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Dbeam and I spent 3 days in Bay River Camp Ground.
Non Fishing - BRCG is looking a little beat up. The kayak launch is blocked by a floating dock that was thrown there by a hurricane. The fishing crabbing pier has not been repaired, and the place was rather empty. On the plus side, we were still welcomed as family by Frank & Rachel, we could lauch our kayaks from the concrete boat launch, and the camper we rented was in good condition, clean, and at a very reasonable price. Frank is having serious heath issues, it's not my place to discuss the details, but we sat down to yap with him for a while on his deck.
Non-Fishing - I found that I can paddle a kayak across a mile or so of open water, with some wind and chop. I also found that I am FAR too inexperienced on boats in general and kayaks in particular to be able to relax and fish in conditions where a wave will put water into my kayak about every minute or two.... with my heavy weight, I keep my scupper plugs in, which might not have been the best choice. To reduce my personal pucker factor, I paddled back to a protected shore and fished there.
Fishing: Keeper sized fish avoided us entirely during the trip. We tried a lot of different presentations, but nothing worked. I wound up with 4 small flouner, 2 undersized trout, and a 5" pinfish that ate a 3" gulp shrimp....Darryl did better, caught a couple of croaker to go with his undersized slam fish, but we were very disappointed.
When talking to other fishermen, we consistently heard that nobody was catching much, and that drum weren't very common this year.
We saw no signs of shrimp in the area... Plenty of schools of mullett, schools of pinfish, some jelly fish.... No shrimp.
One opinion we heard was that the hurricane that came through a few weeks ago hit north of this area, and the swirling winds took most of the water out of bay river, and the shrimp and baitfish went with it..... Frank at BRCG said that their canals had only an inch or two of water in them during that time. To make matters worse, the wind hasn't been from the ocean very much, so the refilling of the river has been by rain and fresh water runoff, making the salinity low.
Makes sense....
FWIW....
Nice seeing RouseD and his granddaughter stopping by. We also met Redyota for the first time, had some fishing talk with trapperken, and stopped to buy some lures from ScottHobbs.
Non Fishing - BRCG is looking a little beat up. The kayak launch is blocked by a floating dock that was thrown there by a hurricane. The fishing crabbing pier has not been repaired, and the place was rather empty. On the plus side, we were still welcomed as family by Frank & Rachel, we could lauch our kayaks from the concrete boat launch, and the camper we rented was in good condition, clean, and at a very reasonable price. Frank is having serious heath issues, it's not my place to discuss the details, but we sat down to yap with him for a while on his deck.
Non-Fishing - I found that I can paddle a kayak across a mile or so of open water, with some wind and chop. I also found that I am FAR too inexperienced on boats in general and kayaks in particular to be able to relax and fish in conditions where a wave will put water into my kayak about every minute or two.... with my heavy weight, I keep my scupper plugs in, which might not have been the best choice. To reduce my personal pucker factor, I paddled back to a protected shore and fished there.
Fishing: Keeper sized fish avoided us entirely during the trip. We tried a lot of different presentations, but nothing worked. I wound up with 4 small flouner, 2 undersized trout, and a 5" pinfish that ate a 3" gulp shrimp....Darryl did better, caught a couple of croaker to go with his undersized slam fish, but we were very disappointed.
When talking to other fishermen, we consistently heard that nobody was catching much, and that drum weren't very common this year.
We saw no signs of shrimp in the area... Plenty of schools of mullett, schools of pinfish, some jelly fish.... No shrimp.
One opinion we heard was that the hurricane that came through a few weeks ago hit north of this area, and the swirling winds took most of the water out of bay river, and the shrimp and baitfish went with it..... Frank at BRCG said that their canals had only an inch or two of water in them during that time. To make matters worse, the wind hasn't been from the ocean very much, so the refilling of the river has been by rain and fresh water runoff, making the salinity low.
Makes sense....
FWIW....
Nice seeing RouseD and his granddaughter stopping by. We also met Redyota for the first time, had some fishing talk with trapperken, and stopped to buy some lures from ScottHobbs.
