17 Fish, 5 Keepers
Greetings from Capt. Dave & BAYMEN!
On board today, new clients, David Philbrick, his daughter, Sydney, and David’s friend, Tom, that came up from the Cape to fish with us.
At first light, dead calm seas, high dropping tide, and water temps 73 at the dock and 67 inside the bay. A stunner sunrise and clear skies with a wisp of SW wind.
We ran to our first spot of the morning and found fish right away working under birds. Several problems: 1) The bait was tiny 1″ inch or less and very hard to match with LT 2) The bass were shy of the boat 3) the bass were not “holding” and running pretty wild. Not hits on our tackle.
Second spot of the morning: not hits…! So, I decided we were going to run across the bay to fish new waters hopefully filled with fish. On our way there – I almost ran over a BIG fish chasing a pogy on the surface! Everyone pointed and yelled and I hit the breaks… I figured we spooked that fish to china but it was worth a shot anyway…WHAM! FISH ON! The sonar lit up with bait STACKED on the bottom and bass STACKED with them! We fished this school for several hours and they held on the bait like glue. Sydney was high rod landing some nice keepers and fought them perfectly to the boat. We hooked up on every drift, several double hook-ups, and everyone on fish! All fat schooled bass, slot fish, and some big fish over slot. What a blast on light tackle!
Next spot of the morning, first drift…WHAM! Tom hooks into a nice bass on a Baymen Jig on the bottom. We drifted this spot several more times and no more fish to my surprise. We began to work many of my spots around the bay. Some had bait but most were void of both bait and bass. Find the bait, find the fish.
At the end of the charter we came back in on dead-calm seas like glass, tired, happy, with a couple slot dinner fish in the cooler that went home with the charters.
Total catch and release today 17 striped bass, 5 keepers, 2 of them over slot. Another great morning, with great anglers, chasing striped bass on light tackle!
Back at it: Stay Posted.
Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com 31 Years Guiding The Bay. Still In Love.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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