Articles

Arkendale

-by Andy Andrzejewski

Arkendale Flats is a vast expanse of shallow water extending from Brent Point , at the mouth of Aquia Creek, nine nautical miles north to Chopawamsic Creek, at the Quantico, Virginia Marine base. Historically, Arkendale is the land mass close to Aquia Creek but as bass fishermen are wont to do, they cast history aside in the interest of simplicity and refer to the entire flat, which includes Brents Marsh and Widewater, as Arkendale.

Prior to the return of the grasses, few bass fisherman took advantage of the fishing opportunities this area presented. The most obvious was the number of wrecks found at Brent's Marsh. The wrecks are visible and easy to find but if you need GPS coordinates to verify the location they are, 38-26-39 by 77-19-23.

These are the same type of vessels as are in Mallows Bay. Salvagers originally had begun to use this area to reclaim some of the the ships and if commercial fisherman hadnt protested loudly, this area might have had as many wrecks as Mallows.

These wrecks continue to produce scads of bass and an angler can spend an entire day fishing among them. The majority of the vessels are visible even at high tide but there is one which sits between the wrecks at the south end of the area, just above the PRFC marker, which is only visible at low tide. Cautious navigation is the order of the day when boating shoreward of the wrecks.

What many people dont realize is that there is also a row of pilings in the middle of the wrecks. These alone are excellent producers of bass.

What may have been the biggest bass caught in the Potomac River with any kind of verification was caught from these wrecks and it was caught by a catfisherman not a bass angler. A friend of mine was fishing among these wrecks several years ago when the occupants of a nearby boat began to hoop and holler. My friend got closer to see if he could assist, thinking they had a large catfish on, and they asked him to net the fish for them. He did, and was surprised to see that it was large bass. He weighed it on his battery powered scale and it weighed nine pounds and 14 ounces. No bass that large has ever been certified from the Potomac River and is larger than the nine pounds and one ounce state record for tide water bass in Maryland. The catfisherman released the bass saying that he preferred to have catfish.

When we fished this area back in the 70s we didnt call it Arkendale, we referred to it as Brent's Marsh and a few of us called the area with the wrecks, Blue Shirt Bay. We named it Blue Shirt Bay because of the old blue shirt which, for several years, hung from a tree on the most visible wreck, which sits at a right angle to the shoreline.

The wrecks are the most unusual feature along the flats but lets go to Brent Point and work our way north. The flats themselves are shallow, one to three feet deep, but they drop off into seven to nine feet of water. The flats as of this writing, contain grasses, which draw the attention of most anglers but many features are found along the contour which deserve attention.

Place your boat in the seven to nine feet of water and boat north, parallel to the flats. This way you will locate a number of points which extend from the flat into deeper water. These are ideal places for the Carolina rig fisherman to concentrate on.

Above the wrecks, the bottom is very irregular until you get past Brent's Marsh and then the contour becomes more defined again. I prefer to fish the contour all the way to Clifton Point, a rocky bluff point located about midway to Chopawamsic Creek. Above Clifton Point, the grasses draw the most attention until you get to Chopawamsic Creek.

There is at least one ballast rock pile located in this area but Im going to keep it a secret at this time. Those of you who know where its at and fish it, enjoy it while you can, I may reveal it in a future article.

The rewriting of history aside, the Arkendale flats has become a popular place for bass anglers in recent years. The popularity was created by the emergence of submersed aquatic vegetations in the late 1980s which resulted in a bass population boom. The grasses were prime habitat for the fish and this area soon became a major spawning ground.

Next issue well start in Chopawamsic Creek and work our way northward.