Capt. Tom Weaver: No Off-Seasons on the Chesapeake

Capt. Tom Weaver has spent most of his life on the water. Originally from New Zealand, he landed in Annapolis over thirty years ago after a career of competitive sailing, including races around the world and appearances in the America’s Cup and other premier events. Here in Maryland, he’s established a boat-building business and has become one of the top fishing guides on the Chesapeake.

“I'll put, on my average day in the summertime, 100 miles on the boat.”

Some guides specialize in certain pockets of the bay or particular species - not Weaver. He routinely runs dozens of miles for a good bite and chases fish every month of the year. From pickerel in the coldest months to trout and reds in the hottest, to rocks in just about every month in between, Weaver has them dialed in - and all on light tackle and the fly.

I caught up with Capt. Weaver recently on a winter evening looking forward to the spring. My questions are in bold below, followed by his answers.

Where are your home waters?

The middle Chesapeake – I’ve been fishing this area for 35 years. So right out of Annapolis, the mid-Bay region. I cover 25 miles north, 25 miles south basically.

 It sounds like you cover a lot of water!

Yeah, I'll put, on my average day in the summertime, 100 miles on the boat.

 Wow. Mostly going for rocks or whatever is in season?

 Throughout the year, rockfish move in and out, so we do different things throughout the seasons.

 Springtime, definitely all I've got is rockfish – that’s my target early. By June, the specks show up, and I can go out to just targeting specks and have a really good time, and then it's back to rockfish.

 Could you get maybe even a little bit more granular, month by month?

 January-March

 I did Key West for 15 years in winters but I've stopped doing that, so I do pickerel tips now. We do at least four trips, maybe five trips a week. So that's January, February, to probably the middle of March.

That time of year, the holidays are over and guys are sitting at their desk and looking to get out of the office, and the weather up here is fairly benign generally, and it’s only 10 minutes up the river.  

Do they tend to be a more freshwater fish or brackish?

They're classified as freshwater fish, but I catch him in the Severn. I take my boat in this creek and once we’re in that creek, you can catch them and move around to several different creeks.

It's a really robust fishery now whereas 10 years ago, if I went pickerel fishing with some friends, if I caught one fish every three trips, I'd be excited. Now I'm catching 10-12 fish in the morning.

Is that because you've got it super dialed in or there's just more fish than there used to be?

It's just more fish for whatever reason. The Seven and Magothy have, just in the past four or five years, produced a lot of pickerel down in the tidal areas of the rivers. It's a fun fish to catch! Most of my guys are on the fly, and they love it.

Are you mostly targeting pickerel in the late winter, early spring months because it's between hunting season and fishing season, or is that actually the best time of year?

That's it, that's it. That's really the best time of year to get them in January, February. They spawn in March, and then on March 15 the season closes.

So it's the pre-spawn?

Yes, they're very aggressive. They fight with each other. They eat anything; they eat a lot. In the summertime they just don’t eat.

Alright, so that's your peak pickerel season and that ends March 15. And then you get into spring rock?

April-Late May

Normally I'd go right into rockfishing but we have a little situation right now where they close down in April.

Then in May I only catch and release. In May, we have tons and tons of fish. I go to catch in areas where there's nobody else because they're all trying to catch a big fish, but we just go where there's a lot of fish. It's amazing, it's my favorite month.

Is it mostly in the rivers or mouth of rivers or...

Right in the rivers. We get a lot of fish and that's great fly fishing – shallow, good quality fish – and post-spawn, they're all hungry.

Are there any kind of seasonal cues or anything like water temperature or a south wind or something like that that turns them on in the spring?

Yea when the water temperature is about 50-52 they got going. There's a particular tree with white flowers – that’s when they really turn on.

Post-spawn, they’re still schooled up good and all in the rivers and it's just good fishing.

Is it all topwater?

Topwater in the morning, but sub-surface throughout the day. But they’re all quite shallow.

And then at some point, late May, it can start to feel like summer. How long do you feel like that lasts before summer patterns kick in?

Late May

Late May, they push out, school up, and slowly move north. It takes them a couple of weeks to come out of the Choptank, come out of Eastern Bay, and school up, and then they'll move each day a little bit further north. Finally, they'll get up to Tolchester or somewhere up there.

That's a new pattern because eight years ago they would sit on the hill outside Eastern Bay and that's where they would be all summer. It would be great for us because we would just go over there and catch fish on the hill! Now the fish go up to Tolchester, and it's a much more confined area.

So as soon as they turn the corner at Rock Hall, I stop. I don't follow them any further. I leave that to the bait fisherman and then I come back and I fish the rivers and creeks every day.

So as the doldrums of summer kind of kick in – the high heat of June and July – are you still fishing for rocks or do you move in a more of variety of fish?

June-July

Definitely in June the speckled trout start to show up. They’re mixed into some of the same habitat as rockfish, and there are some areas that hold a lot more trout than rockfish.

So June, we're definitely gonna catch more speckled trout – slightly smaller [lures] with slower presentation when we’re targeting them. When we find a school we'll sit on those.

