I decided to not try for the actual beach just yet and kept it a little closer to home. On Saturday I did a (long) one day trip that started with catching an hour of the outgoing tide at Kent Narrows in the morning, then a (slow) drive down to Taylor/Hooper Island area for some kayak fishing, then back home again with another stop at the Narrows.
I had never been to Kent Narrrows before.. and I have to say I'm not sure if I'll be back, at least not to fish from shore. It is a heavily used area, and looks it. There are not many places where fly casting from the bank is safe or feasible. Or maybe casting would be feasible, but landing any decent fish would be a scary proposition. I did not take the time to put my kayak in here as in the morning both the tide and the substantial wind were going in the same direction (I think I would have been doing a lot more paddling than fishing) and I didn't have a light setup for my kayak on the return trip (after dark). I will say this about the Narrows - there are lots of fish. In the morning, after I decided the West side of the channel was not going to work for fly fishing, I stood on the seawall on the East side and watched about a hundred schoolie stripers attack my fly on every cast. I caught and released a few 10 inchers on a normal sized fly, then put on the biggest fly I had (maybe 6" streamer on a 1/0 hook) and caught and released a few more 10 inchers. It was fun, but one can only appreciate so much of that kind of fun. I packed it in and drove south.
After getting held up in some terrible traffic I eventually made my way down to the Hoopers Island area. I chose to target this area after some half cooked research led me to conclude that I'd have a decent chance of adding speckled trout and/or red drum to my list of fly-caught-in-MD fish. I probably did have a decent chance, but I'll have to convince myself of that some other time. It was a beautiful drive through the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge to my first stop at the Golden Hill boat Launch (neither Talbot nor Dorchester counties require a paid permit to launch a car top boat). My plan was to put in at this "back bay/river" launch site to fish the top of the tide cycle, in hopes that I'd find some fish feeding. And that is what I did, with the exception of finding the fish. I had a few honest follows and a few more imagined ones, but I didn't see much action. I loaded the boat back up and headed down to Tylers Cove/Fishing Creek/Honga Bridge (depending what map you look at) launch site. There was not any shore access here either so I put in the kayak and fished the outgoing tide. It was pretty slow, but pretty. I fished for a solid four hours before the fish started to turn on around dusk. Incidentally this is also when the wind died down and the no-see-ums started to bite the crap out of me. Things were looking good. A nearby boat was steadily hooking some small to medium fish, there were scattered swirls around me, I had a few follows, missed strikes, and just as it was starting to get genuinely dark, I finally hooked up to a... 10 inch striped bass.
I was ready, so I packed up and headed for home. I stopped at the Narrows again on the way. That place is quite the scene on a weekend night. I did not attempt to fish.
It was a great trip. Hope to do it, or something like it, again soon.
Eric
http://www.tpfr.org
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