Had Joe Collins and the boys from Scott Honda in PA aboard for a fluke trip today. With Joe were Noel, Greg, and "TP/Immodium" Dave. To truly get the picture of the whole day, read the whole report.
Nice, crisp NNW wind early on made for some good drifting conditions. Wound up making the decision early to run to pretty much the same area we finished up on Wednesday and it certainly paid off. My plan was to stick with fishing this area 3-5 miles to the east then work our way north. It turns out we didn't even have to work our way away from that area where we started.
From the first drift till the last drift we had a steady, solid pick of fluke from the 7AM till we quit at 3PM. For the most part we had 1-2 fish on at all times. Lots of shorts, but we had a keeper sprinkled in here and there, as well as a few nice seabass and a few nice ling. Drift was fast, but with the drift sock in we slowed the drift to around 1.2 kts. and with 8-10 oz. of lead the guys were into fish.
Throughout the day we boated a few nice seabass, a few nice ling, and ~75 fluke. At day's end we wound up with 16 in the box, biggest was an even 4# taken by Joe. All fish were taken dragging bait, fresh spearing or frozen sandeels with squid strips on green mai tai fluke rigs.
We also had some other near "by-catch" -- Greg, and Noel both hooked threshers on their fluke rigs mid morning on 2 successive drifts. The first time, Greg's reel started screaming, we hooked the beast, and then the braid dug into the saltiga which after a minute snapped after the reel nearly melted and the the spool was half dumped. Noel was a bit more lucky - same deal, the fish dumped most of the spool and then came out of the water about 30 yards off our port side, looked to be 6' long or so but I sure as hell couldn't make an honest guesstimate. Wild stuff! Didn't even come close to landing one, but it was cool to hook a couple of these beasts!!
Great day, I will post the pics when I get home on Sunday night - these guys are a top notch crew and are easily some of the funniest dudes out there
Back at it tomorrow.
