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Point Lookout Memorial Day Weekend

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Can anyone offer some tips for fishing in the Point Lookout State Park area? I'm new to Surf/Pier fishing (grew up on Lake Erie) and wonder if I would be better off in the inlets or Lake Conoy, the Potomac, or Chesapeake Bay? Better off on the pier or pet or people beaches? Just looking for some general tips, bait, times of day, etc.

 

I have a Penn Batallion 10'6" Medium Heavy Rod, Penn Battle II 6000 rod spooled with 30# Braid. I have some paternoster rigs, tons of jigs and plastics (tubes, worms, shad), tons of crankbaits, jerkbaits, etc. For articifical bait, I have salt clams and fish bites (shrimp). I can pickup live bait or snag sand fleas too.

 

Thanks in advance!

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I've tried Point Lookout several times without much success.  Last summer I did catch about 20 flounder in a couple hours (all exactly ten inches long) after I figured out what was chewing off the tails of my gulp jigs. The best bet is probably after sunset for croakers, which have just begun to show up.

 

When busy, the pier is about the most unfriendly of any I have ever visited. The locals are territorial and confrontational. There is certainly lots of available water besides the pier. It all looks good - I just haven't had success, but others do when the bite is on. 

 

Not sure when you are planning on fishing, but the place gets so crowded on weekends and holidays that they sometimes have to stop allowing entrance to the park. Also, the biting flies can be supernatural.

 

As far as Potomac vs. Chesapeake, well, I would suspect the fish would be on the side where the wind is in your face and the fishing is less convenient.

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Thanks for the tips. I did plan fishing mostly in early morning or later evening - and NOT on the fishing pier. I found a few places on both the Potomac side and Chesapeake side that look interesting on Google Earth. I am camping at the campground, so I am prepared for the invasion of biting flies (pretty good luck with my Thermacell unit in the past). I hadn't really thought about the wind in choosing a side, but that makes sense for bait fish.

 

Maybe I'll get lucky and get into some croakers.

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6 hours ago, electriclight said:

I've tried Point Lookout several times without much success.  Last summer I did catch about 20 flounder in a couple hours (all exactly ten inches long) after I figured out what was chewing off the tails of my gulp jigs. The best bet is probably after sunset for croakers, which have just begun to show up.

 

When busy, the pier is about the most unfriendly of any I have ever visited. The locals are territorial and confrontational. There is certainly lots of available water besides the pier. It all looks good - I just haven't had success, but others do when the bite is on. 

 

Not sure when you are planning on fishing, but the place gets so crowded on weekends and holidays that they sometimes have to stop allowing entrance to the park. Also, the biting flies can be supernatural.

 

As far as Potomac vs. Chesapeake, well, I would suspect the fish would be on the side where the wind is in your face and the fishing is less convenient.

This ^^^^^

 

definitely avoid the mid day crowd. At Sunset with bait or  small sand eels are good, had a blast last year catching stripers for an hour with tsunami eels with 2 SOL friends , nothing big but always fun.

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Just a quick note about PLSP.  My wife and I went camping there a few years back.  At the time, you were allowed to have alcohol in the state park camping area (you are no longer allowed), but could not have alcohol on the fishing pier.  Well, we brought our cooler to the pier to do some Croaker fishing and there were 3-4 cans of beer at the bottom of the cooler.  The ranger came out and made everyone open their coolers (presumably to check for fish) and gave me a citation for having alcohol on the pier.  I think the fine was only $50, but it was a bummer.  I knew I was not supposed to have it, so thats on me, but it still stung a bit.  It made it worse that half of the folks on the pier did NOT have a fishing licenses and did not receive citations and were allowed to continue fishing.  They were told "be sure to have a license next time".  Oh well..

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Bummer to hear so many unlicensed anglers without citations - way to encourage them! Yea, the alcohol thing is pretty dumb if not opened/being consumed - but it is what it is.

 

I did get out to fish a couple of times. Saturday morning near the pet beach on the rocks for 4 hours (caught nothing), then Sunday evening on the opposite side of the point off the rocks. I did manage to catch a few tiny croakers and a small striper (12") that all went back in on Sunday. Nice breeze and 1' chop were a help.

 

Being a first time salt water fisherman, I had fun and wasn't bummed at the lack of action.

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