Been trying to schedule the PA country boys trip with my brother Jay and we finally landed on this past Sunday as the preferred date. Now these fellas were anxious… arriving at the door step just before dark 30. We loaded up Shay Shay’s suburban with spinning gear for some bluefish and conventional for fluke. The five of us “Doc” aka Jeff the Vet, “BEE MAN” Doc‘s brother Cliff, Brian “I left my patch home”
, Jay aka Shay Shay cranked down to the highlands to push off at 6:00. BEE MAN’s wife got up extra early to prepare her man some fine country breakfast sandwiches for the crew. Man if you haven’t had fresh cooked eggs right off the nest on a bagel you don’t know what your missing. BEE MAN and the wife operate a 300+ acre farm. He’s been raising honey bees for over 36 years. Cliff is a walking encyclopedia on the topic and makes the rounds in the tri-state area teaching the kids at the schools the importance of Bees on the environment and ecosystem. His brother Doc, tends to the horses, cats, dogs and exotic animals at his practice. These two gentlemen have a passion for nature and were really tuned up for this trip.
At the dock, we unpack the Burban. We looked like a band of gypsy’s with the amount of gear, coolers, sandwiches etc. You would think we were camping for a month….. Time to make bait. no sign of spearing (high tide). Tried blind throwing the small cast net in an area that holds small snaps and came up with only one
. Time to move on. Continued to motor out the shrewsbury with a watchful eye looking for signs. Birds working at the SeaStreak terminal had the fellas are on early action. We’re off to a good start. Jay had rods rigged quickly with A17’s with green and red tubes for Cliff, Doc and “I left my patch home”. Brian aka “ILMPH” was hooked up after the third toss.
BEE MAN wasn’t to far behind. Nice way to start…. striking early on the target fish the PA boys love most. I kept Z’Ob alongside the fish while boat traffic began to build and wouldn’t you know it …. A scheduled departure for the Streak.
Fair warning… the Streak motors out and the fish are dispersed as fast as they appeared. We need to move on.
Today I got a lesson in weight management. Pushed the throttle down to make way to deep water as we entered SH bay but she didn’t respond like she normally does. ?? Full tank of fuel (142 g), 4 big boys all well over 230 (oh yea plus the normal sized guy on board “ILMPH“), ice, a couple cases of soda/water etc . Holy Canoli! I need to keep this in mind for the future. No sense loading up on fuel when a half tank will do. For the day I burned 36 gals for 45 miles. Terrible performance, inefficient MPG but she sat nice and deep. Stable on the drift. Sounds backwards, but I couldn’t wait to burn some fuel off!. We make first stop in the Ambrose to get a couple of shorts and a nice sea bass to start the bottom fishing routine. Hoping that the change in tide would improve conditions we went almost fruitless on keepers. We managed one 18” for the cooler. Snagged bunker to our hearts content as we worked our way up out of the channel toward the Mud Bouy. Stopped at a couple piles picked at more short fluke and another 23”. Spro in Green worked best today for Jay and I while BEE MAN kept striking the fluke on a traditional packaged chartruese feathered hook dragging killies. Meanwhile, some one else was getting familiar with the green color too. Brian was looking worse for wear. I see him sitting on the coffin. He looked like Dracula minus the cape! This dude was spent. I offered some Dramamine which he cobbled down like a kid with his first PEZ dispenser. Poor guy keep repeating his mantra for the day “ I left my patch home”. Got to give him props though… he never complained, stuck it out, napped and got back into the batters cage late in the game.
We plied around hitting a couple of traditional spots on the way to the Snake were the SHBA fleet were placing their big bets. I suspect, based on what we witnessed (not many nets dipping) and the lack of production ,the house won today as most of us crapped out. We managed a bunch more shorts and a sea bass here and there. Smooth doggies were a nightmare at one of our stops tangling up 4 out of 5 lines. That mess shaved a good 15 minutes off the clock. Shay Shay had the lucky hand on that disaster while Doc made a contribution with slightly less damaging results a short time later. About three we motored off the Snake over to the SHR and wind started cranking a little. Thought this would be ideal conditions but fish had other designs on our efforts. Tried the beaches with similar results a few shorts. Tried back in the Ambrose with 10oz for about a nano second. Had plenty of live bunkies left and thought we’d anchor up near the Knoll to see if we could entice something on the chum or chunk. Guess that wasn’t in the cards for the day…. Windlass would not bite after setting the hook…. (will have to check into Powerwinch website to see what the fix is all about).
Overall, must say that we had a good day in less than ideal conditions. We had plenty of shorts…. Kept 3 flats, 3 cbass, 2 bluefish. The boys from PA were great company and fished hard! They went home with a bag full of filets. Good bunch of guys that are welcome anytime. Hopefully, next time we send them home with a cooler full!
Till next time!
