Bait Fish

Everyone who fishes regularly has a favorite piece of water -- a stretch of trout stream or bass river, an arm of a reservoir or lake, a tidal creek, river mouth or channel edge. Mine is a point of land near the Bay Bridge, where the bottom steps away in well-defined plateaus for more than a half-mile.It is not an especially popular piece of water. It is shallow in parts, laid out with crab pots and marked by clam-line buoys. No state reefs have been placed there, and there are no wrecks marked on charts of the place.

Some nice blues finally are turning up in the middle Chesapeake Bay area. They have been big blues, too -- 10- and 15-pounders.The ones that I am aware of were caught by last-ditch rock fishermen trolling crippled alewives beginning a little south of Chesapeake Beach and as far north as just below the Bay Bridges.Captain Eddie Davis, who fishes out of Ridge, near Point Lookout, told me, "We could have caught a boatload of big blues last Sunday. These were 15- to 18-pounders that were working our chum line."

In just two weeks, the striped-bass season will open in Maryland's portion of Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Coast.The 40-day event begins Thursday, Oct. 1, and ends Saturday, Oct. 31. However, the season will reopen during the first three weekends in November (Nov. 6-8, 13-15, and 20-22).Fishermen will be allowed a creel limit of one fish daily, measuring 18 to 36 inches. Smaller or larger rockfish must be carefully released, so it's a good idea to carry a ruler or tape measure on your boat just to be on the safe side.

Welcome to fall fishing. When the "R's" start sneaking into the months one thinks of brrrr and oysters, but before we get too deeply into either we have some excellent fishing to experience.Already, we have seen more breaking bluefish, rockfish and Spanish mackerel, often mixed, than anyone can remember. Recently we have seen school after school feeding on the surface from below the Bay Bridge to above Swan Point.The bluefish should stick around through much of October so that after you catch your daily limit of rockfish next month, you will be able to chase a few blues.

We had passed more than a few times, the fellow in the red boat and I, while either drifting down tide or running a couple of hundred yards up tide. We were bottom fishing, letting the tide carry us over a hard bottom along the Eastern Shore.The fellow in the red boat had a rod in every holder and every now and again he could be seen scurrying around to tend his lines. From all appearances, the fishing must have been very good aboard the red boat.But on the third or fourth pass, the fellow in the red boat cut his engine and called across the water, "Flounder?

The flounder are back. After a couple of slower weeks of TTC flounder fishing in Ocean City, we are again seeing an increase in numbers. Jim Walters of Fenwick Island counted his catch last week at more than 150 fish. Out of this tremendous catch he was only able to keep about a dozen.Mr. Walters, along with many other boaters, has been doing well in the "flats" north of the Thorofare between buoys 10 and 16. Live minnows and a squid strip combination have been working well. Area fishermen are also doing equally well with frozen shiners.

Gone fishing on Route 146.Traffic rumbles across the Matthews Bridge at Loch Raven Reservoir.The fish jump.The observation deck sways and shimmies. Silence.Then the delicate plop of a fishing weight as a fisherman's line hits the reservoir's waters.This scene is repeated time and again whether at the Matthews Bridge, the only bridge of 20 in the Maryland watershed system where fishing is allowed, or at three bridges found in the city. However, crabbing is the favored pastime off the city bridges.

"They're on their way, captain," shouted Bruce Scheible over what sounded like a cordless phone. "They were off the Rappahannock this past weekend, and there is a big school of them coming past the bridge tunnel, even as we speak."If you hadn't guessed, "they" are bluefish.Bruce added that the fish caught in the lower bay were between 8 and 15 pounds.Bruce runs Scheible's Fishing Center near Ridge, Md., and specializes in chumming bluefish for his patrons. His fleet offishing boats includes both charter and head boats.

Jerry Fischer throws a mean hook and, last week, he caught one, too. In the middle finger of his pitching hand.The hook he throws is a curveball, frighteningly familiar to MSA B Conference rivals of Fischer's Southern Bulldogs. The one he caught was a fish hook, intended to vanquish a bass, not a batter.True to his name, Fischer, who no-hit Annapolis in Southern's first game of the season, loves to fish almost as much as he loves to pitch. "The curveball really helps me out if I get in trouble," he said.