I had back to back trips again today. First up was Bob R again, this time he had Rich with him. Out in the bay, we were greeted by huge waves on the rips. The wind was howling against a cranking tide and we had some easy 6 footers right where we needed to be. It made for some uncomfortable fishing but some spectacular video…. (I’ll get to posting that over the weekend) Eventually the wind calmed and so did the tide and by 7:30, you never would have guessed it had been blowing at all. The bluefish were thicker than ever this morning. I know it happens every year, and I should get used to it but I really hate those yellow eyed bastards! We went through a ton of hooks and seemed to spend just as much time catching bait as we did stalking the bass. We only boated a few bass, I think only one was close to 40″. The rest of the day was spent tossing bait into the wood chipper. Bob likes to chase the bitzes on top, so we finally threw in the towel and broke out the spinning gear. There are a few bass mixed in with the blues on top and we had fun with them for a while. It wasn’t what I had hoped for but it was (marginally) better than a skunk…

Round two went much better. I had youngsters Adam and his buddy Harrison on board. They were dropped off at the ramp right at 11 and we headed straight out. We had the last of the ebb for catching our scup. We hit a few spots and finally found them in about 30 feet of water. The 2 boys were excellent and we had what we needed in no time flat. With the blues we had found in the morning, I decided to head in the other direction in hopes of eluding them for the afternoon. We pulled up in the first spot and dropped the baits down. Harrison hooked up first, not a big fish but the skunk was out of the boat early… We motored back up tide and repeated the same drift. In just about the same exact area, Adam got smacked. This one was a much better fish. I’ve never had someone that young be able to fight a fish so well. I wish some of my older clients did as well as he did…

The tide was slowing and that spot dried up shortly after that. We moved around trying deep and shallow in hopes of finding more fish but after an hour with no more fish I decided to head back to the scene of the crime from the morning trip. I figured that a shredded bait was better than nothing. By the time we go there, the tide had turned again. The birds, bait and blues were nowhere to be found. We were the only boat there… Perfect…

The boys put a whuppin’ on some real nice bass for the rest of the trip. Here are the pics from the rest of the trip:

Stroby was back again this morning… It’s not often we have a poor trip when he’s on board so I had high hopes for the morning. He didn’t disappoint.

We bumbled around a bit trying to find bait. It was slow going. We tried a completely new spot that was only 14 feet and found a bunch. It was getting pretty bright out and I really wanted to get out on the piles to take advantage of the low light. In the first 3 drifts, we had 4 fish on. We boated 2 of them. Here is my first fish of the morning.

I was trying a different rig this morning. The water has been very clear and the fish seem to be line shy at times. My 3-way rig had a much longer leader than usual and was only 20lb fluoro. I think it definitely helped get more bites but it also cost me the biggest fish of the day. I had a bass take 85 yards of line on the first run, we were even chasing it down… It pulled a lot harder and longer than any we landed today. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t… We put a few in the boat and ended up running out of bait. We were also losing the tide so we made the call to reload on porgy. None of the earlier spots were working. We moved around quite a bit and ended up fishing in 30 feet of water. The tide had turned and that was all it took for them to start feeding again.

The bass were right where we left them. We put a few more in the boat before we ran out of time. All in all, it was a good day. The fish were all good sized bass. Hopefully they stick around a bit longer!

This morning was day two with Bob R, this time he had his buddy Dave with him. It was overcast with thick fog and few rain drops when we pulled away from the dock.  Aside from slow going, I love fishing on days like these. Dave was commenting on the conditions as we headed out under the bridge, the day was designated Big Fish Friday. We would see… Porgy weren’t too bad this morning, we put a quick dozen in the live wells and headed out while it was still fairly dark out. I think we had 3 fish in the first 5 drifts. Nothing huge, but it sure is nice to unload the skunk early in the trip…

After all the surface activity yesterday, Bob brought a couple of spinning rods and was rigged in case we found them again. Sure enough, we could hear them slapping and slurping about 200 yeards away in the fog. We made our way over and began casting. It was an even mix of bass and blues. The blues were 10 – 12 pounds and there were bass up to 40″ on top. They were gorging on butterfish all around us. When a hooked fish would throw up next to the boat, there would be dozens of 3″ butters floating. Within seconds,  fish would be tearing through the cloud. It was pretty cool to see… After a while, the guys had their fill and we moved on in search of bigger fish. 

