It's been a long and productive day so far and it's not even 10 a.m. After lasts nights solid outing on foot Ruge and I decided that the mornings game plan should revolve around making the same tide at the same place. He crashed at my house and at 0400 we were rolling to the local estuary. We arrived and we were the only ones there and the tide had just turned and was moving out rapidly.
We slid on the cold wet waders from last night and eased into the water. We both began tossing the Ocean Lures SP's that had done so well last night. For the first 20 minutes or so neither of us had so much as a follow. Then like a light switch was flipped the fish began crashing the lures on every cast. The issue was we were not hooking up. The fish were tail slapping the lures and not coming back for them no matter what we tried. So after a dozen misses I swapped out the topwater lure for a 9-inch Rubber Shad. That was the ticket. The fish hit the rubber shad just as often as the topwater lure, but they were inhaling the rubber and solid hookups came every cast. After 5 or 6 fish Ruge got the hint and made the switch. For the next hour we bailed fish almost every cast. Most were in the 30-35-inch range with a few high 20-inchers mixed in.
Then once the hour was up again the switch was thrown and it was dead. No tapering off, just bailfest to zero in a matter of a few casts. We fished another half hour and realized the slug of fish had pushed through and it was over for now. So we packed it in and headed home.
En route to the house we drove into the MMA campus. A quick scan of the horizon showed loads of birds crashing bait. Ruge was on a TIGHT timeline with work and he had 90 minutes before he had to be there. So we rushed home, hooked up the Contender, hussled back to Bourne Marina and splashed the boat without a wasted step. In less than 20 minutes from the time we saw the birds we were under them as qwere TONS of fish.
We tossed Salty Needles and Yo-Zuri's at the hords of bass as they rolled and gulped on small sandeels. Even a few bluefish joined the party. Most of these fish were in the 18-24-inch range.
But a few of them pushed the legal mark and just beyond.
We worked the fish for as long as we could and then I ran Ruge back to the marina and slid the boat back on the trailer. The only downside of the morning was the fuel stop on the way home….$3.77 a gallon. This was my penance for the last few successful bass trips we had.
Final tally around 30+ fish from the shore most were legal and the bigget was right around 35 inches and fat. The lure of choice was a 9" Rubber shad. The tide was dropping and the water was around 3-10 feet deep. The count for the hour of fishing on the boat was around 50 fish between us. It was your typical schoolie bail-fest. A dozen flocks of birds and fish, all hitting whatever you threw as soon as it hit the water. We threw Salty Needles and Yo Zuri swimmers, but in this case we could have tossed out an old shoe and they'd have eaten it. The water was 20-40 feet deep. The tide was dropping and running to the west.
Overall a great start to the day. I was off last night so I got a few hours sleep and that should have me ready to fish the rest of the day. Part 3 of the days fishing will be another boat trip with Mr. Pink after lunch. There may even be a part 4 if I can muster up another wading trip as the sun goes down. It's time to make up for the long cold winter!
Good Luck,
Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com
