We departed Shad Landing on the Pocomoke River at 7:30a on Saturday and returned at 4:30p.  We have been launching out of Shad Landing for several months.  The parking lot is big which give me the advantage when putting the boat into the water, but maneuvering the boat back onto the trailer in the tight space provided is a bit of a challenge due to the tide.

The day was beautiful, and the wind was gusty at times.  We headed north, against the current, out of Shad Landing.  We had good luck the previous two weekends in that area catching 30 fish one weekend and 36 the next.

I began the day using a Booyah Micro Pond Magic Spinnerbait in Alpinewith a white paddle tail.  This is a lure I use every time I fish.  I caught my PB largemouth bass on this lure, in Lightning Bug, on this river at 5lb 2oz.

I did very well with the lure and caught ten fish for the day.  John was throwing everything he thought the fish would hit on to no avail.  He refused to use the “mini spin”.

Finally, after catching zero fish by 2:00p, John broke down and started using the “mini spin” and ended the day with seven fish.  He also caught the biggest fish of the day.  Click here to see the action.  This was the only lure the fish would hit on.  The “mini spin”.

Don’t be afraid to use a smaller profile lure.  They do catch fish and big ones, too.  I personally like to use the smaller profile lures, but I do admit it is fun to catch a big fish on a big lure.

John was given the opportunity to be an angler aboard the White Lightning for day two of the 2021 Ocean City Tuna Tournament out of  Sunset Marina.  They left the dock around 3:30a and returned around 5:30p with five tuna and were able to weigh two tuna for their stringer.  The highlight of the day was the Blue Marlin release.  All together they had 140 pounds of tuna that was cut-up by Longhorn Fish Cleaning Services out of Pittsville, MD.

Because of the rain we could not fish in the morning, so we decided to explore where we could launch onto the Nanticoke River.  We planned on fishing there the next time out.  We visited the Cherry Beach boat ramp in Sharptown, MD, the Federalsburg VFW boat ramp in MD, and the Federalsburg Marina boat ramp in MD.  The Cherry Beach boat ramp was on the Nanticoke River and the two Federalsburg boat ramps were on Marshyhope Creek which flows into the Nanticoke River.  They all had easy access and plenty of parking.  I am pretty excited about fishing another river.

Around 2:00p the rain had stopped and we loaded up the boat and went to the Pocomoke River to do some late afternoon fishing.  We were on the river by 3:00p.

I caught the first fish, a Largemouth Bass on a Bubble Gum Pink Strike King Ocho Senko bait.  He was a decent-sized fish.  It would be three more hours before we caught another fish.  Around 6:15p the frenzy hit.  In one-hour John caught nine Largemouth Bass using a Rainbow Trout Gary Yamamoto Senko bait.  Nine fish in one hour!  Incredible!

By the time the fish settled down the sun was sinking low and we headed back to the dock.  What an afternoon to remember.

SIDE NOTE:  A beaver swam by.

We launched out of Byrd Park in Snow Hill, MD onto the Pocomoke River at 5:30a.  As we passed the other boat ramp in the park, about 17+ bass boats were getting ready for a fishing tournament.

In anticipation of the boats that would go by, we didn’t go too far down river and made sure we were off the main channel.  There were going to be a lot of wakes from some of these tournament boats that sped by barely making their turn.

We started fishing on a bank then moved into some lily pads.  It was a slow start.  We were throwing lines and throwing lines.  As we were fishing the lilies the tournament started.  Boats were flying by and, as suspected, we experienced quite a lot of wakes.  Do too many wakes scare fish?

One tournament boat actually stopped 25-feet from our boat and started fishing.  Literally my line and his line would touch if thrown in the same direction at the same time.  I was perplexed by this interaction.  Surely there must to be some kind of fishing etiquette.

As we were approaching a bird landing box, I switched from my buzz bait to a worm.  I tossed the worm at the pole the box was attached to and it landed perfectly.  That’s when God intervened and gave me this one.  A Largemouth Bass took the bait on the drop and I reeled it into the boat.  Oh, my!  I have to say that if you were within 25-feet of our boat you couldn’t deny the excitement.

