If you want to get good at something, talk to the experts" -- Lefty Kreh

Thanks for visiting 52 Week Season!

52 Week Season is a project to explore a hunting or fishing opportunity each week of the year in the mid-Atlantic. When I started, my intention was to interview various hunting and fishing guides on their approaches throughout the seasons, but I increasingly became more interested in the seasonal patterns of the species themselves and the yearly rituals we build around them. 

Some of these traditions are based on seasonal cues such as migrations or reproduction, while others are purely institutionalized by the DNR. 

For example, we don’t know exactly when the conditions will be perfect for the green drake hatch, whitetail rut, or canvasback migrations, but we have a pretty good idea from years of trial and error and perhaps some data (Memorial Day, mid-November, and “Canuary,” respectively). We itch for a warming trend for yellow perch in the spring and a northwest cold front for Canada geese at the fall but are at the mercy of mother nature. 

Yet we do know that the best opportunity for dove is high noon on September 1, that White Marlin Open is the first full week of August, and that schools are closed the Monday after Thanksgiving for whitetail opener in Pennsylvania. 

Many of these yearly traditions revolve around food -- springtime means shad plankings and fall means oyster roasts -- while others are strictly for sport. Some rituals aren’t based on science or calendar at all but just feel right. Mid-summer is the not the best time for largemouth bass, but there’s something about throwing poppers on a glassy lake before a July thunderstorm.

 Could you possibly hit each of these experiences in 52 weeks? Of course not. It’s absurd to you think you would have the time, but it’s also crazy to assume that a shark fisherman cares to throw flies at brook trout or that a duck hunter has any interest in coyotes. Plus, a jack of all trades is usually a master of none. 

But if you’re lucky, you can start to make connections. A hunter of diving ducks will know to return to the “hard bottom” during rockfish season, and a pheasant hunter can always use those tail feathers for a steelhead fly. And what is more satisfying than a cast-and-blast day targeting speckled trout and blue-wing teal in a September marsh? 

Some of the critters on this list are native and some are non-native, and many times it’s not clear. Largemouth bass are a familiar non-native species while snakehead are a non-native monster in many people’s eyes. Brown trout are non-native but long-established; sika deer are imported but at the same time unique to Maryland; and elk are native but reestablished. Tarpon and coyotes seem way out of place but are adapting to changing environments. 

So what is the "Mid-Atlantic"?  

One of my favorite descriptions is the boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay watershed featured in William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers: 

"The Bay’s entire watershed extends north through Pennsylvania to the Finger Lakes and Mohawk Valley country of New York, by virtue of the Susquehanna, the mother river that created the Bay. To the west it traces far back into the furrowed heartland of Appalachia, but one mountain ridge short of the Ohio-Mississippi drainage, by agency of the Potomac. To the east the flatland rivers of the Eastern Shore rise from gum and oak thickets almost within hearing distance of the pounding surf of the Atlantic barrier islands. To the south, Bay waters seep through wooded swamps to the North Carolina sounds, where palmettos, alligators and great stands of bald cypress first appear." 

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-- Patrick Ottenhoff, Washington, DC

 

Week 7. Ruthless Outdoor Adventures: Kayak Fishing the Tidewater

Week 7. Ruthless Outdoor Adventures: Kayak Fishing the Tidewater

Patrick Ottenhoff
Saltwater, Freshwater

The whalers of Moby Dick called it a “sleigh ride” when they’d hook a big whale on a small craft. As a kayak angler who roams the waters at the mouth of the Chesapeake where the big rocks and reds live, Cory Routh knows all about sleigh rides.  

Cory has run Ruthless Outdoor Adventures, which specializes in kayak fishing and also upland bird hunting, out of Virginia Beach for 12 years, and he's also written Kayak Fishing: The Complete Guide. When he’s not guiding, Cory also serves as a water quality specialist for the state of Virginia overseeing the Tidewater region. It’s safe to say that he knows every river, inlet, and marsh in the area like the back of his hand. When the migratory rocks show up, they ask Cory for directions.

““It doesn’t take a big fish to take you on a sleigh ride. A 20” puppy drum can pull a kayak all around, and you can imagine what a big striped bass will do!””

