Another day another run into Buzzards Bay. I worked last night so I met Pink, Drew and Ray at Bourne Marina around 0730. It was a late start but this time of year thats not such a big deal. We ran out and blew past some of the smaller pods of fish and birds and headed to the past days hotspots.

We arrived to find a few more boats on site than in the past few days. There were a good number of birds and plenty of fish, but not in the numbers we had for the last few days. The wind had changed back to a north blow and the extra boats probably dind't help either. We worked around the scattered schools and picked up some fish, with most being just sub legal and a few in the low 30-inch range. More blues are moving in by the day and they are already getting to be a PIA! While we were on these fish Ray was nice enough to let me take a cast with his 9wt and a hand tied fly. I must have been one hell of a fly because I made 1 cast and got 1 keeper, especially since Riptide doesn't flyfish

After a while things were not getting any better so rather than pound a slow steady pick we opted to move and to get away from the crowds. I ran to a spot I don't fish much, but that I keep in my mental notebook for just such an occassion. Since this was a buddy trip and nota charter, I also decided to play around with the new Navionics software to get a better handle on some of the features. Both plans worked out well.

I got to where I was hoping to try and we saw some birds working a long narrow area. I fumbled around with the Navionics 3D stuff and was able to find a long narrow gully in the bottom that was not on the regular navigational chart, but was 20 feet deeper than the water around it! We set up on the birds and adjusted the drift to stay over the narrow gully. Drew and Ray tossed topwater and flies and landed some nice legal fish.

Bob and I worked jigs on the bottom and were able to drop them into the gully to produce some larger fish. Bob had the hot hand getting that jig down into the deeper water and is skill paid off with the best fish of the day.

I'm still learning the new software, but it was a major factor in us getting these particular fish. I've been able to use my sounder and my radar to help get us on and keep us on fish. Now I just need to learn to take full advantage of this 3D plotter to do the same. While we were playing with the plotter we found several "new" humps an ridges that we intend to fish a little later in the season when the fish set up on structure more.

After a while we were done hammering the mid size fish and we decided to trygoing for Mr Big by chucking Big Wood into the rocks. We hit several good spots but no luck. Then the weather began to turn so we called it a day and ran for the barn.

Final tally around two dozen fish per person. Not a bad day but not what it has been. The fish were a bit more scattered and we not feeding as aggressivly as they have been. Lures of choice, well we tossed allot of stuff. Nothing really shined today. All the usual stuff got eaten and so did the flies. I think the white Spro w/ pork probably did the best, but again nothing really was the go to bait today. The water ranged from 20-50 feet in the first spot. It was 50 feet dropping to 70 feet in the gully we were fishing. Then we plugged the rocks in shallow (less than 15 foot).

Overall a solid half day outing. It's always fun to fish with my friends and we spend as much time scrweing around and joking as we do fishing. I was tired today so now I'm going to spend the rest of this dreary day taking a nice long nap!

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Good Luck,
Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com