We decided to move to the Nassawango Creek to avoid the traffic.  We tucked in and had success in the shaded areas.  It was hot and the fish were moving into cooler water.  Around noon many tournament boats started to move into the creek so we decided to call it a day.

Our count for the day was seven fish.  Four Chain Pickerel and three Largemouth Bass.

Side Note:  I believe fishing etiquette is so important and needs to be touched upon.  Always treat others the way you want to be treated.  I found several articles on fishing etiquette.  Click on the links below.  There are plenty of fish to go around!

Takemefishing.org / Fishing Etiquette:  Six Unspoken Rules

Bass Pro Shop / Six Dos and Don’ts of Fishing Etiquette

Shopkaris.com / Fishing Etiquette 101:  Six Rules for Respect on the Water

Fishingnortheast.net / Fishing Ethics and Etiquette

The air was chilly this morning when we left the Snow Hill boat ramp at 5:00a to go down river on the Pocomoke.  The sun rose behind wisps of clouds, but it was nonetheless beautiful.  The water was still for now.

We fished entirely on the main channel.  Some lily pads and some banks.  The first catch of the day was by John.  He caught a Largemouth Bass on his Strike King Buzz Bait in the lily pads.

The day got warmer and the fishing got hotter.  John caught four more Largemouth Bass with a Bubble Bum Pink Strike King Ocho Worm.  We have been amazed at how many fish we are catching on this bait.

After casting several times with a Gary Yamamoto Pumpkin Green w/red Wacky Worm John hooked something that took the worm and ran with it.  He said it didn’t feel like a bass and as he was reeling it in he realized it was quite big.  As it got closer to the boat we got a short glimpse of it and thought it might be a catfish.  Then it charged and went under the boat.  John wrangled it out from under the boat and upon a second inspection we realized it was a SNAKEHEAD!  Our first Snakehead!  I grabbed the net.  Every time I got close to it with the net it would thrash around.  I scooped and scooped and finally connected and got it up and into the boat.  Wow, what an adrenaline rush.  What fun!  It was at least ten pounds and so slimy.  John couldn’t believe he hooked snakehead with a worm.  Such excitement!

The wind picked-up and we let it take the boat upstream.  John was fishing with a chatter bait and caught two Chain Pickerel.  I was fishing with a chartreuse Strike King Spinnerbait and caught three Largemouth Bass.  The wind got to be a bit much so we packed it up and headed in.

What a remarkable day!  Ten fish and one Snakehead!

We left the Snow Hill boat ramp around 5:00a as the high tide was coming in. The Pocomoke River was like glass and the sunrise was beautiful as usual.

We didn’t go too far down river and fished right off the main channel. My first cast literally just hit the water and I had a Largemouth Bass on the line. I was using my Strike King Bleeding Buzz Bait. The lure hit the water and I thought I was caught on a lily pad but I was caught on a fish! Amazing!

It was a Thomas’ English Muffin kind of day because we spent the majority of it fishing nooks and crannies comprised of cypress stumps and pockets in the banks. Fishing these areas gave us the opportunity to hone our “skipping” skills which helps us maneuver bait into very tight spaces. Skipping a lure across the surface is somewhat like skipping a stone. The more splats and pitter patters it makes, the further it goes. The lower to the water you are, the easier it is to skip. Every target is different and you must analyze each situation. You can slam the bait on the water and get one jump over a rope, or you can direct a more glancing skip so the bait trickles a long distance across the surface like a pebble. It takes practice to get it just right.

Out by the main channel is where I caught my first Largemouth Bass and where John caught his first Largemouth Bass using a Bubble Gum Pink Strike King Ocho Worm.

The wind picked up a little bit so we tucked into the Nassawango Creek. There John caught a Chain Pickerel and a Largemouth Bass on a Bubble Gum Pink Strike King Ocho Worm. I caught a White Perch and three Largemouth Bass on a spinnerbait, and three Largemouth Bass and a Chain Pickerel on a chartreus Strike King Spinnerbait.

We accounted for twelve total fish this day! I know I keep saying it, but this fishery is simply remarkable!

