Early start with Christine and Mr.BigFish Eddie on board. Plan was to jig up some stripes and or snagndrop but wanted to get Christine into her first keeper Striper...
Stopped at 11A where there were already a few boats and promising marks on the sounder but a few trips up n down the drop convinced us to stick to the plan and head off. Rounding the Hook we found calm seas and cloudy cool. Ran east out to the 70ft line looking for marks but found none. Turned right and said might as well burn off this Stabil fuel from last year. Headed south to find a very summertime-looking large fleet at SR. Boats were jigging and trollers were willy-nilly everywhichway it was wacky. Radio chatter said the fish were there, but we were not marking much and the jigging only produced a couple snags for me and not much else for Chris or Eddie. So HI HO HI HO It's on the troll we go...
Get the gear out in 60-70ft and zzzzzzzzzz chomper blues up to about 12-15lb. Couple rounds of that and we're back up by the Highlands Bridge in 40ft. Let's try east-west instead of north-south so east we go. ZZZZZZZZZZ Christine's turn this one's really taking line. Eddie clears the other line and by this time Christine's line is straight upndown and she's not making any headway. Snagged? Mr. Snag asks, but no, it's still on. Finally we see what looks to me to be a LARGE dorsal fin- I thought it was a huge doggie- but the voice of reason yells out BIG STRIPER. At least I had the net still in hand as Christine guided it in. Taped out at 41" and 22lb, not too shabby for her first keeper. Snapped some pix and back she went for good karma's sake.
Sun came out, back on the troll, saw some marks, but no knockdowns, we decide to jig again. Eddie's pole bends over and in comes Mr. Cod from 45ft down. We actually weren't quite sure what it was so back that puppy went. Now we know....
Lil more trolling, approaching the Hook again, ZZZZZ my turn, a notsofat 39"er that tipped out at 18lb.Lil more jigging, nada, headed in about 3. Not lights out, but lots of fun on what turned out to be a beeyoteeful day. Much bigger stripers than last time too.
