My nephew wanted to come with us, and this kid is an early bird. If you tell him to be up at 6am, he'll be up at 4am. I agreed to get up at 5am. My nephew took that to mean we were leaving at 5am, to which he got up at said 4am. We did get out the door at 5:20.
We made a quick stop at the new Royal Farms in Eldersburg for fuel. I would have gotten some western fries, but I didn't have the 20 minutes to spare. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I saw the first of three almost accidents. A person was pulling out of the Exxon and turned left going south on Route 32. You cannot turn left as it is a divided road. Well, technically you can turn left, but you'll be driving against traffic. The person suddenly realized their mistake, something Maryland Govenor Martin O'Malley is not wont to do, then did a u-turn.
We stopped at Angler's in Annapolis just off of Route 50/301 and picked up some razor clams. We continued on, paid our 6 bucks to cross the Bay Bridge, and then headed south on MD Route 8. After missing the turn for Matapeake State Park, just like last year, we turned around and finally found our way. I paid the $10 parking fee to Martin O'Malley, then we hit the pier at 6:58 am. We got there before 7am, which was my goal.
Our view of the Bay Bridge from Matapeake State Park.
For the history buffs out there, Matapeake served as a terminus on the eastern side of the bay for the ferry before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was built in 1952. When the bridge opened and the ferry was discontinued, the terminus was converted to the state park. It now services as a boat launch and a police boat dock.
The Matapeake State Park fishing pier.
We fished for a while, but only caught a few spot fish. My son caught a croaker, the first of the year for him. At about 10:45, my son had had enough and we decided to head down to the end of Route 8 to Romancoke Pier. We fished there for an hour and a half, and my son caught a blue fish, which was all we caught. He had had enough there and was ready to go back to Matapeake.
On our way to Romancoke, I spotted this airplane in a field. Then I remembered - there was a small plane crash recently. No one was hurt. But the plane is still there.
I checked the tidal information and learned that one of the peak tides would be at 2:30, or so. This meant that the fish would be moving before and after this. We hadn't fished for more than half an hour when suddenly we had to try hard NOT to catch a fish. We were catching spot and white perch with nearly every cast. My son added a striped bass, his first of the year (I have yet to catch a croaker or a spot. Or a blue fish, for that matter.)
Other fisherman started taking notice of us. Some approached us and asked what we were doing. Just using razor clams. Plus we hold the line with our fingers so that you can feel when a fish is nibbling on the line, then WHAM!!! You got him.
At about 4:30, I had had enough. The sun had drained me. My son estimated that we caught about 60 fish. I believe it. We kept 9 fish -all white perch. I made Eldersburg Jambalaya with them. It was also the first time I had cleaned fish. Normally I rely on my boyscout neighbor to take care of that task. All in all is was okay.
Oh, the other two almost crashes. I was driving north on I-97 where MD Route 100 breaks off to the right when a car in the fast lane decided he wanted to slide across three lanes of the interstate, but he only made it to the shoulder, swerved hard back to the left, then nearly taking out the sign before acquiescing to the fact that he wasn't going to make it.
The third incident was driving up MD Route 100 as we approached Snowden River Parkway. I noticed a car making a u-turn up onto the on-ramp on the left, then swerve hard to the right and to the left to avoid hitting the on-coming cars. Three crazies in one day! It's like being in the Maryland General Assembly.
And that was my day of fishing and driving.
1 comment:
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