We’re all set now, and I guess it’s about time since it’s taken us three hours to get to this point. The rods are completely set up and we’re trolling at three knots. The pause allows me to better take in our surroundings. It’s a chilly but beautiful calm morning on the Chesapeake Bay, and the sun’s rays are beginning to lend some warmth. Nevertheless, I’m bound in multiple layers of winter clothes and not likely to start shedding anytime soon.
Three of us are on a 20-foot boat, Falls Folly, in the Tangier Sound area of the bay, our day having started at frosty, foggy dawn a ways up the mouth of the Piankitank River. The skipper is my brother-in-law Billy and first mate is my 10-year-old nephew Franklin. For my part I’m mostly taking up space and getting in the way, although my shipmates are gracious; besides, for some time Billy has been wanting to get me out here to show me this unique business. We’re fishing for “Rock,” and it’s a pursuit I know practically nothing about. But I’m learning fast.
Morone saxatilis, commonly known as striped bass or rockfish or just “rock,” is a gamefish that visits the Chesapeake for a few months of the year, when the water temperature drops in late fall. They can get pretty big, and boating one can be very challenging and exciting. Rock are delicious eating too. “But don’t forget, Johnny, lots of times out here we don’t catch a thing,” Billy reminds me. “Completely skunked.” He doesn’t want me to get my hopes up too high. Ok.
Billy’s checking for weed on the yellow parachute lure rigged on the the number one Ugly Stick rod, and I’m doing the same with the rod rigged with the Tsunami and Little Mojo lures. We have four rods rigged and set in angled holders molded into the boat’s gunwales. Four black braided – as opposed to monofilament Billy tells me – lines trail astern in the calm water.
Even though we aren’t actually holding the rods all the time, we’re still quite busy. Besides checking the rigs for weeds, we take turns steering, watching the screen on the fish finder/depth instrument for signs of baitfish, navigating, eating, and scoping out our surroundings through binoculars. “What a day! I can’t believe how calm it is out here…, especially for December,” Billy remarks.
Billy is a busy dentist with a young family and all that goes with it; this rock fishing, out on this boat in the broad bay is one of his dearest escapes. “It helps me keep my sanity…,” he says. “You mean it helps you cling to any vestiges of sanity that may remain,” I offer.
At 09:55 we’re in 44 feet of water, a couple of miles off the southern tip of Tangier Island. The drag on rod number three, on the starboard side, slips some cogs, then quiet for a few seconds, then WHAM and out the line flies. Billy lunges for the rod, removing it from the holder and raring back with it to check the run of the fish. “It’s a feisty one!” he grins as he insistently transfers the rod to me. Oh boy, here we go.
Like I said, this is a new experience for me, and this fish is wringing me out as I attempt to reel it in. Billy and Franklin are coaching me and otherwise offering excited encouragement. “Keep pressure on him all the time! Don’t let up for a second!” Evidently it’s one thing to hook a big rock, another to actually boat one of them. And a sure way of losing one is to give him some slack in the line. Inch by inch I make headway, bringing the fish closer to the boat, and to the net which Billy holds firmly at the ready.
The rock breaks the surface near the boat, and we finally get a good look at it…what a beauty. And a big boy too! Billy strains with the laden net and smoothly delivers the fish to the cockpit of Falls Folly. We’re all giggling and I’m massaging my burning forearms and Franklin is measuring the beautiful shimmering rock. “42 inches from head to tail!”
The day slips on. We eat divine peanut butter and banana sandwiches and the weather remains remarkably benign, albeit cold. At 1:30 we hook another monster but it slips off before we can really hunker down to the business of bringing it in.
At 4 o’clock the light’s fading -these December days are short- and about that time another rock strikes the chartreuse Tsunami lure on rod number two and runs with it fast. Franklin dives for the rod -“I’ve got it!”- and Billy and I encourage him to fight it to the boat. Franklin is a strong kid and this is not his first bay rockfish session. After 10 minutes of doing all he can to keep the fish on the line and bring it alongside the boat he succeeds. At 41 inches, this flopping beauty is almost as big as the first one.
Riding into the dusky sunset, we leave the grey-green open water of the Chesapeake astern. It will be well after dark before we arrive back at Billy’s home port of Dancing Creek, and as the last light of this great day fades away I’ve got time to catalog in my mind the thoughts and memories of it all. I guess fishing for rock on the Chesapeake is similar to other sweet things in life; it’s about learning and doing, mystery and surprise, beauty and joy.
Not to mention those peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
– Johnny Robinson
