Today was a bit of a struggle. We ended up doing fine but I was getting worried when we still didn’t have a bass in the boat by 8 this morning… Larry was back on board again, this time with buds with John and Barry.  Scup took a little longer than usual so by the time we got to the reef, the tide was on its last legs. We stuck with it for a while but eventually headed a couple of miles away to a deep water hump.

By the time we got there, the tide had switched and we had a double on the first drop. We lost one but managed to boat a 38″  to get the skunk out of the boat. My 7 year streak was still intact…
They were stacked up pretty good right on the hump…

We messed around for another half hour or so. We had a lot of half hearted hits and a few hook ups but we decided to go find some bigger fish…

We moved to a rock pile in 20 feet of water that dropped back to 35. The conditions there were pretty tough there. The wind against the tide was pushing the rip to 4 feet at times. There were a few fish on the elctronics and we eventually managed to get a couple of them to eat… John’s was the biggest of the day (Left) but Barry’s fish put up a hell of a fight.

The total for the day was 6 in the boat. Not bad, but I was hoping for better… We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

It has been an outstanding week on the water and today was the icing on the cake! I had Alex and his buddy Rick on board this morning. Turns out, we grew up within a few miles of each other and fished many of the same places growing up… Small world. It was a bit frustrating early with more than one boat shadowing our every move on more than one reef, but we still managed to put some fish in the boat. At one point, we were doubling up for our 3rd straight drift, and it just got a little too crowded on that pile. The guys were catching decent fish but nothing over 38″. I told them that we could stay there and continue to beat the crap out of them, or move to new waters and find some bigger fish. The action would be slower but the fish would be bigger. They both agreed to go big game hunting instead. We moved a mile or so away from the fleet and on the very first drop, Rick hooked up with a good fish.

That was it for a while after that. It looked like things had slowed for everybody because all the boats were jumping from hump to hump rather than staying on their drift lines. I decided at that point to make a big move and we headed 12 miles or so to a spot I hadn’t fished in a few years. There were no other boats within 3 miles of us and the tide was perfect. Rick hooked up again, this one was screaming line off the reel. Alex cleared his line and I fired up the boat to keep a steep angle between us and the fish. I have been down this road before with big fish in big boulders and I wasn’t going to lose this one. Rick did a great job keeping the rod tip high and pressure on the fish and we finally boated her.

At this point, Alex was wondering what he was doing wrong… Not to worry, a few drifts later he got slammed. Another good fish. Same drill, clear the lines and chase her down. The fish took full advantage of a 3MPH tide and fought hard but with the right angle, Alex had it to the boat a few minutes later. One I had control of the fish, i handed it off to Alex and had him keep her in the water till the camera was ready…

Not to be outdone, a few drifts later Rick hooks up again. AGAIN, this was a big fish. Same fire drill , same results. Another beast in the boat.

We had a perfect day. Great weather, great tide, great company and OUTSTANDING fishing! After fishing for 11 out of the last 12 days, I finally get a couple of days off. I might even get to sleep in till 5. Next report on Monday… Stay tuned…

I got a call a few weeks ago from a soldier in Afghanistan who said he was coming home on leave and really needed to get out on the water… Matt used to fish a lot out of Mystic but after tours in Iraq and now Afghanistan, it had been a while since he had been on the water. I was really looking forward to this trip… Matt was solo and we were out past the bridge by 4:55 and headed to the porgy grounds. 10 seconds into the very first drop, I hooked a double of keepers. 20 minutes later we were watching the sunrise on the reef with enough scup for round one. The weather man was wrong again, the forecast last night was for gusts to 20 out of the SW. Everyone else must have seen the same forecast because we were the only ones within miles of the reef.

It didn’t take long for Matt to hook up with his first fish…

We missed a couple and lost one but a couple of drifts later, Matt hooked up solid…

Things slowed down a bit after that, so we ran back to get a few fresh scup. It was great to talk with Matt about everything that is going on over there. Back in the day, I did my time, but things are a lot different these days. I sure am glad that we have guys like Matt on our side.

