his first rockfish. It was a pretty good day, all things considered, and better than a day in the office.

The fishing was a lot like last weekend on the Honga. We were in a prime location and marking fish, we were just waiting for the bite to turn on. As it was getting closer to dusk, the wind picked up and it seemed like the fishing picked up too. Not sure if we were just hitting the right spots or what, but it seemed like the action was turning on elsewhere judging by the birds working off the eastern shore rock pile.

I also noticed that boat position in this kind of fishing is just as important as a good cast on structure. With the fish stacked on the pilings and in eddies just in front and behind, the depth and direction that the lure was swimming seemed to play a big role in drawing a strike. Ideally I would have anchored above the structure and cast down into it, letting the lure swing through, but the current was too swift and the water was too deep. I’ll keep the “above” approach in mind next time.

Launching at the beach at Hemmingway’s was very convenient. There’s plenty of parking there that’s close to the water. There was also a street light at the corner of the parking lot so loading my truck up in the dark was much easier than usual. On top of that, a great oyster dinner at Hemmingway’s was right there after we packed up.

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I feel like I should openly say that I’m not a big water guy. I knew that going into the trip. It was exciting being out there and there was all sorts of structure to fish, but something just didn’t click. For starters, my little kayak just isn’t the best boat for that kind of fishing. I’m not saying that you can’t kayak fish out in open water, just that a 14-16’ SOT would’ve been a safer choice.

I am just more comfortable closer to shore, fishing tidal creeks and rivers. A weird preconception of fishing the big water was that I would catch bigger fish, or at least the possibility for big fish would be greater. That didn’t pan out this time – the fish from the Honga were just bigger and the action was steadier.