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Thread: Massive fish schools on Maryland tidal river

  1. #1
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    Default Massive fish schools on Maryland tidal river


    Went out to my local tidal river in Maryland yesterday and was seeing massive schools of fish on side imaging but unfortunately it was not translating to fish caught. I did end up with 49 crappie and a few yellow perch but there was no indication that the huge schools of fish were crappie. When you look at these screen shots notice that the boat was hardly moving so whatever these fish were they were moving pretty fast to make such clear returns. Any ideas what these could be? I was thinking shad but many of these pictures were taken in backwaters and not the main river where migrating shad usually are. Not to mention that although the water was pretty warm it is February and a little early for that run. Has anyone ever seen crappie moving in such massive and tight pods? Most crappie I ever see are in schools of 25 fish or so and not in massive numbers like this.

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  2. #2
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    No idea, but wouldn't it have been great, if you had had an Aqua-vue camera right then!
    "A voyage in search of knowledge need never abandon the spirit of adventure."

  3. #3
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    Unfortunatley that river is as black as night. Is the aquaview infrared?

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    Bunker/Menhaden maybe?

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    Could it be that because you were traveling so slowly, that these were actually very small fish?

  6. #6
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    I thought about the possibility of small fish like bait but the shadows seem awfully big. Whenever I see small fish like bait they always look more like mist then individual fish.

    This part of the river is very fresh and I doubt they could be bunker, herring maybe but it seems too early for their run unless the warm winter has thrown thown them off.

  7. #7
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    white perch?

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    white perch?
    that went through my mind so I threw a spinner through the heart of the school and got no reaction. Even threw a piece of gulp worm under a bobber and let it sit right in the center of the mass and nothing touched it.

  9. #9
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    Herring will school like that. They will fill up the screen.
    The Original Woodsgoat Hater
    2011 NWR Bash Yellow Perch Champion

  10. #10
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    Herring start moving pretty early. There have been a few, very few but some, shad caught in NC already on hook and line. I imagine the netters lower in the Sounds are getting them pretty good by now.

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