Angler's Choice Chesapeake Division
We had eight teams blast off at approx. 5:45 am out of Anchor Marina in the North East River of the Upper Chesapeake Bay. ...more Overcast skies with intermittent light rain and a very light 5 mph south wind were the weather conditions. There were some pretty good sticks in this event, so we knew the weights should be good! The angler's didn't disappoint, this is how the top 5 shook out: 21.16 lbs. took first place by the team of Rob Tipton and Jeff Stetler, Mark and myself came in a close 2nd with 20.50 lbs., 3rd place was a new team to the trail, Matt Novak and Bill Straub with 19.62 lbs., 4th place went to Dave McCulloch and his substitute partner Joe Booker, with 19.60 lbs.! 5th place went to the team of Ray Roux and Joe Bisazza with 16.20 lbs. It was a very competitive day on the Upper Bay and we look forward to seeing everyone again on May 30th.
I began pre-fishing on Thursday by launching out of Dundee Creek and the Gunpowder River area. A predominant wind out of the north west, had been blowing since early in the week and had created unusually low tides ( 2ft or more below normal), essentially the wind was blowing the water out of the bay.
It was difficult just finding somewhere you could safely run on plane, so I decided to cross the bay to the east side to see if it would make a difference, bad idea! 3 and 4ft. swells made the trip not only a rough one but a wet one as well! After all that, no water over there either! With Thursday being basically an unproductive day, Friday brought a change of wind direction and normalized the tides again. We hit one of our go to spots and with 2 solid keepers in 5 casts we immediately left (let's say the jig bite was on...) and began to look for what would be secondary spots for Sunday. Saturday was mostly an observation day as we sat in Furnace Bay with 25 or 30 other boats, as well as looking at other areas that we found to be in a post spawn phase with freshly hatched fry everywhere. Way point marked for next spring! Sunday morning we ran to our go to spot and by 8:30 we had our limit (probably 15 to 16 lbs.) and began searching for a big bites to cull up what we had, we were able to do so 3 or 4 times throughout the day and ended up bringing 20.50 lbs to the scales. We have another tournament in two weeks, so I can't give much more detail, but keep checking the forums here at The Bass College for more detailed reports coming soon on baits, color selections, targeted cover etc.