On board today, I had regular, The Venerable Dick Bowman, for light tackle striped bass and blue!

At first light, a greasy bay with dead-calm winds. Small schools of fish scattered around the bay. First cast – fish on! We worked a pod for about a half-hour at one end of the bay and then ran to the other end in search of more schools. If you know the “Cow Yard Bar” area on the last hour of the dropping tide, you know you can’t cross it. Today, I felt confident I could cross it. Wrong! ran the boat right up on the flat in inches of water and had to raise the engine and push us off with the paddle on the last 20 minutes of an outgoing tide. I have never ran aground with clients in 22 years of guiding. But today was pretty close! LOL…

The rest of the morning was spend chasing small schools of fish all over the bay. Every spot we went to, we caught fish. Most were spooky and finicky. But we matched the hatch with a small, white Sebile topwater crankbait and that was the hot lure of the morning. I also rigged a Yo-Zuri popper with some 3″ pearl shads and that rig did pretty well, too. But if I had to fish one lure right now, I’d go with a small white popper or the Sebile style minnow (see photo).

We ended the morning with 27 fish boated and released, incuding one keeper bass and a nice chunky blue that must of been lost. All the fish today were in a foot to maybe three feet of water with few exceptions. One thing that was so cool to watch: millions of peanut bunker in the bay getting driven up against the shorelines and bass smashing through them in inches of water, while the gulls stood in the water and picked the baits off as the bass pushed them to them. Very awesome sight that I only see in the fall run.

Back at it. Stay posted and best of luck out there!

Capt. Dave
www.baymenlife.com
*2016 dates going fast… don’t wait.

(Let the record show that Mr. Bowman has more tackle than Baymen!)