Remember when you mother sent you off to school and said bundle up its cold out there? Well we were bundled but forgot the ice skates. Met Donnie and big Don at Keyport to launch at the lucky time 7:30. Ice was on the docks, finger docks, cockpit, and all around the boat. We pushed off making slow way sounding like a cutter breaking ice flows in Alaska. The de-icer Donnie used was marginially effective. Enough to give him a small window as we motored out of the marina. Water was flat with a light SSW wind.
Donnie had a suspicion that the fish were still in the vacinity around Round shoal so we headed in the general direction and began the blind casts with Paddle Shads. We worked it for a good 30 minutes or so and not even a touch. Out of the clear blue he says bring em in, there's birds. I gotta tell you this dudes got supernatural vision that Clark Kent would envy! Me or Big Don couldn't see squat.
He says 12:00 O'clock right over the bow. About a half NM, I begin to see what I think are the pepper flakes he likes to refer to them as. We continue to motor south and sure as fleas on a dog there they are!
Plastic is flyin! Gulls are screaching as fish fins are slappin the water coralling bunker. No takers on the shads! What's up with that? Donnie stays put on the shad as does big Don. I switched over to crippled herring and got my first bump, a drop and then a pick up again. 18" at the boat is released. Donnie is on with a fish another shortie. The birds and fish move off and we're off to the races chasin em down.
We continued to experiment with artificial choices, green shad and whites. Given the body of fish, it just didn't seem right that they were not all over the shads. Out comes the metal tray. I switch up to a 4 oz deadly dick, Big Don shifts over to a cast master and hook up ratio improves nicely. Big Don lands his biggest fish for the day. She was 34" but had a gut on her like she was having a Thanksgiving feast early. Donnie got a nice fish for the box. I hauled in a 36" that was 2 oz shy of Big Don's slob. For the day, we boxed out limit and had 10 fish in total. The shorts were mostly 18-22" with one just missing legal mark at 27.5"
Big Don made quick surgery of the 6 fish back at the dock. Doing a gut check, we found everything you can imagine inside adult bunker, peanut, blackfish, manta shrimp, sandeels etc. with the exception of a juice box
Cleaned up and back in the house by 2:00. Again, we left the fish biting. Thanks Donnie and Big D for a great trip. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
Till next time