One our way back to the dock we went a little further up river and saw the river boat that Snow Hill acquired from Havre de Grace. The name of the boat is the Black-Eyed Susan. It is a 111-foot paddlewheel driven riverboat that was built in the late 1980s. For many years it cruised around southern states and was eventually moved to Baltimore in 2000. From 2000 to 2016 you may have spotted this paddle boat around the Inner Harbor. In the spring of 2017, it moved to Havre de Grace where you could see it on the Susquehanna River. In late 2020 Snow Hill secured the boat and after some cosmetic improvements it is now docked at the Port of Snow Hill. Soon you will be able to see it on the Pocomoke River!

When we arrived at the boat ramp in Snow Hill, MD at 5:30a to fish the Pocomoke River the sun was just starting to rise and the fog rolling off the water looked like smoke on the water.  The high tide was higher than normal due to the rain we had gotten for several days prior.  As usual the sunrise was beautiful.  I am grateful that we get to witness these amazing sunrises.

We headed out down river, not too far, and starting by fishing lily pads.  I caught the first fish of the day which was a Large Mouth Bass on a Strike King Bleeding Buzz Bait.  He came out of a thick cover of lily pads and grabbed the bait hard.

The second fish I caught was a Sunfish on a Strike King Spinner Bait using my Ugly Stick.  This fish was a good size and his top color was black.  I was just saying earlier that there weren’t any Sunfish in this river.  I threw my lure behind a stump with vegetation growing out of it and that is where he took the bait.  I thought I was stuck on the stump because I did not feel the bite and only noticed the fish was there when I pulled my line out over the stump.  Pretty cool.

The third fish I caught on a spinner bait was a Crappie using my Ugly Stick, the fourth fish I caught was a Large Mouth Bass on a spinner bait with a grub tail using my Ugly Stick, and the fifth fish I caught was a Crappie on a spinner bait with a grub tail using my Ugly Stick.  The last three fish were caught away from the bank.

This, again, was a very productive day on the Pocomoke River.

SIDE NOTE:  This is the first time John did not catch a fish.

We decided to explore the Wicomico River after work.  The temperature was in the nineties and we launched out of Salisbury, MD from the Riverside Boat Ramp.  Riverside had two ramps and two docks.  There was plenty of room for the truck and trailer to park.  Across from the boat ramp is a popular bar/restaurant called Brew River.  You can dock your boat there while you are having dinner or listening to music.  We go there occasionally to grab a bite to eat.

The Wicomico River is a 24.4-mile-long tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the eastern shore of Maryland.  It drains an area of low marshlands and farming country in the middle of the Delmarva Peninsula.  It rises in northern Wicomico County close to the Delaware state line, and flows generally southwest, through Salisbury, MD.  Its head of navigation is Monie Bay on the eastern edge of the Chesapeake Bay approximately 15-miles southwest of Salisbury.  The lower 20-miles of the river form a tidal estuary.  The gentle free-flowing river is a popular destination for recreational canoeing and kayaking, as well as recreational fishing and crabbing.  Barge traffic on the river has made Salisbury, the primary shipping points for goods on the Delmarva Peninsula over the last several centuries.  Two automobile cable ferries cross the river at Whitehaven and Upper Ferry.  The name Wicomico derives from the Nanticoke words wicko mekee, meaning “a place where houses are built”, referring to a Native American village on the banks.

As we headed down river toward Upper Ferry we passed a river cruise ship docked at the Port of Salisbury.  This river was wide and open.  It was more grasses than banks and the lily pads weren’t as abundant.  The houses that bordered the river were gorgeous.

We made it to Upper Ferry in about forty-five minutes.  We waited for the ferry to cross before we ventured forward because the ferry’s cable has to drop below the surface of the water to the bottom of the river.  There were plenty of cars waiting to use the ferry.

The Upper Ferry began operations in 1688 and is a passenger and automobile cable ferry that crosses the Wicomico River in Eden, MD.  It runs between North Upper Ferry and South Upper Ferry Road.  The ferry can carry a maximum of six passengers and three cars and has a weight limit of 10,000 pounds.  The Upper Ferry operates from early morning until the evening every day of the year except Christmas and is free.  The ferry crossing takes about a minute and the ferry makes approximately 150 trips a day.

