On board today, I had regular, Mr. Dick Bowman, for light tackle striped bass. Today is Dick’s birthday and what better way to celebrate another great year on planet earth!

At first light, we found fish stacked up in 17 fow, hugging the bottom. We set many drifts on the dropping tide and hooked up every drift. At slack tide, those fish did the vanishing act and we did not see them again, even though we scoured the area. Where do they go…? Do they leave the bay? Do they spread out? Do they move to other parts of the bay?

Taking advantage of low incoming tide, we began to search for BIG fish in some of my spots in Duxbury, KIngston and Plymouth. We did not mark or hook into anything over 25″ inches, but we found fish in just about every spot. We switched from rubber cranks fished on the bottom to topwater lures and had a blast! One bass we landed had a squid still sticking out of its mouth!

We fished drop-offs, guzzles, narrow channels, structure, flats and weedbeds. There was a fish or two in every spot and some places held a dozen fish. At one location, we had up to five bass at a time chasing the topwater lures right up to the boat. Very cool to see and exciting to have them hit right beside the boat.

As morning went on under blue skies, we saw no topwater, no bait, and no birds to speak of. Given this is the spring blitz and we had a WNW wind today, I expected to see a lot of topwater fish even with the high pressure. But every fish we found was hanging on the structure near the bottom.

One last stop of the morning and Dick hooks up on fish #39. We called it a great morning and Dick said, “just one more cast…” WHAM! #40 hit his tackle. I told him it was a birthday present. Then he made another final cast and hooked up on fish #41!

We ended with 41 striped bass caught and released on light tackle. Back at the dock, I felt like it was MY birthday when Dick gave me a couple bags filled with tackle. Thank you, Mr. Bowman! Happy Birthday. It was great to start it with you on the bay!

Back it. STAY POSTED.

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com