On board today, I had Dick Bowman & Family for light tackle striped bass. Dick & crew have been fishing with me for many seasons.

At first light, heavy fog hung over the bay. We slowly picked our way to where the fish have been holding and they were still there. Not as many and not feeding quite as aggressively, but they were there and they were busting bait on topwater. Past trips last week and prior, almost all our fish have been taken on topwater poppers. Today, they wanted nothing to do with them. We had to switch over to all rubber crank baits.

Aidan hooked into a fine, chunky keeper that slammed a 4 inch rubber crank bait as soon as it hit the water. That fish screamed line off the reel as it ran across the flat. At one point, it was a hundred yards or more off the boat!

When slack tide hit, the bite shut down cold. we ran the bay and checked some other spots until ebb. Then it was much harder fishing with 30 second blitzes of very small pods of bass in only two or three places from Duxbury to Plymouth. They would pop up and then go down for five to ten minutes. Then they would pop up again five hundred yards away. We gave chase and kept at it and landed a few more.

On our way in, we found one more handful of fish and set a drift over them and hooked up on our last two fish of the morning.

Total catch and release today was 30 striped bass, including one 14 lb. keeper. All taken on rubber crank baits. Seas were flat calm all morning and it was really nice out there. And the downpours missed us!

Stay posted: fall run continues…

Capt. Dave
www.baymenlife.com