Maryland and Virginia 2012

[MuskieBait]

A while ago, I was looking at some members' Life List on Roughfish.com. One member, Pat, had caught both the Cobra Snakehead (in Florida) and the Northern Snakehead (in Virginia). We started chatting about techniques to catch snakehead...and before I realized it, we were chatting about making a trip to Virginia for snakeheads! :lol:

I didn't really envision making the trip so soon, but a number of things fell into place nicely and I was able to plan a weekend trip at a very low cost. Yeah!

June 28, 2012

At 11:30pm, I boarded the Megabus toward Washington. The journey was supposed to last about 12 hours, but we were held back at the border for 2 hours. For some reason, our driver was not allowed to cross the border and we had to have two new drivers come from Buffalo. Also, during a mid-trip break, one passenger boarded the wrong bus and we had to turn around to pick her up. We were late for a total of 2.5 hours...which was a pretty bad start to the trip.

June 29, 2012

Finally, at 1:30pm, I arrived at the Union Station in Washington DC. I quickly took the Metro to the airport to pick up the rental car, but with a departure time of 3:30pm, I was stuck in the terrible DC area rush hour traffic. Sigh...I just decided to relax and take it easy on the drive.

At 6pm, after a stop for food, ice and bait, I arrived at Point Lookout State Park in Maryland. I quickly found out that they do not allow sleeping in the car at the campsite...so I had to buy a tent (the only one left at the camp store...whew...talk about lucky!!!) With things sorted out, I quickly set up camp...only to find that the site had a hard gravel ground where the tent pegs just can't even be pounded in. In the end, I just tied the tent to the picnic table and to the fire pit ring.



At long last it was time to head to the pier! The tide was filling in so I was in a hurry to get fishing before high tide sets in.

The late evening sun was setting as I cast out the first line.



I was using a 9' salmon/steelhead rod that I use for surf fishing. It was paired with a 4000 size reel with 30lb braid mainline. I used 15lb mono and #8 baitholder hooks to tie the high-low rig. I started the night using bloodworms for bait.

Here's where the epic species started. There was a chance that I could catch a Summer Flounder, but I didn't expect it on the very first cast! Here's a picture from one of the three flounders I caught on this trip. Here's species #216 - Summer Flounder (Paralichthys dentatus).



I was a little worried about the famous first cast curse because it was dead after that first fish. However, as the sky got dark, the hoards of Spot begain to bite...and I checked off another important target! Species #217 - Spot (Leiostomus xanthurus). I used another picture of a Spot I caught the next morning...the night time pics were just not that great.



Among the tens of Spots biting, I found a fish that put up a little more fight. It was a puppy drum about 9". I've caught Red Drum before, but they are always fun.



I kept a couple of smaller Spots as bait since I was told the Bluefish will start terrorizing the baitfish after dark. Like clockwork, they appeared and you could hear some bluefish blitz occurring every several minutes. Sometimes, you could see a Spot jump on the surface trying to get away from a bluefish. Using cut Spots, I landed about 6 bluefish. They didn't really want a mug shot.



I was fishing hard hoping to find an Atlantic Croaker, however, the Spots and Red Drum kept biting...and even this little linesider came in to spoil my quest! Even at 12", this Striped Bass gave a good accord of itself.



Before long, we saw some flashes of light in the distance. At first, we thought it was just pre-July 4th fireworks...but soon, the light show got closer and we could hear thunder. The wind picked up really quick and we were forced off the pier. I ended up driving in horizontal rain and had to dodged a couple of times to flying broken branches. Pine cones were flying sideways!

Instead of sleeping in the tent, I ended up sleeping in the car afterall. :roll: I was worried about trees crashing down and lightning strikes. There were so many lightning strikes that the sky looked blue constantly!