whaticaught.com
Winter/Spring Fishing -2007
Make This Your Homepage

FRESH TIDAL FISHING
CORKERS CREEK & POCOMOKE
RIVER BALD CYPRESS SWAMP
SNOW HILL, WORCESTER COUNTY - MD

	Dan and Amanda Betz, Mark and I took a day trip to fish the fresh tidal, bald cypress swamps of the Pocomoke (meaning blackwater, tannic-stained) River.
	It was mostly overcast, it spit rain a few times, the sun broke thru the clouds, and the temperatures were in the mid to uppers 60's. We started on a low tide around 11:00 am and finished on the high tide around 4:00 pm.
	Corkers Creek is deep and narrow, having extensive (littoral fringe) spatterdock beds that are just emerging, overhanging vegetation and submerged wood. Mature bald cypress is the dominant overstory tree, with lots of knees throughout the swamp.  My first fish of the day was a largemouth bass.
	We all primarily used long shank hooks, live worms and bobbers (Mr. Crappie Rattlin Pears).  We caught well over 60 fish on the day, keeping 13 large pan-fish in the live well, to later fillet.  We caught largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, pumpkinseed, yellow perch, white perch and shad.
	Most of the fish were caught tight in on the banks under overhanging vegetation.   Dan Betz quickly determined that  crappie were being caught in downed tree branches in the water, where flotsam (pollen and spring leaf drop) accumulated.  Almost every time we found such a condition we caught one or two crappie. The base of cypress trees and the outside river meanders (deeper, thalweg side) were also very productive.
	We all lost four to five lures, hooks and bobbers to the depths of Davy Jones locker.  The bobbers kept the bait in the two to three foot depth range, because anything deeper usually resulted in the hook getting caught in submerged woody debris.
	I'd say that within the matter of a week or two, the forest will be in full bloom, with leaves expanding, insects flying, fish nesting, forest interior birds establishing territory and spatterdock encroaching toward the deep water margins.
	Of all of the species today, I'd say that white perch fought the strongest.  They were powerful runners.
	Mark dexterously maneuvered and negotiated many a downed tree today to help get us into great fishing waters.
	A few of the shad and perch were tiny, but we were quite pleased at the large size of several of our black crappie and sunfish.

Submitted by Mark Burchick