The Importance of Current
By Tim Sherman


At right: Tim Sherman landed this chunky striper in the strong current of the Susquehanna River last fall.
Over the past few seasons I have really come to learn the importance of current in fishing. What actually sparked this discovery revelation was a summer striper trip with Captain Jerry Sersen. He told me that he found stripers in the shallows of the Bush River and we had to get together. If you think about it, stripers are not supposed to be in three feet of water with a water temperature above 80 degrees. Nevertheless, stripers were there and eagerly struck our artificial offerings … as long as the current was pushing bait past the submerged rocks to which we were casting. There has been plenty of other times when I have fish with current as an ally, but none as eye opening as that day.

Current positions the fish we intend to fish. Whether it is free flow like that of the Potomac or Susquehanna River, or the flow that fills and flushes the Chesapeake twice daily, current is a major factor in where we will find fish. We often confuse tide with current, saying “incoming tide” or “outgoing tide”. Tide does three things: it rises (floods), falls (ebbs), and stands (reaches it maximum high and shallowest low). The actual movement of the water – incoming or outgoing – is current that causes the tide to ebb or flood. Is it wrong to refer to the tide as incoming or outgoing? Yes, but it has been accepted throughout generation of tidal fishermen and there is no reason for these phrases to be debated.

I remember back to perch jerking trips at the oyster bars on the upper bay. Yes, even white perch let current dictate their feeding schedule. When the current would flow over a bar, the perch would readily strike hooks baited with bloodworms or peeler crab baits. As the current subsided, so too would the bite. It was also true that if the current was too strong, the action would also slow. Could it have been that bait was drifting passed them at too quickly, or was it that they drew in tight to the larger humps and lumps within the shell beds only to strike when a bait brushed close by their mouths?

My local wading trips for smallmouth bass where met with much futility last year. By mid-July the drought curtailed the current in the Gunpowder River into little more than a trickle from a faucet because of the low water levels. There were few pools to be found along the river closest to home. The deep water near Route 40 was where I had to fish. Even along this stretch smallmouth were mostly unresponsive. In the clear water you could see them, but coaxing them into biting was tough. The pools were still there, but there was little current pushing food through the feeding zones. The largemouth bass in that area were a bit more eager. They favor a lesser current in free flowing rivers than do smallies.

This past October, I fished with my good friend Lee Haile and his children on the Susquehanna River. We fished in the afternoon, waiting for Excelon Energy to open gates at the Conowingo Dam for power generation. We were able to pick off a couple of stripers before the dam gates were open, but you could see the river come alive in the late afternoon. We had but an hour before the sun went behind the trees, but Lee, Kayla, Eddy and I, wore ourselves out casting in that time. We wound up with a keeper rockfish for everyone. If only the electric company had started generating power earlier, or the daylight would have remained longer, the fishing would have been prolonged.

Tidal water largemouth bass are one species that takes advantage of both tide and current. A rising tide allows bass to move into cover along the banks that is normally dry at low tide. They can move deeper into grass beds as the tide floods. The opposite is also true in that a falling tide will pull bass off of shoreline cover and to the outer edges of vegetation. As bass move with the rise and fall of the tide, you can bet that they will position themselves just out of the current and wait for their prey to wash by.

Predator fish are opportunists when it comes to feeding. They find the best cover they can near current and use it as a delivery service. The smallmouth bass behind a boulder in a free flowing river, or a striper tucked behind a bridge piling will not expend a great amount of energy to feed. Think of all the feeding frenzies you have encountered. Recall that an overwhelming majority of them have happened with a strong incoming or outgoing current. And, yes, even the small white perch can be considered a predator as it preys on worms, small crabs, and minnows as they are caught in the current.

It really doesn’t matter if we misconstrue the term tide with current. Over the ages, one has taken the place of the other and accepted in conversations throughout the Chesapeake. The important thing to remember is that no matter what we call the incoming or outgoing flow of water, it quite often dictates the feeding habits of the fish we intend to catch.