Friday, June 16, 2017

Weekly? Update

Last Monday was the best day I had. Caught a real nice 27 at the shoal. On Tuesday a woman from work joined me and we had a blast. She had been asking me for quite sometime to go fishing. Since topwater fishing involves numerous sets of treble hooks, I am always leery of taking someone whose skill-set I am unfamiliar with,for safety reasons. I asked her how her casting was and she said it was ok. Well it turned out, she was better than ok. She cooly tossed her first Popa Dog a nice 30 yards or so with a nice fluid motion. She had never caught a striper and I am not sure she had even been on a boat before. So I had a huge smile on my face to match hers when she got her first blow-up and boated a nice 18. Her total for the night was 6 with one keeper that she took home to her family to show off her mad skills. One of the more satisfying nights of the year. The rest of the week was spent at the shoal as my "Dora the Explorer" approach had yielded little more than kidney damage from the chop I endured looking around. So it has been "the spot" for me. Seem to be settling into a normal summer pattern of 18-22 inch fish. I boated two 20's and a 16 in an hour tonight. Not the action from a few weeks ago, but a great night non the less.
27 inch

Her first Striper


Thursday, June 1, 2017

Dora The Explorer

After the last four nights action, I may not fish "the spot" this year. I was by myself tonight and decided to head out into the big old bay to see what was to be had. I have never erased the trails on my Lowrance so it looks like someone took a black crayon and drew a line from my house to "the spot" on the chart plotter. The only other lines are the trails from my trip with Paulie and his son to the bay bridge and the lines from Memorial Day. Using the trail as a guide, I made my way to green 83 where we had done so well on Memorial Day. The bay was perfect, with no humidity, a light breeze, and a surface that looked like glass. I was marking fish but,a lack of birds and no tail slaps made if difficult to find breaking fish. What did make it easier was the sight of about 20 boats off in the distance at the entrance to Deal. I arrived to birds scattered over a huge area and tails slaps galore. These were not schoolies either. They were clearly north of 28. My second cast was met with a huge slam. It was clearly bigger than my fish from Monday. Prior to leaving the dock, I had changed my line and tied on a 8 foot leader. There would be no break-offs tonight! I was a great back and forth for at least 5 minutes. In Tarpon fishing, if you touch the leader it is a catch. Well...I touched the leader but, sadly she broke loose. The line did not break though. Guess I will never know how big it was but, it definitely rivaled my fish from Monday. It was not long before the second fish came onboard. A real beauty that peeled off line at an alarming rate before giving up as Stripers usually do. They are like March in reverse. Out like a lion and in like a lamb. A third beauty followed. Both were "netted" fish. That normally only occurs a few times a year at "the Spot". Looks like I am going to be Dora the Explorer this summer.
Did not need to push it out... it was big 

Fish Number 1. Based on lid it was 26

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