Worked the Reach 7/19

[pilot2550]

Had brother Jay, Skunk and Kooz out today to work an area of the reach that has been producing fairly consistently.  Arrived at our destination 7:30 for the hour 1/2 prior to tail end of high tide. Winds blowing 10-12 out of the SW.  Today, we're feeling real good and  have an assortment of bait including live herring.  Kooz picks a nice 21" on the first drop. The herring is the ticket.  Drifts at first were nice with 3-4 oz spros or chrome balls doing the trick.  Skunk is next in line with his fluke assassin ROGUE stick but comes up with a short.  Brother Jay gets a few bumps here and there.  Retracing the track and Kooz produces another one.  This time on a double Killie combo.  In the meantime, I can't get a fish to look at my bait.  Several drifts until slack do little other than provide skunk with short fluke entertainment.  At this point, I'm getting frustrated and we have to make a move out of the channel to make way for the dredger Mcfarland.  I'm about to bring in the line and wham.... the St Croix is bent in pretty good way.  Now I'm humping it to get a fish to the boat while keeping an eye on the McF.  Good thing there was a good distance up the channel before we really needed to make a move.  Kooz is my net man and does a fine job securing a nice 5 lber.  Shortly after slack winds shifted and started blowing almost due west and tide started to rip making it difficult to hold bottom even with 8 oz.  Another cool thing happened today.  Kooz had a double header fluke.  One on the spro and one on the teaser at the same time.  Both fish made it to the net.  The one on spro was just short of keep size and the other was 14".   By 11:30 we made some moves to shallower water trying to get out of the honk.  No fish in three other areas we worked.  Finished the day working the terminal channel that produced a handful more shorts.  End of day 4 decent fish for the box, 20+ shorts. 

[Uncle Luna]

nice catch 

[IrishAyes]

Nice report and catch. 

Is that Gateway or Schupp's Marina you are in?

[rugman]

 

[Bucktail]

Nice catch!

[PeggyLee]

Nice peport Pilot.Its tough playing Chicken with the Dredges and reeling in a fish to boot.Good Job.

[Pfishingruven]

Nice catch!!  Sounds like it was a good day fishing!!

Thanks

 

[wink_man]

Great report Pilot, and great catch, sounds like a good day. You had a lot of action with shorts, and got a few keepers, good going considering what the winds and fishing conditions have been lately.

Garry

[seanr8w]

Good Job Guys 

[Tbone]

Pilot, Thanks for dem magic baits! They did produce a few keeps!  Nice fish.  Take a closer look at your scale.  Your fish was almost 8 lbs!!  Made some stuffed fluke w/crab meat last night to die for. Good stuff. Thanks again! 
T-Bone         

[kezsr]

good report and some nice sized fish

[Luna Sea 5]

 

[pilot2550]

Capt Joe,

That would be right on both accounts.  I'm at Gateway and that is Schaup's in the background 

[pilot2550]

Pilot, Thanks for dem magic baits! They did produce a few keeps!  Nice fish.  Take a closer look at your scale.  Your fish was almost 8 lbs!!  Made some stuffed fluke w/crab meat last night to die for. Good stuff. Thanks again! 
T-Bone         

T-bone... a pleasure.  My paw added a few lbs to the read in the pic.  Glad we could hook up.  That stuffed flounder sounds outstanding!

[IrishAyes]

Pilot, tell Dick and his sons that Joe from Irish Ayes said hi. They'll know who I am. I bought my boat there in 94 and repowered it there last year.

They treated me right and I got great deals both times. 

Kept my boat there for a couple of years before I brought it down to Shark River.

[Treebeard]

Nice day guys!  Some sweet keepers there.. Thanks for the report 

[pilot2550]

Pilot, tell Dick and his sons that Joe from Irish Ayes said hi. They'll know who I am. I bought my boat there in 94 and repowered it there last year.

They treated me right and I got great deals both times. 

Kept my boat there for a couple of years before I brought it down to Shark River.

You got it Joe