Met up with Hotrod and Paul (Ped597) around 8 this morning for another day of fishing on the Phyllis Ann. I was a good boy and only brought three rods aboard today. It wasn't easy, but I did it.
We ran out of the inlet and headed north along IBSP, where Rod and Paul had heard some good reports of some hot action. As we rounded the north jetty we soon realized that everybody and their brothers must have heard the same good reports, because there were a ton of boats out! We continued north looking for bird activity but found none initially. However, Rod found some good marks on the fishfinder and we started jigging.
I think I had the first bite of the day which was on a Storm Shad. A bluefish severed the tail off just behind the hook. Oh well, one more for the Shad Tree!
For the rest of the day we jigged metals both shallow and deep (from 18' to 55'). At times there was bird play to put us over the fish, but most of the day consisted of moving and watching the sonar to find them.
At one point, fairly early on, we connected with an almost keeper striper. I thought we would jig up many more, but it was not to be. We did however manage to jig up
many bluefish up to about 10 lbs. Lots of fun on light tackle!
Towards the end of the day Rod decided he wanted to do some trolling. This decision resulted in some more gator size blues on a Mann's Stretch. Rod wound up with the largest one which went around 12 lbs.
No keeper stripers for us today. In fact, we only had the one short (see the "Headless Angler" pic). But we certainly all had a blast jigging and trolling up the demons! I think Paul had a good time today as well. The only problem was, every time we got close to the beach, he wanted to put his waders on and jump out of the boat!
Great trip guys! We definitely needed more cowbell, but I hope to do it again real soon!
-Bob
