St. Clements Island – Potomac River - 09/29/13– At Least The Cookout Was Good.

[Fishtank]

Slow day at St. Clements Island. ( Lower Potomac) Up until last year you could consistently count on this place to produce a number of keeper rockfish (always held a lot of reds, some specs, all kinds of bottom fish ) Not this year (although last week there were patches of small rock popping up all over the place and you could catch as many as you wanted)

Yesterday managed a 21” spec, handful of rockfish to 17”, some small bluefish etc. Surprisingly the island is rarely used. It has grills and tables so if fishing is less than stellar at least you can have a cookout.

P9290087.jpgP9290098.jpgP9290093.jpg

[Grilled]

that is one fat speck...nice job!

[<MIKE>]

Hey Fishtank,

Congrats on the fat belly speck.

I ran into you, jim and your wife last year at Chesapeake Beach. I remember you telling me about St. Clements Island and I have been wanting to fish there. Thanks for the info about the grills and tables. It sounds like a great place.

[DOGFISH]

+1 on fat speck. It is a shame about the rockfish. They are under tremendous fishing pressure, both recreational and commercial. There are fewer and fewer keeper size rock. Just a few years back, I was catching large numbers of keeper size rockfish just about every time I went out. Now, I have to wade through all of the smaller fish to catch fewer and fewer keepers. Of course, this is when fisheries management will cut back on the season and/or the limits. It makes sense now, as to protect all of the 16" and 17" fish, as they come to size, which are the 2011 or 2010 year spawn, which ever year was the really large spawn. Fisheries management will protect that large year class, in order to have them reach spawning age. This is the same thing that happened during the moratorium. Back then DNR was protecting the 1982 year class fish.

I just read a report, stating that there are far too many large female stripers being taken. This does make sense. If you kill off the spawning population, there will be a diminishing number of fish. Everyone tends to think the population of stripers are unlimited. This is not to say that there are no keeper size fish to be found. However, you don't want the population of stripers to collapse. This is why so many fish, such as redfish, have a slot limit. To protect the spawning population. Anyone who has ever seen one of those large females cut open in the spring, during the so called "Trophy Season," knows how heartbreaking it is to see all of those eggs spill out onto the cutting board. That is your striper population on the cutting board.