We moved north into shallow water away from the melee looking for solitary fish. I remember looking at the GPS at 7:39 and as I looked back up, Bob’s rod was doubled over and I could hear the line hissing off the reel. Bob was having a hard time stopping this bass. I had Dave reel up and we fired up the big motor to chase the fish down. Bob kept the pressure on and we had her to the boat in less than 5 minutes. WOW, this fish was massive. It wasn’t incredibly fat, but the shoulders were huge. This fish has the potential to be in the mid 60 pound range with the right forage around. Take a look at how far across the head on this fish was!

We kept her tethered on the Boga Grip and in the water while we cleared the deck and got the camera out. Once we were all set, Bob got her up and we snapped a few pics…

Things settled down after that… We had a few more fish between 40 and 42″ and lots more surface action but no more real excitement. Kind of tough to beat that fish anyway. Everyone felt satisfied and we headed in 1/2 hour early…

Bob R is back again for the next couple of days.  Today he had Joe with him. Both guys have fished with me before so we had no problem getting our bait and right in to fish.  The day started off a little foggy, but wasn’t too bad at all.  We started on a little hump in 20 feet of water that has been holding some decent fish lately…  I think it was on our third drift of the morning when Joe got smashed and smashed HARD.  The porgy never saw it coming. Joe put the boots to the fish and had it to the boat fairly quick. We were in a hurry to get the fish back in the water, so the pics didn’t come out as well as I had hoped.  The fish was a little over 47″ but was a lot fatter than the pic shows…

The blues had shown up in force overnight and were ripping our baits to shreds. Fish were busting all around us. Many were coming completely out the water while chasing bait. We ran in for a few more and when we came back out, we moved a bit deeper in hopes of finding quality bass instead of bluefish. We picked away for the next couple of hours and did OK. We still had a few blues, but did manage to find a few good bass too. Here are a few pics of the rest of the action…

I had John and his buddy Brian today. We had a tough time at first finding bait of any size, but eventually got enough to get us out on the rock piles. The tide was ripping at close to 3MPH over 25 feet of water at the first spot. 15 minutes into drifting, John hooked up first with a nice fish. It had taken a lot of line in the first run, so I fired up the motor to chase it down to try to keep it out of the rocks. As I motored up tide, I watched John’s rod tip. Somthing just didn’t look right… Once we gained some line back, I took the rod for a second just to see what we were dealing with. Sure enough, there was a decent fish on it, but it was wrapped around a lobster pot. With the tide running as strong as it was, the buoy was under the surface and we never saw it. The fish had wrapped around the line on the pot. We backed off on the drag a bit and I took a guess which side to to go around the pot. If we got it wrong, the fish would be gone… I guessed right and the fish was free again. A couple of minutes later and she was in the boat…

We spent a while longer at that spot with no other fish. By this time, the fog rolled in pretty thick.  We slowly moved around a bit and tried some different spots. We fished as deep as 60 and as shallow as 15. The tide was slowing to a trickle and the action was dead everywhere… I had a feeling that if we stuck around long enough for the tide chage, we’d find more fish. We used the down time to grab a few more porgies and by the time we got back to the reef, the tide had turned. I asked the guys if they had anywhere they needed to be today and explained that the conditions were rapidly improving and if we stuck it out a little longer we’d boat a couple more. They were up for the extra time on the reef… That’s all it took. In the next few drifts we found what we were looking for. The guys put a few more fish in the boat. That’s been the pattern for me lately. The fish are there but nothing has been easy. We are working for every fish we get. Here are a few more pictures from the morning:

Sorry for the lack of reports… It was a loooooong week. Here is a brief look back at the last few trips.

On Wednesday, day 3 with Larry, we started out slow but ended up doing OK. We worked for everything we got though and even spent an extra 2 1/2 hours on the water trying to figure the bass out. Other than sunburned feet, my reward for the day was watching Larry battle a 50″ 44 pound bass.