Once we grabbed a few more baits, we ran to a different spot and dropped down in 60 feet of water. Matt was on instantly. We were marking a pile of fish so I punched a way point in and for the next 45 minutes we never drifted more than 50 feet to either side of the pile. It was great action. We dropped a bunch of fish but boated our share as well. For whatever reason, as the tide slowed, the fish just disappeared. From there we headed to a small pile of rocks in 35 feet and dropped down again… I was looking at the electronics and remarked that we were over some fish , I hadn’t even finished my sentence when Matt’s rod went down hard. This was a better fish…  The fish came to the boat in short order but once it saw the boat, it became a whole different fish. It took twice as much line on the next run.

Matt is a pretty tall guy at well over 6 feet, so the pictures don’t do the fish justice…

We had one more fish after that and ran out of time. Total for the day was 9 fish boated with close to twice as many either missed or lost.  The wind never did blow today, the weather couldn’t have been better. Matt, it was an honor to fish with you, I had a great time. Good luck in the rest of your deployment and stay safe. Thanks for doing what you do!

Every year, I donate a trip to James V. Spignesi Jr. Scholarship Banquet. For those of you who don’t already know, Jim was a DEP officer who was shot by a hunter while on duty. Shortly after he was killed doing the job he loved, a scholarship fund was created by friends and family. It has evolved into an annual banquet that has made more than $200,000 since its modest beginnings nine years ago. Every year, this fund presents scholarships of $1,000 each to a high school student from Parish Hill High School, Scotland and Conard High School in West Hartford. The Conard scholarship goes to a lacrosse player, because Spignesi was the lacrosse team captain when he graduated from there. There is an additional annual scholarship awarded to a student in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UConn.

Dan and his son Tom were the winners of my trip donation and today was the day we had picked to go out. We launched at the usual 5 am and headed out in search of scup for bait. It has definitely been getting easier lately. We got enough bait to get us to the tide chage at 8.

Once the sun came  up, a slight breeze out of the southwest kicked up and in no time, we were in pea soup fog. No big deal, we just had to move slower. We struggled at first, dropping a couple of fish and missing someothers but the guys turned it around in short order and we put a bunch in the boat in a hurry. Tom put the first in the boat…

Dad hooked up on the next drift, this one was a bit bigger…

The tide slowed down, so we used the slack to make another bait run. I decided to try a different area. I found a flat sand bottom in 28 feet of water and we dropped down. These scup were HUGE! It didn’t take long to get what we needed. Now the problem was trying to find scup SMALL enough to use.

By the time we got back out to the reef, the tide was moving again and we put a few more fish in the boat pretty quick. there were a few small ones, but Tom put the big one in the boat in the second round…

I ended up keeping the unused bait for dinner tonight. It’s been way too long since I’ve had porgy!

Here is a quick video from the days action:

I very rarely run a charter on the weekends. The ramp is usually a zoo, and the water is too crowded. I am just spoiled from having the place to myself during the week. Stan and his uncle, Gary were entered in a striper tournament for this weekend and somehow ended up talking me into going out on a Saturday. The forecast looked good and the tides were perfect. I convinced them that it would be worth our while to launch earlier than normal so that we could get our bait and be first on the reef. I was confident that we could put a couple of quick fish in the boat before anyone else showed up. The guys met me at 4:15 and we shoved off shortly after.

The bait catching went well for once and we loaded up with enough for the whole trip. Sunrise this morning was at 5:15. We started our drift just as the sun was coming up and seconds later we hooked up with a double. There is nothing better than doubling up on the first drop! Gary shattered his personal best fish with a 42″ bass but Stan’s was a bit longer at just over 44″.

That was a great start, but things got better quickly… On the next drift, Gary hooks up with a powerful fish that was screaming line off the reel at a pretty good clip. I got him up on the bow and fired up the Yamaha to chase the fish down. We were in fairly shallow water and I’ve lost some big fish by them running the line across the tops of the rocks. If you can get a better angle on the fish and pry him up off of the bottom, you have a much better shot. Gary kept pressure on the fish a couple of minutes later we were vertical with the fish again. It didn’t take long after that. Another big fish for Gary, this one went 46 1/2″

We had a couple of smaller fish and it began to get crowded so we ran about a mile to a shallow reef and put some lighter lead on… We only had one more fish in that spot but it was a hell of a fish again… Stan hooked up and we had to chase this one down too… This almost topped Gary’s fish, missing by 1/2″ . It was only 6:30 and we already had 7 fish in the boat, 4 of those were over 42 and of those, 2 were 46″.

