Weather gods worked one more window this past Sunday, as the fishing season for Z’Obession is winding down. Had my brother Jay (Shay Shay), Skunk, Kooz and Capt Don Jr, (sneaked in under the wire) join in for a day of catching on the rubble field. Loaded up with blues claws, greenies, worms, shrimp and a bushel we motored out of the Highlands around 6:40. Extra load with the fuel made for a soft ride through a tight chop with a little spray now and again. Had the buddy system going with Reel Tight
, we were looking to connect with a few Bass first thing before locking the down the hook.
In between channels, a reasonable sized fleet was set up working the area. It must have been the pre-dawn patrol, and we thought we had a jump on things. Started off, first drop, Kooz drops a hammered gold jig (his go to lure), and has an instant hook up. Net is out. Fish is brought to the yard stick and comes up shy by an inch.
I get the next bump and a miss. Shay Shay is working the paddle shad and he gets a sniff but no taker. Kooz is jacked up on the very next drop, another short. My turn. AVA 67 with green tail. TIKI gets a little work out, another short. Reel Tight cruises by on the troll. Let him know we’re jiggin the shorts. Kooz gets another smack while Skunk is flipping the same metal as Kooz but he has an ESCA as a teaser but not getting any action. Kooz is back on it with his third bass and goes 3 for 5. Capt Don is hanging back watching as things unfold, content to mate. This is all plays out within 20-30 minutes. Reel Tight gives me a shout that he’s got the right marks. Holy Smokes! From a distance we see his crew with rods cranked over. We do the slow motor to the vicinity and the screen showed incredible life! He too has shorts. Then someone turned off the light switch. NADA. Marks or no marks. NADA. There was no way we could get them to bite. It went from the pre-dawn patrol to the Rat-Patrol…… Stuck around for a little while longer and then headed south to find some land mines. It’s Toggie time!
Got to the grounds and witnessed the flotilla, fortunately only one other boat in the vicinity of ultimate destination. Happened to be spot on the mark, and I do mean right on it. Searched around like a dog looking to mark some new territory. Found on the plotter what looked to closely resemble the structure originally planned. Don Jr on the Gypsy as we paid out enough scope to show virgin rode. We couldn’t get the anchor to bite on the sandy adjacent area. Third time was a charm. As she settled in we were within 5 ft of the buoy marker. Bait is pulled out with mad abandon. Are we in the right drop zone? Gratification comes in minutes of the first bait hitting bottom. Sticky enough, a couple temporary hang ups, scratchy for sure, and the fish confirmed it. Fish started come over at a steady pace. Short, short, short, keep, keep, short, short. It was kind of rhythmatic for the day.
Beautiful day as it turns out. Winds lied down relative to the early morning.
Shay Shay had a different rhythm to deal with. He was down below in the anchor locker ensuring a clean release and came up worse for the wear. Poor dude was a shade of pale green
no one likes to be unless you’re going to a Halloween party as Frankenstein. As a matter of fact, that’s a pretty good nickname for the lad. He’s about 6’3” weighing in around 270. Wish I had few lug nuts for him.. All kidding aside, he had to park his hump for a while and get it together. Give him credit. After a good 45 minute nap he sprung back into action like jack in the box after the last crank. He was all over the St Croix putting the pins to a couple nice quality blackies.
Meanwhile, Skunk is having some difficulty catching till he changes out his rig to include his specialty. The “RED BEAD”. I’m not sure who I’m fishing with these days but everyone seems to have some creative knack that gets those donkeys to bite. This is just a traditional tog leader with a red bead inserted on the line so that the bead sits right at the head of the hook. Be damn if it didn’t get him started and he began dropping fish in the penalty box. I had my share of misses and also made some contributions to the livewell. Don Jr. is poking them pretty good. He’s mister consistent. Put the pinch on one right after the Tastee sub that had us all wishing we were at the sticks instead of stuffing our pie holes. He is a real good all around fishermen. On Kooz…. what can you say here, this guy is part fish. Period. He talks to them. He finesses them, lectures them and plays a game with them. So the bite is starting to peter out a bit. We make a small adjustment on the line by 10 ft. Kooz calls out that we haven’t caught any specialty fish today. Next bite I get (I figured a Bergall screwing around with my bait), I reel up and it’s a star fish. Kooz is damn near doing cartwheels. “I told you” “Got to get specialty fish” . He says “you know, last time we had ling, cod, blow fish.” “Got to get specialty fish” The very next fish is brother Jay’s ling. A couple more Tog and Kooz’s pole is cranked over. “What the heck do you have on” I’m asking. He looks at me with a S-eatin grin and say “Specialty Fish”. We’re all hoping this is a hog of a black. Go to grab the net. No net required. Never seen an eel like this before! We wrestled with that pup over the side of the boat. “What are going to do with it?” He says, “I got a guy in the neighborhood that has been after me for lamprey blood. I can’t get him lamprey blood so the eel is his. He’ll eat anything”….
It turned out to be another eventful day so here’s the tally.
4 Stripers – no keeps for the rat patrol
18 tog – again 2-5lb, about 40 shorts
1 ling ding
1 43” eel (I’d like to see the bass that thinks about tackling that sucker)
It was an outstanding day with a great bunch of fishermen. Capt D, a special thanks for your assistance all around.
