16 Fish
On board today I had new client, Chad Bennett and his Dad, Bob, for light tackle striped bass.
Lovely sunrise and at first light we found a small school of fish under a handful of birds in the middle of the bay. They were working a small pod of bait of about one inch long. We had fish chase down and slam a chug bug topwater popper. We also had fish slam Baymen Jigs on the bottom. It was great action with double and triple hook-ups! Chad had a big fish hit his jig and began to scream line off the reel but some how that fish threw the hook! This group of fish eventually broke up and moved on and so did we.
Winds started to pick up out of the NNE. We began fishing Clark’s Island with poppers and had some follows but no hook-ups. Then, I spotted a small school of fish about a mile away in the Cow Yard. We motored over to them and everyone hooked up immediately. This school of bass were on a small pod of bait and after two drifts the fish and bait we gone. This has been a theme this spring with the limited topwater fishing: there is not enough bait to hold the bass and they bust it up quickly and it gets eaten or dispersed, and then the schools of bass move on.
Winds continued to increase NNE and the bay started to get pretty choppy. We ran to a spot I had hoped was calm enough to work some shallow water structure with the poppers but it was just too rough and the drifts were way too fast. So, we headed deep into Kingston and Duxbury to try and get out of the wind. We fished a couple of calm water spots and had a few follows and some hook-ups on the popper. Then we fished several deeper water spots back out in the chop with Baymen Jigs.
Our last few drifts of the morning were near Duxbury harbor. We set multiple drifts and fished the jigs down deep.
Total catch today was 16 striped bass. We did not measure any fish, but eye-balling them, I’d say that two were small keepers. All the fish were fat and healthy and fought hard to the boat. Considering the slow spring in our bay and the NNE wind and chop today, it was not a bad morning and even more special because today is Bob’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Bob! Great to have two seasoned anglers on board!
Tight Lines & Stay Posted,
Capt. Dave, BAYMEN www.baymenlife.com