And the same with rockfish – we still get very good rock fish early in the morning – topwater with rockfish all the way through July. The rockfish bite typically slows down throughout the day but the specks will eat.

My fishing in the summer has been really good – you just gotta work at it.

Do you feel like specks are mostly the same type of habitat as rocks?

Yeah. Early morning, that'll be in the same sort of structure and shallows. Some of the grass beds or points or corners, they'll be mixed in.

With the higher salinity in the summer, are you going south or north?

I go south a little bit. Once the fish go up to Tolchester, I don’t really go north. Eastern Bay and Choptank areas are sort of my backyard.

And then with the high salinity, we get some red drum mixed in, the specks for sure, and eventually the [Spanish] mackerel and bluefish, too.

Do you ever go out to just target bluefish?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, kids love bluefish. And I mean we do a lot of mack/bluefish trips. We might do rockfishing first thing in the morning and then just go chase bluefish.

Do you feel like there's a time of year where the bluefishing peaks?

Early to mid-September.

Okay. Got it.  So then getting into sort of that period between high summer and the fall when the temperature starts to drop like August-September, is that sort of a continuation of the same patterns you've been talking about?

August

August into the middle of September is when we have the bull reds and cobia arriving. I run specific trips targeting those.

It's a really good fishery and they're really big, but it's a hero or zero thing and everybody who comes with me understands that. It's gonna be a fish of a lifetime if we get one or two or five. Or we might get a trip where you're not in a zone necessarily.

You'll also get a lot of mackerel in those areas too, but we're typically not really trying to catch them. You won't even see a rockfish. I mean, a rockfish is not even on the agenda.

Is that because it’s saltier or hot or…

Both. They’re hunkered down up north. I could go up north and pick off a couple in shallow and pick a couple off pre-dawn but once the sun comes up you’re not going to see a rockfish.

Has the red drum fishery really picked up a lot more in the last 5, 10 years? I feel like I'm hearing about a lot more than I used to.

 Yes. I think there's more to do with their conservation status – you can't keep the big ones. So there are probably a lot more. It's a very big success story on the red drum when you're not harvesting the big fish.

And what's happening is now they're coming further north. I caught big red drum occasionally in Eastern Bay years ago but now I'm catching them regularly around Poplar Island in Eastern Bay on a regular basis and we're going out targeting them.

You hear about the Gulf Coast and southern Atlantic where they're kind of up in the marsh areas burying their noses. Is it that kind of fishing?

Nope, nope. Giant schools of very big fish in deep water. The puppy drum – it’s been strange, two years ago I did get some. You’d get a little pocket of them - slot size or smaller drum. This year not many or any on the smaller ones.

But the big ones are in big schools. I find singles too, but I've only ever had one blow up on the giant, super shallow marshy stuff. Everything else is in 20+ feet of water.

Okay. And then you're getting in September. What do you look for where you feel like the fall fishing is starting to get really good?

September

The end of September – basically the last weeks of September – is the toughest time of any month. That really is when it gets tough.

If you get a sort of lazy, slow September where it doesn't cool down, nothing really happens. The redfish leave, the mackerel have left, the bluefish have left – the bluefish can be around all the way through September for sure – but a lot of the species are leaving, it just becomes a little bit difficult, and then once the temperatures drop then the rockfish come out to play.

October

What we’re looking for is the temperatures to drop, a cold front to come through, and then the birds.

So once the birds are up on schools of rockfish on bait. The cue is the birds – we need birds. We’re always talking, ‘seen any birds today? seen any birds today?’ Once there’s birds, the rockfish are starting to school up and fatten up for the winter.

Do you feel like there's a certain threshold, like is it in the low 60s?

It’s gotta get into the low 60s. You know, late September is gonna be in the 80s, and it's gonna start coming down pretty quickly, and as soon as it starts fall fairly rapidly, it’s just a couple of cold fronts and then it turns on.

You hear about the fall turnover where can get a huge cold front coming in where it will blow for a few days and then the temperature drops. Can that be a mixed blessing, where the water quality can go down even if the temperature goes down. I mean, there's sort of those big fall storms, do they help? Do they hurt? Does it make any difference?

I think the storms further away from the bay can create bigger impacts, but we had Ian come by and just dumped on us the week and the water quality was fantastic after it. It didn't muddy the water up. Wind can blow some of the shallower bays, but that settles pretty quickly a day or two afterwards.

The clarity of the water right now is some of the best I've ever seen. I think we've had not a lot of rain this year. I think that's partially the [lack of] algae blooms. I just haven't seen them quite as bad this year in many of the rivers. So right now, I can see the bottom at Poplar Island – at 11 feet, I can see the bottom.

That's amazing. how late will you fish through the fall.

November-December

They're coming out of the rivers, they're coming out and they’re slowly move south. But once they get past the Choptank I stuff and that's normally the first or second week of December. No point in me going further south to go get them.

 That’s a full year!

That’s a full year.