We also had Bob and Larry’s son Drew on board. Everyone boated decent fish. Bob had one that went 47″ if I remember correctly. Bob is a big dude, the pic doesn’t really do the fish justice, but it was a just over 40 pounds…

We went in, cleaned a few bass and had some lunch. The guys went on their way and I got ready for a trip with Daiwa and Connecticut Outfitters aboard the Black Hawk. We shoved off at 4 pm with 35 of our customers and fished the race for bass. The weather was nasty with heavy rain and lightning. Our guys made the best of the conditions and caught a few fish in less then stellar conditions. Captain Greg even stayed out an extra hour for us. I ended up with 3 hours of sleep in the truck before meeting Larry and Natt for day 4.

Day 4 was a real grind. The fish just weren’t in an eating mood. I was seeing them on the electronics but we had very few hits. We fished in as little as 15 feet of water and as deep as 80… I think we ended up with 6 bass or so. Again, we worked hard for every fish that we got.

Thursday night I slept like a rock and when the alarm went off at 2:30 am felt like a new man. Larry had Chris with him today. The bait gathering went well. It was overcast with a slight breeze and mist in the air. There were only a couple of other boats out and I felt great about the conditions.

This time we were getting plenty of hits but the fish just weren’t inhaling the baits. We went through quite a few baits and eventually put few fish in the boat. We lost a couple of bigger fish and even had one chase one of our baits to the surface in 30 feet of water. We watched him smash it a couple of times before grabbing it and heading back to the bottom. Not really sure what happened but the hook somehow pulled out of the bass. That one hurt as it was deffinitely over 45″… Oh well. Chris had never fished like this before and was having a ball watching all the action. He was a quick study and picked up technique quickly.  Here are a few pics from my 5th and final day with Larry.

The title says it all… Today was one of the most frustrating days I’ve ever had as a charter captain. I had Larry again today, this time he brought his son Drew and his friend Alex. We started off with a few good sized porgy but it was a slow pick After close to 45 minutes, we decided to head out with what we had. We fished the same spots that have been producing for over a week now and really struggled to find much of anything at all.

We were getting hits, but they weren’t real aggressive. The bass would hit the bait once and that was it. Just enough to kill it and make it useless. We had a couple of hook ups on some better fish and had one that was close to 45″ within a few yards of the boat but it popped off. We dropped another that was a bit over 40 as well. We didn’t get the first fish in the boat until 8:45. By this time we were out of bait so we had to run in and scrape up a few more porgy. This time they were a little more cooperative and we had about 15 in a half an hour. By the time we got back out, the tide had slowed to a crawl so we moved on to another reef. The tide had just turned as we got there and put a 38″ bass in the boat pretty quick. We had a couple more hits but no hook ups so we ran 11 miles back to the first spot in hopes that the change of tide would help.

More of the same… Short hits and dead baits We managed a few more fish over 36″ and somehow lost a few other good ones. I didn’t have to work at CT Outfitters today so we even stayed out a few extra hours in hopes of finding bigger fish but it just didn’t happen. It was one of those days… Tomorrow can only get better!

And so begins another busy week of charters… Today I had Larry for the first of 5 straight days. Larry has been out with me several times in the past, today he brought his friends Tom and Dave with him. Neither had caught a striper much over 20 pounds before. My mission was clear, personal bests for both.

Things started off pretty slow, I was getting concerned when by 6:30 we still hadn’t boated a fish. We dropped a fish that was well over 30 pounds right at the boat but never did get it leadered. We decided to move a couple of miles and try some deeper water. That was the ticket… The guys dropped down into 60 feet of water and almost instantly doubled up. Nothing huge, but the skunk was out of the boat.

We stayed out there for a while and kept catching but the fleet finally closed in on us and we decided to move on to another rock pile that wasn’t so crowded. The tide really wan’t doing much at the new spot so we made a couple of long drifts to give the tide some time to move again. It didn’t take long… In one drift we went from .5 to 1.2 MPH. That was all it took, they were feeding again.

We did well right up until we had to leave. Here are a few pics of some of the better fish on the day: