27 Fish
On board today, I had repeat client, Rich Ahola & Co. for LT and chunk mack striped bass.
Yesterday’s early morning big blitz was long gone, but there were some fresh fish in the bay running wild. Small pods would drive bait to the surface for about twenty seconds and then they would be gone. Five minutes later they would pop up again across the bay for another twenty seconds, go down, and pop back up across the bay again. WE played the “ping pong” game for quite a while and did pretty good. Everything was on top-water so we fished big poppers and spooks. We did land a few fish on rubber cranks, but the topwater strikes were much more exciting to see!
After landing 26 fish, all shorts to 26.5 inches, we switched up to chunk mack and began to drift them over my spots around the bay. We spent two hours and drifted a dozen new spots without a single fish! Zero bass anywhere in the bay, other than the topwater fish we chased earlier. We finally got one run and landed one small schoolie on chunk mack, but that was it. Two hours, twelve spots. We worked hard to try and find the big fish, but they just aren’t here.
Baymen Charters has landed hundreds of fish this season to date and we have had a lot of fun! However, fishing has been much slower than past years. Overall numbers and keepers in particular are way, way down. In past years, we would have landed 35-40+ keepers by late June. This year, we have landed just eight keepers for May/June.
On the bright side, today, we landed 27 striped bass and it was a blast on topwater! The bay was dead-calm and it was just a perfect summer morning.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Dave
BAYMEN
www.baymenlife.com