October 14th, 2007

Welcome Aboard! The cooler night time temperatures and breezy days are helping to quickly bring the water temperatures down to 66.6 degrees on the Susquehanna Flats area, now if only my rain dance would work. The striper/rockfish are in the area in good numbers we are catching a lot of shorts but there are some good keeper size fish in the area. Our largest fish this week was a 24 inch rockfish that I caught on one of my new top-water plugs named (Bubba Shad) during a final field test. The Capt. Karl’s series of top-water plugs are available now at Sarge’s Bait and Tackle (410) 620-9183. These top-water lures are hand made by Allen Mrachek of Big AL’s Lures they are designed to work on the choppy waters of the Susquehanna Flats. I have been working on these lures with Allen for almost a year and they are now available. The series presently consist of 3 lures the Capt. Karl Special, Capt. Karl JR. and Bubba Shad.

Our best pattern for the rockfish is to look for the birds and target the 10 foot water depth, but we are finding rockfish as shallow as 1 foot especially around rip-rap shorelines. During the early morning and overcast periods we are using the top-water plugs then when the sun gets high and on the blue bird sky days we are using Stillwater Lures ½ ounce Clatter Shad lipless crankbaits.

The Largemouth Bass bite has not been as consistent as the Striper/Rockfish bite. The Bass bite has been good one day and slowww! The next. The good days are good as we are getting some very good quality bass. We are having our best success targeting the wood laydowns close to deeper water and docks in the Marina’s with deep water. We are fishing the ½ ounce Clatter Shad to locate the fish and then switching to 4 inch Case Plastics Jacks Worms in the Roadkill color rigged Shaky style or Tidal River Drop Shot style.

This coming week will be busy on the Upper Bay as Anglers Choice Team Trail has their Tournament Of Champions (TOC) out of Anchor Marine on Friday and Saturday, Good Luck to All!

Water Temperature; 66.6 degrees Water Clarity; 1 foot

Thanks & Good Fishing, Capt. Karl

August 15,2007

Welcome Aboard The hot summer and humid weather conditions have slowed the bass fishing down some especially on the grass beds, but there are still plenty of nice quality largemouth bass hiding in the grass beds. We are covering a lot of water from the Gunpowder River to the Susquehanna Flats to get a good limit of bass using a variety of lures and techniques, as the water temperatures are 80 plus degrees at 6:00am rising to the mid to high 80’s by noontime.

In the early morning we are concentrating on the topwater bite using the deps Buzzjet Jr. and the new prototype Roumba wake bait by ima Japan. If the grass beds are not producing then we are quickly moving to the shallow wood in the backs of the creeks with a defined channel. Once the sun gets high around 10:30am we are quickly switching our technique to the Shaky Worm and Tidal River Dropshot technique, using the Case Plastics Jacks Worm in Roadkill & Greenpumpkin/Gold colors. If the water is muddy we are dipping the tips of the worm tails in Chartreuse dip-in dye. We are also using the Bite-Zone finesse worms for these techniques in the Blue fleck & Junebug colors. When the tide is low we are fishing the Optimum Baits Poppin Furbit over the thickest grass we can find.

When we find active fish in the grass we are throwing DTT ¼ ounce Thumper Special Bream colored spinnerbaits and the deps Mini Bro’s Chartreuse spinnerbaits.

We are closely watching the birds, Great Blue Herons & Bald Eagles to help us locate areas with active bait fish. Once you find these area’s slow down and thoroughly fish them.

The Upper Bay is going to be a busy body of water this weekend as the BFL is launching out of Dundee on the Gunpowder on Saturday. I hear that they need more boaters to cover all of the rider/co-anglers wanting to fish, great opportunity for last minute boaters wanting to fish.

Anglers Choice Chesapeake Teams is launching out of Anchor Marine on Sunday.

Water Temperature: 86 degree’s

Water Clarity: 6 inch’s

Thanks & Good Fishing, Capt. Karl

July 19,2007

Welcome Aboard! The bass are in their summertime pattern on the Upper Chesapeake Bay/Susquehanna Flats. The thick grass beds on the flats and the mouth of the Susquehanna River as well as many of the eastern shore tributaries are full of bait fish and the largemouth bass are there feeding on them. The smallmouth bite has been very good in the Susquehanna River above Garret Island. On the lower part of the tide we are fishing the Poppin Furbit Frog in the Sunshine Burst and Midnight colors. The Poppin Furbit Frog allows us to fish the very thick grass easily while the poppin action gets the bass’s attention in the thick/dense grass beds on low tide providing us with some great top-water action.

We are closely watching the birds, Herons & Bald Eagles in particular in determining which of the large/vase grass beds to target, as these area’s will have plenty of bait fish in these grass beds. This technique helps us to eliminate the less productive areas.

On the higher part of the tide we are fishing DTT ¼ ounce bream color spinnerbaits and shallow running crankbaits over the grass as the tide is moving out, targeting the edges of the grass beds especially the edges adjacent to the channel. Our best producing crankbait is a new prototype wake/shallow crankbait by ima Japan/Optimum Baits called the Roumba; the Roumba is scheduled to be available in mid September 2007.

We are also finding good quality bass in the back of creeks with small feeder ditch’s and grass with a channel for the bass to hold in, for this pattern we are using a wide variety of lures.

