Fished Loch Raven Reservoir from a rented jon boat on April 14th. Beautiful day, therefore everyone who fishes in Baltimore County came out. Luckily we got there early enough to get a boat and get away from the fishing center a bit. The jon boats come with a little 30 lb thrust trolling motor, so with two people and a little gear, you're not moving too quickly. 4 of us on 2 boats fished a lot of shoreline over the course of the day, and found zero bass. We all hooked into a few pickerel, the smallest being about 14 inches, the largest around 20 inches. I caught 4 of them on a white rattle trap with a red nose and then 2 more on a neon pink texas rigged worm with a bullet weight jigged through the grass beds. I saw one bass but it spooked as soon as it saw the boat shadow. Used some live worms to try to just pick at the panfish but didn't even get a bite. It's a gorgeous lake and if you have your own (electric only) set up, I'm sure you can slay the fish. However, with just a rented boat, don't expect to break any state records.
This past Saturday I posted up on the shoreline at Centennial Lake in Howard County MD. It was already pretty packed by 7:15 am when I got there, but a short jaunt around the lake and we found a little rocky point with a bench and no one else to bug us. This lake is notoriously overstocked with LMB, Sunfish and Crappie, so it seemed like a good place to take some friends who aren't quite as experienced as I am. The water was crystal clear and you could see the fish guarding nesting areas and feeding and all. Lots of small crappies were biting on worms, jigs and spinners. As well as green sunfish, some of them no more than 3 or 4 inches long. Just watching them come out from their little caves to nibble was entertaining. The LMB on the other hand, defending nesting sites and not interested at all in anything I threw at them. After a while, I started just trying to hit them on the nose with wacky rigged senkos and after about 15 minutes, anger strike! I ended up hooking up with 5 LMB this way, nothing huge but good fights, some jumping out of the water, and my first bass on my new rod/reel. I also ended up getting a few small crappie and maybe even a spawning pair of green sunfish for my tanks at home.
As dreamsofpeace said, now it's striped bass time here in MD, so I know what I'll be doing for the next few weeks!