The mouth of the Chesapeake is like an watery interstate junction. US Navy cruisers, international container ships, and major sportfishers all cruise its waters; big reds belly up to the shore and marshes in the spring and fall; and of course the cow rockfish return to their ancestral birthplace every winter. With all of this commotion, fishing from a kayak can provide some major advantages, including stealthiness, access to skinny water, and of course a ticket to a sleigh ride. 

I spoke with Cory on a Friday morning in September as I was gearing up for my own kayak fishing trip in the Delaware marshes. Cory gave me some of his go-to flies and techniques for all four seasons, and I also learned a bit from his expert knowledge of the water systems of the area, including the five-year cycles of redfish and his favorite two hours to fish the tides. 

Below are my questions in bold, followed by his answers. 

What are some of the advantages of kayak fishing? 

I started off as a boat guide, but got into kayak fishing because it’s got a number of advantages. It’s more stealthy than any boat in terms of your approach. You can get into much skinnier water and tighter spaces — in Lynnhaven, deep water is five feet, and we typically do most of our fishing in two to three feet of water.  When the water is rough, fish are like us in that they like eddies and calmer water. They don’t like to get knocked around. Kayaks can get into those spots where they’re holding. Also, kayaks don't need gas and cost way less than boats. As we say in North Carolina, an RC Cola and a Moonpie are all the gas we need!

And of course the most fun part is the sleigh ride.  It doesn’t take a big fish to take you on a sleigh ride. A 20” puppy drum can pull a kayak all around, and you can imagine what a big striped bass will do. The kayak also acts as the drag with the fish pulling it around, and you can tire a fish out as quick if not quicker than you can in a boat.  The release is also much safer since you’re closer to the water, and it’s easier on the fish. 

What kind of kayaks do you use? 

I use Hobie kayaks which use pedals instead of paddles and that makes a big difference. We can cover twice as much water as we could with a paddle.  My clients range from people who have never kayaked or fished before, to very experienced kayakers and anglers with all of the gear, and the Hobie suits them all well. 

What would you call your “home waters”?

Definitely the Lynnhaven River. My parents lived on Linkhorn Bay so this river is where I started saltwater fishing 20+ years ago. It's an excellent fishery but it can be unpredictable so it keeps you on your toes. The challenging fishing there has made me a better angler, and it's a great kayak fishery. Also, I’d say Rudee Inlet, CBBT, HRBT, Kiptopeake Ships, Back River, and Fishermans Island.  For a few years I lived on Hunt and Fish Camp on Knotts Island. Knott's Island separates Back Bay form the Currituck Sound. It's a phenomenal bass fishery. I often return there for my bass and bream fix. 

In freshwater, we target largemouth, bream, chain pickerel, catfish, carp — those carp can act like bonefish down in the South! — and also striped bass in the Back Bay, which are mainly migratory schoolies. Also can’t forget the lowly fish, bowfin and gar. I could probably charter carp and bowfin trips during most of the summer! 

In saltwater, it’s redfish/puppy drum/channel bass — whatever you want to call them — and also speckled trout, flounder, striped bass, bluefish, and croaker, using both a fly rod and conventional. 

I’m also the a water quality specialist with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality where I cover waters from York River down to the North Carolina line, and all of the Eastern Shore. We’re monitoring from boats and on foot, and testing the mud, water, and fish for pollution. We cover a lot of water, so I find a lot of great fishing spots!  My buddies will post pictures of fish with the entire background blacked out but most of the time just by looking at the shorelines, I know where they are!

In your years on the water both fishing and as a water quality specialist, have you seen any big changes, positive or otherwise? 

With the water quality we see good and bad, but things seem to be equalized in the 10 years that I've been monitoring. We are not seeing things get worse. 

Being here for 20 years, I've learned a lot about out local redfish fishery. They are on a five-year cycle, where we see the yearlings grow to reproductive size in four to five years. We will see lots of 30" fish, and then the next summer they are all small again because the bigger fish are out with the spawning schools.

Last year, we had an abundance of fish — it was one of the better years for bigger fish, but they were few and far between. They get to the size where they’re going to reproduce, and then they stop coming inside.

We don’t usually get both the 12” with 30” size classes in at the same time, but this year, huge schools of big fish were showing up off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, and more fish were coming inside too. I took a bunch of kids out and they were catching puppy drum all over the place, so maybe we’re seeing a new pattern here. 

