On board today, I had repeat client, Eddie Morris, from Idaho. Eddie has been fishing with me for several seasons as the guest of Billy Tedeschi. Before I tell you about today’s report, I got to share a story with you about Eddie:

In the 1970’s, Eddie took his 19 foot boat out of Green Harbor and headed for the SW corner of Stellwagon Bank to fish for tuna, solo. When he got there, he set up his HAND LINES and baited them with chunks of dog fish. He set up an “old-school” wire cable hand line at the front of the boat and started working some mono lines off the stern… Suddenly, the wire cable started screaming over the side, along with the marker buoy. Eddie gloved the hand line and began fighting the giant tuna. He worked the tuna back to boat, only to have it take off several more times screaming line through Eddie’s gloves. After a long fight, on the last attempt to haul it up, Eddie got the fish to the side of his 19 foot boat and attempted to harpoon the giant fish. No luck. The fish sounded. After several more hauls, Eddie drove the harpoon home and got the tuna tail wrapped and tied off to the side of his boat for the long 24 mile haul back to Green Harbor. When the fish was officially weighed for sale, it topped the scales at EIGHT-HUNDRED POUNDS!!!

Now for today’s fish report: 8/16/2018

At first light, flat calm seas out of the west. We ran the full length of the bay to yesterday’s spot and drove into about a thousand+ striped bass busting micro-sized baits on the surface. We are talking krill about 1/8th of an inch long. Next to impossible to imitate with light tackle gear. So we threw everything we had at them: Super Spooks in bone, super spooks in herring; Rubber crank baits in 7″ inch, 5″ inch, 4″ and 3″ inch; Baymen Jigs; Epoxy Jigs; and something I couldn’t even name. The thousands of bass ignored everything!!! The entire schools were imprinted on a selective feed and would take nothing but the micro kreel-sized bait. (If you are a fly fisherman, go small and white and get out there this weekend.) Eddie managed to coax a few fish to take his 5″ inch rubber crank bait but that was it. Some of the fish rolling were small keepers, but 99% were schoolies.

What to do? It was nice to fish in the blitz, but it is often nicer to catch fish. So, we fired up the engine and drove 2-3 miles away and fished weed beds and tiny guzzles on the last of the dropping tide. BINGO! The new fish had no idea there was a massive blitz several miles away and they hammered our super spooks with gusto! They were all small fish to 26″ inches, and lots of fun to catch. We set a lot of drifts in several places and there were fish in almost all of them. We tried hard to find a keeper, fishing many new spots and old spots that have yielded some big bass in past seasons for BAYMEN clients. Nada. Not a single big fish inside the bay today. But we had a blast and caught a ton of fish!

Total catch and release today was 37 striped bass to 26″ inches, almost all of them on bone colored super spooks on topwater (crimp your barbs!). The hits were very exciting and we had a wonderful morning on a flat-calm day. And I got to hear one of the most amazing and thrilling fishing stories from the man who fought and landed an 800 pound fish on a hand line!

Makes you want to add it to your bucket list, doesn’t it…? Giant Tuna on Hand Lines With Baymen Charters! Hmmmm…..

Back at it. Stay Posted:

Capt. Dave
BAYMEN
www.baymenlife.com