Left Keyport late morning at 10:30am, we had light S.West wind and clear sky. The water temp on my machine said 153 deg
. Time to send that baby back for another repair. Later it said Minus 3 deg
. I had Scott G and Jersey Joe aboard with clams and plenty of eels. Stopped by 11A on our way to Romer shoal and the hook and trolled a bit with no results. Just west of Romer we saw birds working hard so I we dropped in a yellow shad umbrella rig and a tube umbrella rig. The sonar showed some great marks and Bam!! both rods went down with double Stripers on each
. Scott and Joe Landed them and set them back up. Next pass we had both rods go again. The Stripers were schoolies and 2 out of 6 were keepers. We set up and trolled again but the frenzy was over and we lost track of the school. Made a move outside the hook and found some big swells building up and the west wind started blowing strong. We trolled near the 12 and 14 can in the reach with no luck on the way back to Keyport. So we ended up with 2 keepers and the rest of the day was slow. If we never spotted those birds the day would have been tough. The vhf radio chatter was good on the NY side. I may hit that tomorrow afternoon. Thanks Capt.Carl and Capt.Bob for the networking.. Good Luck
. Eddie
I forgot to mention,, 1 Striper had an empty stomach and the other "the fatter one" had 3 small crabs and a 12" ling in its stomach.