The Upper Bay/Susquehanna Flats will be very busy this weekend, please be courteous and patient with the other fishermen as well as the pleasure boaters. Fishers of Men (FOM) is having a tournament out of Charlestown on Saturday. Anglers Choice and the B.A.S.S. weekend series are both having a tournament out of Anchor Marine on Sunday; these are both large tournament trails. The Captain John Smith 400 organization reenactment Shallop will be in the Perryville, Port Deposit and Havre de Grace Area this weekend with waterfront events planned. Unfortunately these area’s shoreline grass beds may be too congested and busy for fishing.

We are using scent on all of our baits, applying CB’s Hawg Sauce Bass Honey (gel) on our plastics and CB’s Hawg Sauce Sweet & Sassy Garlic oil base on our hard baits.

Water Temp. 81 degrees

Water Clarity: 1 foot

Thanks & Good Fishing, Capt. Karl

May24,2007

   Welcome Aboard! We are continuing to find small patches of grass growing and if you look closely and cover some water you will find some very nice small grass beds forming, the reward for your efforts will be lots of fun! We have been testing a new ima Japan wake bait named the “Roumba” during our grass bed exploration and the Roumba is going to make locating and hooking those reluctant grass bed fish a much easier and fun task. The Roumba is also as effective in the shallow wood covered shorelines for targeting those bucket mouths that are tight to cover.

   Again this week many of our plastic bait bites were very slow and soft, as many times we would not even feel a peck or see our line move but with total concentration the bait would seem to have a slightly heavy feeling, and then we would set the hook with a quick snap of the wrist. Our best plastic bait this week has been the Case Plastics new Curly Craw in the Roadkill color. We have been targeting wood laydowns and docks with the Case Curly Craw. This pattern has rewarded us with a 7 pounder and good numbers of 3 ½ to 4 pounder’s this week.

   We are using scent on all of our baits, applying CB’s Hawg Sauce Bass Honey (gel) and CB’s Hawg Sauce Sweet & Sassy water base spray on our plastics, to make our own fish catching recipe.

   We are finding bass with a little red on their tails, these fish are trying to spawn and we are quickly getting them back into the water, please try to do the same as a successful spawn is critical to the future of our fishery and sport.

Water Temp. 72 degrees

Water Clarity: less than 6 inch’s

Thanks & Good Fishing, Capt. Karl

May 17th, 2007

Welcome Aboard! Finally we are finding small patches of grass growing and if you look closely and cover some water you will find some very nice small grass beds forming. Yes this grass exploration will take-up some of your valuable fishing time but the reward can be great!

The top-water bite has been good for us this week. We have been using the deps Basirisky and Buzz-Jet JR. in the Bluegill pattern. Both of these baits are subsurface top-water style baits that make a good wake as you slowly work them across the grass. At times this technique made us wonder if we were having too much fun, but a quick check of sense’s told us NOT!

Again this week many of our plastic bait bites were very slow and soft, as many times we would not even feel a peck or see our line move but with total concentration the bait would seem to have a slightly heavy feeling, and then we would slowly set the hook by steadily increasing the pressure on our line. The “INCHI WACKY” technique seemed to work best for us when the fish were biting this soft. We were using a Case Plastics Wacky Jack in June Bug and Roadkill color.

We were using scent on all of our baits, applying CB’s Hawg Sauce Bass Honey (gel) on our hard baits about every twenty cast’s and CB’s Hawg Sauce Sweet & Sassy water base spray on our plastics about every ten cast’s.

We are starting to find some bass with a little red on their tails, these fish are trying to spawn and we are quickly getting them back into the water, please try to do the same as a successful spawn is critical to the future of our fishery and sport.

Water Temp. 71 degrees

Water Clarity: less than 6 inch’s

Thanks & Good Fishing, Capt. Karl

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Welcome Aboard! Combine below normal spring water temperatures with a good-old Nor-Easter Storm & you have a recipe for some “SLOWwwwwww” fishing, in muddy water on the Susquehanna Flats area.

The water temperature in the North East River has been running about 2 degrees higher and this is where we have found the Big Bucket Mouths at this last week, flipping Case Plastics Sweet P’s in Roadkill color with the paddles dipped in chartreuse dip-in-dye, rigged on the Dave’s Tournament Tackle ¼ ounce Spot Hopper.

We concentrated our efforts on the Susquehanna Flats area today out of pure determination, we had to work hard to find the bass but they were there and the Case Plastics Brush Puppie came to the rescue for us this afternoon. Rigged on a Dave’s Tournament Tackle Round Screwball Shaky Head (jighead) Roadkill color with the paddles dipped in the chartreuse dip-in-dye. We were fishing the smaller profile baits in the morning but we were missing a lot of bites as the fish were there but having trouble finding the baits. I decided to try the Brush Puppie as it had worked for me last year in the muddy water and once again it worked, as we went back over the area’s where we were missing fish and we were able to catch them.

All of our bites this week were very slow and soft, as many times we would not even feel a peck or see our line move but with total concentration the bait would seem to have a slightly heavy feeling, and then we would slowly set the hook by steadily increasing the pressure on our line.

We were using scent on all of our baits. We were applying CB’s Hawg Sauce Bass Honey (gel) about every ten cast’s and CB’s Hawg Sauce Sweet & Sassy water base spray about every 5 cast’s. I think this was critical to our success, as if we didn’t keep the scent pattern going or success would slow down considerably.

We did not fish the Susquehanna Flats “Catch & Release” area for striper/rockfish this week due to the high winds and muddy water. I did get reports of some guy’s having limited success using live & cut-bait.

Water Temp. 45 to 46 degrees

Water Clarity: less than 6 inch’s

Good Fishing, Capt. Karl