There is nothing worse than having a boat full of guys that complain. Boy I'll tell ya, as a charter Captain that just makes for the longest day. Today was one of those days. All day long all I heard was whining and complaining.
"My arms hurt from reeling in these fish!"
"I can't hear the other guys talking, the fish breaking around the boat is making too much noise"
"What kind of guide only brings 8 dozen sandeel colored sluggos and then runs out?"
"We only tripled up on that drift, what happened?"
"These fish keep taking line when I'm trying to reel them in!"
God help me the things I have to deal with!
OK BY NOW I HOPE YOU KNOW I"M BEING SARCASTIC!
Todays was the first charter for me for 2008. Mike C and Associated Builder's did a corperate charter for some of his emplyee's and customers. I had Peter and Kenny both of whom I 've chartered before and Frank a new member of the group, and of course Mike C who played mate and host.
The day had high expectations after yesterdays trip and it did not disapoint. We splashed in Bourne around 0600 and we ran out towards the West End. It took all of 5 minutes to get the curse off the boat with some sub-legal fish near the canal. After a quick dozen shorts we pressed on.
Within a few miles we found more life and bigger fish. This next group had a mix of shorts and just legal bass. It also yielded the days BIGGEST surprise. Peter got the biggest black seabass I've ever seen, and did it on a FinS shad!
After landing Bass-zilla we worked our waya around from pod to pod looking for better size fish. We'd get thre or four fish per guy per pod of fish to get a feel for each group then move on. After an hour or so we decided to run a ways to get to some larger fish.
While we were putting to the fish we got our first Safety boarding of the season too. The crew from the USCG were on patrol and we got a routine boarding. As always the crew was fast, polite and efficent. We passed with flying colors and as they were leaving they even commented how they liked the boat and how they felt sorry they interupted such a great bite. It's never an interuption when they are trying to keep me and my sports safe.
We reached our destination to find what Mike C called "over 5 acres of fish on top all at once!" It was pretty amazing to see that large an area almost brown with bass. The guys got to work on a larger class of fish. These fish were all averaging 30-32 inches with very few under legal size.
The great part was if you could get past the low 30-inch fish you could hang something in the high 30 range.
Or even into the 40-inch range. Like Peter's fish of the day, this 42-incher!
The part about the complaints was sort of true, the guys arms were sore, if we only tripled up it was odd and we did burn through around 7 dozen Fin S shad AND THAT WASN"T THE BEST LURE WE USED!
This was just an unadulterated bail job on the fish. Everyone on the boat was blown away by the sheer number of fish moving into the bay and how thick the schools were. I called in a buddy from 15 miles away just so he could see just how awesome it was!
Final tally was just too high to count. The fish were coming in so fast Mike C had to stop fishing and help me land the non-stop triple we had going. By the time we got the last fish unhooked the guys were tight again. It was an endless cycle for hours. I had to ease up out of the fish just so I could get a bathroom break and grab a drink.
The lures of choice were Fin S shad for sheer numbers, Olive Salty Needle's took the consistantly larger fish for the day than all the other lures, but the small olive Ocean Lure got the big fish honors with a 38 incher and the 42-inch fish of the day. These fish were all taken on light gear, 10-14 -pound test was used for all of them. Fight times were kept to a minimum since all the guys are avid fisherman and they knew how to put the screws to the fish and land them quickly. The water was 15-50 feet deep. The fish were feeding on the same 2-3 inch small rainbait they've been on. There were some blues in the mix, but not enought to make us change stratagy.
Overall just a spectacular day. I got some HD video at one point, but Mike C couldn't keep up with landing the fish solo and I had to stop. These guys are great to fish with and I look forward to many more trips with them. I told them I was going to bust on them about the "complaining" so they know this report is coming. I hope this is an indicator of how the rest of my trips are going to go for the season. I try to get people to book for this mid May run if they want big numbers of fish, but people don't always think of May as prime bass time. If anyone wants to get out and get on this bite let me know, I still have room for this early bite and it's not showing any signs of letting up anytime soon.
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Good Luck,
Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com
