Capt Joe had a trip planned to take his neighbors out striper fishing yesterday and invited me to go with him to play deckhand. Met up with Joe and his neighbors, Fred and Bill, at the Perkins for a great breakfast (thanks Fred) before heading to the boat.
We hit the water around 8:30 and immediately found life after coming out of the inlet. No bass here, so we moved north, finding the pods of bunker (and there were a lot of them). Snagged and dropped on a few spots with nothing to show for our efforts, other than some half eaten or mangled bunker from the dogfish.
The boys were planning on a short trip, so after no success with the stripers, Joe decided we should rig them up for sea bass, so they would at least have some action. Unfortunately, that action came in the form of spiny dogs. Almost very drop resulted in one of those spinning, line tangling, thorny sharks! The dogs were so thick they were aggressively chasing the baits to the top. Churning water under diving birds turned out not to be stripers, but
dogfish attacking bunker from below!
It was getting later in the morning when we decided to give up on the sea bass idea and go back to striper fishing. With not much time left on the trip (Fred said they needed to be back by noon) we headed back south doing the snag and drop until we found them. Then it was game on!
After boating our first fish, Joe asked the men if they wanted to stay out a little longer. The answer was an enthusiastic, "Yes!" So we kept at it, with Joe following the bunker and got them their limit!
At which time they decided they'd had enough and we left them biting to get back to the dock.
It was a terrific trip! Fred and Bill are great guys, and it was wonderful to help Fred catch only his second and third stripers of his life. Saw Captain Kris (Fish Stix) and Capt Rich (M&R) on his new boat, Michele Ann. That boat is beautiful Rich!
Joe has the dock shot on his phone. Perhaps he will post it when he comes back from fishing today. Thanks, once again, for having me aboard!
