RIDGE, Md. - Jeff Popp, a licensed charter captain who these days uses the local Buzz’s Marina as his headquarters, is one of a new breed of Chesapeake Bay fishing professionals. Popp doesn’t hang out in a home port all year and venture out only to the nearest bay waters like so many old-timers do. No, this fortysomething family man who lives north of Baltimore drives clear down to the bottom of St. Mary’s County every day. Rain or shine.
Why? “Because that’s where the action is right now,” says Popp. “When it’s cold and the Bay Bridge-Tunnel down in Virginia beckons, that’s where I’ll be. Then I might look for the black drum in Cape Charles around April-May. You can also find me up on the Susquehanna Flats during the early striper fishing season. Wherever the catching is good is where I plan to be.”
Hallelujah! The man whose business card reads “Capt. Jeff Guide Service” is a light tackle specialist who uses a 32-foot Kinnamen powered by a 300 hp CAT diesel engine. If more mobility and ease of transport is demanded, his 23-foot center-console Sea Ox with a 200 hp Johnson on the transom serves the purpose.
When he suggested we should check out the rockfish on the eastern side of the shipping channel, a straight shot across from the mouth of St. Jerome’s Creek where Buzz’s Marina is located, I thought this would be just another chumming trip with one of the many hard-working bay captains the Maryland/Virginia area is blessed with.
Popp is a hard worker all right, but one look at his fine assortment of classy spinning reels, loaded with expensive super braid lines, immaculate rods, and a boat so clean you could eat off the deck, told a different story. Unlike one charter boat captain I talked to not long ago whose rods looked as if they’d been used in Baghdad street fighting and reels that were only half-filled with cheap monofilament line.
“It’s no use to buy good gear,” said that charter operator. “The average fishing customers wouldn’t know how to handle good equipment. They’d only mess it up.”
Popp disagrees. He’s of the firm opinion that if fishing clients latch onto trophy fish, they will appreciate all the help a boat skipper can give them — and that includes first-rate tackle.
Good for Popp. Good for all of us.
When he left the little inlet that signals St. Jerome’s Creek’s entry into the Chesapeake Bay, he quickly opened up the boat’s powerful diesel engine and soon closed in on the fishing grounds where other boats had already congregated under a bright afternoon sun.
Popp brought along plenty of chum that Buzz’s Marina owner Mike Henderson ground freshly for him. As soon as the anchor held tight to a 35-foot-deep bottom near Buoy 72, his electronic depth sounder showing that there were fish under the hull, he shut down the motor and instantly began to ladle the ground bits of menhaden into the bay’s clear waters.
Terns and stormy petrels flew about, snatching tiny fish morsels here and there, while Popp made sure everybody aboard had a good chum hook on the line with a piece of splitshot a foot or so above the hook that soon was pierced onto two-finger-thick pieces of menhaden fillet.
Henderson struck first silver — silver with black stripes, actually. The marina operator felt a nudge on the baited hook that floated through the “fragrant” baitfish melange, and he ripped the rod upward. Just like that, the afternoon’s first rockfish was on and now fought like a demon.
Then came Bob Rice, who had missed a few rockfish but then found his stride and set the hook to one after another. If it measured more than 18 inches, we put it on ice — two stripers per angler are legal — and soon our whole gang was into fish.
Even skipper Popp picked up a rod and in no time reeled in a fine rockfish, then followed it with a fat croaker.
The man is a delight to spend a morning, afternoon or whole day with. Ever helpful, ready with a smile and anxious to provide a productive outing would be a fair description of this young skipper who’s been fine-tuning his charter fishing skills for 10 years.
Popp is one of the dozens of good charter fishing captains plying their trade on the Chesapeake. You couldn’t spend time with a better man. Call him at 410/592-7518. If you’re interested in buying chum for a do-it-yourself outing or looking for a boat slip in one of the best fishing areas anywhere, give Henderson a call at Buzz’s Marina, 301/872-5887.
Look for Gene Mueller’s Outdoors column every Sunday and Wednesday, and his Fishing Report every Thursday, only in The Washington Times. E-mail: gmueller@washingtontimes.com
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