On board today I had Kris Meyer, and Noah Lydiard for light tackle striped bass. What a morning!

At first light, it was slack low tide and not a disturbance on the bay. Heavy downpours had just ended, and the bay was dead-calm. Then, as soon as the tide turned it was mayhem on the bay as tons of schooled striped bass came into the bay smashing bait on topwater. It looked like a classic Spring Blitz you may have seen in my videos on Vimeo and YouTube. It was just amazing!

The bass attacked just about anything you threw at them. Spooks, rubber cranks, sluggos, Smiling Bills, metal jigs – it didn’t matter, they hit it all. The best excitement was topwater spooks. They slammed them. At one point, a bass slammed Noah’s spook so hard it shot six feet out of the water and came back into the boat, hooking onto the guides on the rod!!! How cool is that!!! And to top off the morning: for the second time in a week, and only the second time in 21 seasons of guiding, TWO striped bass slammed a single spook and BOTH fish got hooked at the same time on Kris’s lure. Absolutelty amazing…

We ended the morning with 43 striped bass and headed back in with schools and schools of bass still pouring into the bay. It looked like May of years past, not the end of June.

CAPTAIN’ TIP: if you fish topwater plugs crimp your barbs down for quick catch and release and to make it easier on the fish. Mash them all the way down flat. You won’t lose any fish and they will go back into the bay in as good condition as they came out. These are the fish stocks for the future years and we need to practice healthy catch and release techniques.

Final word: It was great to meet a young angler today, named Cole, at French Memories, after fishing. This fisherman is on fire and has been watching my videos on social media. He is tying flies and fly fishing. Great to see the younger anglers on the bay carrying on the traditions of The Baymen Life. Carpe Diem, Cole!

Tight Lines and good fishing.

Sincerely,

Capt. Dave
BAYMEN
www.baymenlife.com