Thursday, July 30, 2015

Good Week

Last Thursday I did a charter out of Harris' Crabhouse in Kent Narrow, put together by some work associates. I had heard from a number of friends that the primary biomass of bigger Stripers has been holding up north all summer. This theory was confirmed as we quickly limited out with 10 guys. A number of the fish were low to mid 30 inch fish.

This week was quite interesting. It was windy every day, so I was unable to make it out to the Shoal, That  did not mean I did not catch fish. On Tuesday, I ran across some working birds at red number 12. Normally I would assume that they were chasing dinks or baitfish. After all, it is July. Well to my chagrin the fish were mostly in the 22 inch range with several up to 26. All on Popa Dogg.

A big storm rolled through around 3 tonight, but things had settled down nicely by early evening. Low tide was 5:30 and the breeze was about 12 knots from the south, which meant for a choppy bay. I arrived around 6:30 and the tide was still coming in, or at least it seemed that way with the wind pushing the boat  to the North. I did manage a few 18's, but the action was quite slow, until the boat began to swing around around 7:30. This once again confirmed my theory that the best time for Topwater at the shoal is 2 hours after low tide. The action from 7:30 to 8:30 was nothing short of spectacular. I lost count, but I boated at least 15 nice keeper sized fish. (20 inches this year). Every slam was followed by a tail walking dance, each one better than the last. Great night.
Typical 20 inch fish tonight

The Eastern Shore Way. Make that 28 look like a 40.

The new "Mama Dogg" logo

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Ouch

First of all, I need to correct and injustice done to my boy Danny. I said he had never caught a keeper sized striper, when in fact I meant "on my boat". He had indeed landed a very nice 24 which if I look back, was featured on this very blog. So when we anchored up Tues. night he had extra incentive to get the skunk off the boat immediately, which is exactly what he did when he landed a nice 18-20? on the fly. The conditions were just plain horrid. The tide was wrong, the wind was howling, and it was quite choppy. We did manage several more 18-20 inch fish, but it was a tough night,

Tonight could not have been more perfect. The wind was calm, the tide had peaked an hour before I anchored, and the humidity that has plagued us for weeks was gone. Unfortunately several other boats were anchored exactly on the spot. So I moved closer to the point and just plain murdered them. There were several times where 22-24 class fish were chasing the hooked fish to the boat. All was great until I got cocky and managed to sink a treble hook deep into the top part of my thumb. Last night I watched a film by Mark Wahlberg titled "lone survivor". Its a hollywood version of a true story of 4 soldiers that must escape literally an army of Afghan soldiers after their mission goes horribly wrong. These guys are subjected to the most gruesome injuries as they attempt to climb a mountain to call for help as the Afghans chase them down. The are shot, fall down ravines and break bones, etc. Like all great American war movies they just shake it off and kill hordes of enemy soldiers until just Wahlberg is left and miraculously rescued by the home team. I was thinking of them as the wrench turned over and ripped that sucker out. It hurt like a bitch, but at least I was not shot.
THE FLY GUY

Monday, July 13, 2015

The Golden Years

We moved into our new home or "final resting place", as I like to call it, July 4th weekend. It has been a long ordeal that took us 2 1/2 years, but boy was it worth it. Better than the dream, by far. So with things settled down and topwater season finally kicking in, I am ready to officially start my Golden Years.

I fished Sat morning, a rarity for me, before the boat traffic kicked into high gear, and luckily hit a perfect topwater morning. I picked up 2 nice 22's on Popa. Had a few more blowup's from larger fish that missed. When I pulled onto my lift and looked up at our new home, all I could do is utter NICE to myself. I left everything open and all the electronics still running.  I guess the plan was to, at some point that morning, clean the boat. Unfortunately, I completely  chilled on our back patio for the rest of the weekend and did not even wander down to the boat again until last night when I noticed a glow coming from the front window. So, I should not have been surprised to find a dead battery when Danny and I attempted to leave at a little before 6 tonight. Since most of my fishing stuff is still in boxes, finding my charger was futile, so we decided to take the Kayaks. As Danny was pulling them out of the boathouse, I decided to throw a Hail Mary. I jumped in the car and headed to Boaters World. I have never heard of a charger that will also act as a jump starter, but you never know. Sure enough, the salesman, who happened to be in that section, said that they did not carry anything like that. But wait!!! this one does say it will jump start an outboard. So I flew home and she (officially named my new 16 year old boat "Mama Dogg") fired right up. So by 7:15, we were anchored up at the spot. The outgoing tide was ripping against a 10 knot northerly breeze so conditions where quite choppy. Danny has yet to catch a keeper sized striper on his fly rod, so he started on the front throwing a small streamer. I of course was armed in ready with the dogg. It was no contest. By the end of the night Popa had boated 19 nice healthy keeper sized fish and the fly rod Zero. After the 14th, Danny reluctantly set down the fly rod and added to Popa's final total.

The view from my new lift.

Blog Archive