22 Fish on LT
On board today, I had Lt. Col. Comstock (Ret.), his son Dr. Richard Comstock, and his two grandchildren, Rhys and Asher, for light tackle striped bass.
At first light, a flat-calm bay and overcast skies, with a high tide dropping. No bird activity this time of year and it was all structure fishing, which is to be expected mid-summer. The good news is the bay water temps dropped from 80 degrees a few days ago to 69 degrees today. Yesterday’s rains, NE wind (and tornado on the Cape!) took away the humidity and dropped the temps.
We began to work the bay in some of my spots and got into a few fish in the 2nd stop of the morning, fishing rocky, shallow water. Very small fish about 1-2 year olds, up from the Chesapeake for their first time.
We picked up another fish off Saquish and then headed across the bay to Plymouth waters. The tides were 9.0 today with a +1.2 low. Very slow and sluggish and the waters don’t move together in a tide like this. It can be very shallow in some spots and still almost high in others. This is most likely to elevation of the flats and size of the cuts and channels, all affecting a slow tide movement. Two of my spots were already near dead low, while others looked like they were just past high tide. It was interesting to observe!
In Plymouth, we found a few more fish on structure and also marked two HUGE bass on sonar that passed under the boat. Very big fish, but just two of them. We worked our light tackle down to them as they vanished off the sonar screen, never to show again. Man, these were monsters and I shake just thinking about them. Sure wished we could of hooked into one of those brutes on light tackle!
Back up into Kingston bay, and we found some fish moving out of the bay. We were able to set many drifts and hook up on almost every one. We had several double hookups and one triple hook-up.
We ended the trip today with 22 fish caught and released all on light tackle. We fished some chunk mackerel with no success. Rubber cranks baits were the ticket today.
A job well done by Rhys and Asher, 6 1/2 years old and 4 1/2 years old. They fished non-stop all morning and enjoyed every minute of it.
Stay posted & tight lines!
Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, baymenlife.com