That was the last fish of the morning… We tried deep, shallow, in between, everything I could think of. We ended  up covering 27 miles but that was it for the day. We decided to head back in at 8:45 in hopes of getting the boat on the trailer before the ramp got out of control. Gotta love those quick hit and run trips!  I have a full schedule next week, it should be interesting!

Today I had Ryan and his dad, Al on board. It was a slow start to the day, I have to admit I was getting nervous… We usually hook up on the first couple of drifts and see some of the bigger fish of the day early on. We dropped a couple of better fish in the first 15 minutes. Not sure what happened, they just came off… My 7 year streak of skunk free trips was on the line. Ryan came through and boated the first fish, a nice 44″ bass.

We put a couple more fish that were smaller in the boat and decided to move out to deeper water before the wind kicked up too much more. That was a good move, we but another 5 in the boat fishing in 65 feet of water. Al got a nice fish along the way too…

I will never figure these stripers out as along as I live… Today I had Larry back again, this time with his good friend Nat. We did the same things we had done on Monday and in the same places. The fish were there and we caught well but for some reason, the bigger fish just weren’t hungry. 

After 8 or so, the wind really began cranking and it quickly became unfishable. We had in incoming tide and a pretty stiff breeze out of the southwest. I had to use the trolling motor to keep the bow into the wind and slow the drift down. The guys did great in the conditions we had but it was useless and we cut the trip short and headed back to the dock to clean the fish. When I got to CT Outfitters, I checked the on line bouys and found that the winds had been over 30 and were gusting to almost 40!

We ended up with 9 bass in the boat, the biggest was a bit over 40″ The rest ranged from 33″ to 38″… We’ll do better next time, Larry. I promise!!!!

Here is a pic of Larry’s fish of the day:

I had repeat customers Larry and his son Drew on board for a striper trip today. The day couldn’t have been better. The weather man was wrong in our favor for once. We had sunny skies and light winds all morning. The day started off on the right foot as we had 4 keeper scup in the boat on first 2 drops. Just like Monday, we went with a light load of bait to take advantage of the remaining ebb tide.

The tide was moving in a funky direction on the first drift, so we adjusted on the second and found the fish right away. Larry put the first fish in the boat, the biggest of the day. This has happened the last 3 times out where the biggest is the first to the boat…

We were marking quite a few fish in a tight area, so we adjusted the drift again to stay on them. Drew had the hot hand. I’m not sure what it was, but the stripers really liked him this morning. We put 3 more quick ones in the boat and lost a couple of others. By then, the tide was really slowing down and other boats began to show up so we elected to reload on bait and wait for the switch.

Here are a few of the other fish:

Reloading in scup took a lot longer than we expected. The tide had already turned where we were and the action was much slower than our first stop, the scup were also much smaller. It took close to 45 minutes to get what we felt would be enough for the last 2 hours of the trip. We headed back to the scene of the crime from earlier in the morning but there were a few boats in my drift lane. I decided to head in shallow and check, the tide was really quick there and kelp was a problem. Every time we dropped, we were getting wrapped up.

Yesterday, I had found a pile of fish a few miles away in much deeper water. Nothing had changed as far as weather conditions overnight so I figured they should still be there. We made the 5 mile run and dropped down. On the next 3 drifts the guys had doubles. These were slightly smaller fish but they were incredibly aggressive. We weeded through the smaller bass and eventually picked off a few that were over 40″ …

At the rate we were catching, it didn’t take long to burn through the bait. We ended up packing it in a few minutes early to get a head start on cleaning fish and scrubbing the boat. In all we boated 15 bass, 9 of them were over 40″ . Larry is back again on Thursday, my fingers are crossed for a repeat…

Here is a video of the day taken with mynew GoPro camera…