81 Fish
On board today, I had 3rd year repeat anglers Chris and Molly DeVillers, and their goddaughter, Emily, for light tackle striped bass.
At first light, heavy overcast and a threat of rain. A West wind. And lots of fish and bait inside and outside the bay!
As we cut across the bay heading for the first spot of the morning, we kept coming across schools of rolling bass and birds working overhead. We had about ten fish in the first few minutes of the trip. They were small schoolies, so we left breaking fish to search for more fish.
As we left the bay area, we pulled into several schools of bass up on the flats. I’d say 50% of the schools had birds working over them. We stayed with these fish for quite a while and caught and released a lot of sub-legal fish. One fish taped out to 27 3/4 inches, the rest were smaller.
The bait is changing in the bay. Macks are thick! And the micro bait we have been dealing with is getting replaced by a slim, brown minnnow abour 1-1.5 inches long. The macks love these and we saw several mackerel blitzes, with no bass on them or under them. Six of the macks hit our light tackle and we landed them all.
After exhausting ourselves working these schools of bass, we left and cut back inside the bay and started working some areas for bigger fish. More schools of bass were scattered around the bay. I marked a half-dozen cows at 24 feet but then we lost them and they moved on. We also set several drifts in one of my prime spots and had one big bass come up and follow our tackle but not take. Several smaller bass did hit our tackle on the drifts and made for some fun fishing!
Last spot of the morning and I had high hopes of some keeper bass. But we found more schoolies and landed our last fish of the trip.
Top tackle is still rubber crank baits. No hits on topwater lures today. We ended the morning with a whopping 81 fish landed and released, including 6 mackerel – on light tackle. My guess is BIG bass will be coming inside to feed on the bigger baits arriving.
A wonderful morning with Chris, Molly and Emily!
Back at it. Stay Posted:
Capt. Dave, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com