It sounds like reds are your favorite?

I love reds, they are my go-to. The reds around here act a little differently than they might in the South where you see them with their face buried in mud and tail up.  Seldom do you see that here — our reds seem to prefer chasing fish rather than rooting around for shrimp and crabs.

Any go-to flies or techniques?  

I prefer a lightly weighted fly like a Clouser minnow or a baitfish pattern with a Flymen Fish Skull. They keep a horizontal position, and I can work them through the whole water column. The light fly will kind of flutter down like a wounded bait fish would do — wounded bait fish don’t go diving down head first. I prefer to flyfish with an intermediate line.

In this fishery and especially in the fall, I can catch multiple fish with one lure. We can catch trout, flounder, reds, and stripers all on a 1/8 oz jighead with a pumpkinseed and chartreause paddletail. I call that color the Chesapeake Special.

When flyfising, I could fish with just three flies — the clouser, bendback, and a popper. I can catch every fish in our fishery with those. My favorite colors are chartreuse over white, silver, black, and flies tied in the Chesapeake Special color mentioned above.

I love working the tides too, and find its almost always best to work the incoming tide. You get the cooler water coming in from the bay — it hasn’t been sitting there all day stagnant in low-tide.  I try to fish in the two hours before and after high tide when that cleaner, cooler water is moving in.

What are your seasons?

We fish all year-round here and there’s really no down time in our fishery. The striped bass especially will stay here all year round if the conditions are right, and sometimes the biggest fish are in the so-called off-season deep into the winter. 

Going through the seasons though… 

Winter

After the feeding frenzy of fall, a lot of big striped bass hang around through December and sometimes into January. We can continue to catch them through the winter and even when the air temperatures are down to 30. If you have a dry suit and the right equipment, there are striped bass. 

If it’s too cold, I also spend a lot of time in the winter tying flies, getting ready for the spring, and also hunting ducks. 

Spring

Around March, things start warming up and the rising temps begin to start stirring up fish. 

In the freshwater, the bass fishing starts to pick up — bass actually feed year round, but we’ll start seeing a lot more movement and pre-spawn action, and the fishing picks up. 

We also start to see a lot more movement in the salt marshes, and around April, the big speckled trout and big red drum will come in, around Fisherman’s Island.

I look at the water temperature more than anything, and more than seasonal changes. When the water hits 60-70 degrees, that's really prime time.

Summer

In May and June, as waters hit the 70s, the fishing is still good, and you’ll see striped bass, reds, specks, and also start to see flounder. 

When the water hits 80 and up though, the fishery will slow down. That’s kind of the doldrums, though we do have some standbys like croaker.

If it’s 90, I won’t even charter because nothing is biting. I may go out in the night and evening a bit when things cool off.

Fall

This is my absolutely favorite of the year to fish, and we’re booked up pretty much every possible day. The fish at this point are pre-migratory and are packing on fat for the winter — they are going grocery shopping and are super aggressive!  The water quality is also much better as the temperatures fall, and we don’t have any algae blooms. The weather is a little less dependable, but I have some areas where I’m protected from Northeast winds. 

We’ll start looking for big rockfish around Thanksgiving, but the people I charter, they have to have their A-game. I’m talking full equipment, dry suits, safety equipment, PFD.  We’ve found 40 is the cutoff feeding temp in November and December. 

Any favorite traditions?

We have a huge kayak fishing tournament called the Kayak Fish for Charity Tournament that is actually next week [September 24]. It’s the biggest kayak fishing tournament in the mid-Atlantic with over 200 anglers, and raises money for the Heroes on Water and Project Healing Waters. I started it over 10 years ago and now it’s run by the Tidewater Kayak Anglers Associations. That’s something we always look forward to. 

I also go down to North Carolina every year with my family the week before Labor Day. We go from the resort town here in Virginia Beach to a quieter town in Carolina. The rule is, I can’t bring any fishing equipment! It sounds crazy, but when you’re out on the water as much as me, that’s a time to reflect and reconnect with family. 

Week 8. Sean Mann: World Champion Goose Gunner

Week 8. Sean Mann: World Champion Goose Gunner
Week 6. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: Sportsmen's Voice For Wild Public Lands

Week 6. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: Sportsmen's Voice For Wild Public Lands