We went a little further and turned around at the Wicomico Yacht Club and that is when we noticed how dark the skies had become.  There was a storm approaching.  As we got further up river the temperature dropped about thirty degrees and the wind began to pick-up.  I was praying to the Lord Jesus above to get us back to the boat ramp safely.  Remember, these are my first experiences with boating and I didn’t know what to expect.  God got us home safely and just as we entered the boat ramp it started to rain.  Wow, what an experience for me.  We will definitely go out on the Wicomico River again to explore and fish!

This is a short blog.  We went pond fishing again, and caught five largemouth bass in five minutes!  I am not kidding you.  It was amazing and so much fun!  I ended up catching four bass on my spinner bait.  Three were small, but one was big.  John caught four large bass.  Two on his wacky worm and one on his Bigmouth chatter bait with a Strike King Rage Tail and one with the Bigmouth chatter bait without a tail.  We only fished for one hour.  Simply remarkable!

Another sweet Saturday on the Pocomoke River.  We launched out of Snow Hill, MD and it was already rather warm when we left the dock at 5:30a.  The sun was just peeking over the horizon.  There was no wind and it was quite obvious that it was going to be a hot one!

We ventured much further down river than we normally go and because it was low tide, we fished the outer edges of the lily pads and the banks.  I caught two Crappie on a Strike King Mini-King Spinnerbait and one Large Mouth Bass on a Strike King Mini-King Spinnerbait.  John caught one Crappie on Strike King Rage Swimmer and four Large Mouth Bass.  Two bass were caught on a Gary Yamamoto 5” Green Pumpkin w/red Senko Wacky Worm, one bass on a “lizard” bait, and one bass on a Bigmouth Chatter Bait.  He also caught at Blue Catfish on a Bigmouth Chatter Bait with a Strike King Rage Swimmer.

Blue Catfish are the largest species of North American catfish, reaching 65” in length and 150 pounds with the typical length being 25-46”.  They can live for 20 years and tolerate brackish water, thus colonize along inland waterways of coastal regions.  The largest recorded blue catfish caught was 143 pounds.  Blue catfish are heavy bodied, blueish gray in color, and have a dorsal hump.  They have 30-36 rays on their anal fin, barbels, a deeply forked tail, and a protruding upper jaw.  Blue catfish are opportunistic predators and eat any species of fish they can catch, along with crayfish, freshwater mussels, frogs, and other readily available aquatic food sources.  This fish is considered an invasive species in some areas, particularly the Chesapeake Bay.

It got very hot around 10:00a and by 12:30p we were packing up.  To cool off we took a ride down river and ended up in Pocomoke City.  Pocomoke City, dubbed “the friendliest town on the Eastern Shore”, is located in Worcester County, MD.  The city is regularly referred to by its inhabitants simply as Pocomoke.  Beginning in the late seventeenth century, a small settlement called Stevens Landing grew at the ferry landing on the south bank of the Pocomoke River.  The town was incorporated as Newtown in 1865, but was reincorporated in 1878 as Pocomoke City, after the American Indian name of the river, meaning “black water”.  Stevens Landing, then Newtown, remained a modest river crossing until the construction through the town in the 1880s of the trunk railroad line (along the Delmarva Peninsula) from Wilmington, DE to Cape Charles, VA.  The line eventually became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  In addition to agriculture, lumber milling and shipbuilding, in the twentieth century factories making barrels and baskets for truck crops and canning of those crops aided in the town’s growth.  In 1922 the business district of Pocomoke City was destroyed in a large fire, but downtown was quickly rebuilt.  While truck farming declined in the 1900s, the poultry industry rose to take its place.  Pocomoke City was named an All-American City by the National Municipal League.

What a spectacular ride!  The river was absolutely gorgeous!  Seriously, if you are looking for a top-notch river on the Eastern Shore to fish, or to go out on for a pleasure ride, the Pocomoke River should definitely be on your bucket list.  It is quiet, calm and full of wildlife.  I found a place on VRBO that is right on the river where you could stay and launch from either Byrd Park in Snow Hill, Shad Landing, or Milburn Landing.