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Summer Patterns on the Nanticoke River
Written by Dave Perrego

Early morning sunrise on the Nanticoke River

Hot! But boy is it good to get out. I found myself, back from a Gulf Coast Florida vacation (did I mention hot) with the family, needing to get out and catch some fish. I met up with friend and Going Fishin' Adventures Guide Don Murray and his wife Joanne, and my Fisher's of Men partner Jon White at Denny's Saturday morning for a great little breakfast, horrible coffee, and some real story telling. We were all headed to the Nanticoke for a little pre-fishing adventure and just some time on the water. It seems like it's been while since I've been out really catching 'em.

We got down to the Seaford ramp just after daybreak and put the boats in the water. Walking back down to the ramp i noticed the pad line opposite the boat ramp had really low water on it. I knew the low tide would roll out by 6 or 6:30, so we headed over and started with buzzbaits on the outer edges. A number of blowups later i hook up with a typically "small" bass for the Nanticoke just minutes in. We worked our way down the pad line headed over to the railroad trestle, a well known community hole. I cast to the rock/concrete rip rap along the bridge abutment and wham, a nice 2 -2 1/2 pounder nails the buzzbait. All geeked up mentally mark the spot, take note, and leave.

Headed down river we stopped along another stretch of pads. In all stages of the Spring I have worked along these pad lines and done well. The water pulls out of these pads at low tide and concentrates the bait and fish in areas. My lure of choice has been the 5/8 Yo-Zuri Rattlin' Vibe in either Blue Chrome or Green Tennessee Shad. I probe the edges of the pads and drop offs with a slow steady retrieve. Anywhere along these pad lines that you can find a channel marker as well, is a huge bonus. The pole of the marker gives the fish a decent current break when they're drawn out of the vegetation. This particular spot gave up two good fish, one on the lipless crank and another on Jon's white spinnerbait.

Directly behind us on the Seaford side of the river we fished the large dock pilings where the barges moor. Here we couldn't go wrong. We got on a flurry of quick bites using texas rigged plastic worms and shakyheads. We cruised up a little ways until the bite turned off in this area and headed again down river to the next pad line/channel marker.

Our next stop was one that yielded some very nice bass during the 2007 State Team Qualifier, but poor handling resulted in lost fish, good fish. Here i like to work the area inside of the channel marker to the pads, but the water was getting really low. I tossed the lipless up current of the channel marke...