Greetings from Capt. Dave & BAYMEN Charters!

On board today, Chris & Molly DeVillers for light tackle striped bass. This very experienced husband and wife angling team have been fishing with me for many years.

At first light, a half-tide dropping, water temps 55 degrees, and a wisp of East wind with seas near dead calm. A handful of birds working a small school of bass on topwater. Yesterday’s half-mile of fish were long gone… Or were they?

Seeing very little on topwater, we moved along the edge of an eel grass flat in 18-24 fow, and started prospecting, aka “blind fishing.” WHAM! Nice fish on! And then another, and another, and another. No birds, no bait seen, and no topwater action. But tons of fish along the flats. We worked them for a good hour on rubber crank baits and as they moved out with the tide, so did we.

Next stop, I spotted birds working up in the shallows of another flat. We went that way and were glad we did! In 4-5 fow bass were working bait in two big schools. They slammed our tackle and we caught a bunch. As they, too, began to move out with the tide (this flat like most is bare ground at low tide), we left and ran about two miles to our third spot of the morning. Ghost Town! No fish in spot #3 to my total surprise. Conditions looked perfect but nobody home.

We ran a short distance to my fourth spot of the morning and WOW! Absolutely stacked with fish!!! All hugging the bottom and in small, tight schools. Lots of keepers in this mix. We switched right over to my Baymen Jigs in 1 oz to get down to waters of 24 feet where the fish were holding. WHAM! Fish on! These bass slammed our Baymen Jigs for two solid hours without let up. It was insane jig fishing with fish on every single drift with many double hook-ups.

At one point, we looked up and saw what we thought was a seal. But it never went down. We kept an eye on it and kept fishing. It drifted closer to us and I slowly motored over to it to check it out… It was an owl! Not a live one, but an owl decoy going out with the tide. We picked it up and had some good laughs and took a few pics. You never know what you will find floating in the ocean.

Final spot of the morning yielded just one fish, again to my surprise. One of my biggest tips as a charter boat Captain is this: Know what to fish, how to fish it, and keep moving until you find what you are looking for.

Total catch and release today was 63 striped bass, and 9 keepers. A nice mix of HUGE schoolies just under 28″ inches and 9 “keeper” slot bass 28″ to under 31″ inches, and a few bigger ones. We kept two very fat slots that went home with the anglers. All fish are very fat, very healthy, and very hard fighting.

That’s today’s BAYMEN REPORT. It is going to blow up tomorrow with winds so we are staying off the bay. We will be back at it shortly after. The BAYMEN Charter and Guide Season is going just great! A big shoutout to all my awesome customers. I say it all the time and I will say it again: I have the best clients on earth!

Tight Lines!

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com 31 Years Guiding The Bay. Still In Love.

NOTE: I checked the stomach contents of the two slot bass we kept. Guess what was in them? They were filled with green crabs of all sizes.