It seems like almost every season after about 6-8 trips on the water putting a serious beating on the fish, I get my head handed to me by the fish gods and I take a skunking. I went back through my records and found skunks on the following dates:
5/23/04
5/24/04
5/24/05
5/20/06
5/18/08
Prior to and after these trips things were going gangbusters. But there always seems to be a gap for me with these migrating fish, and I fall into it every year. It seems to coincide with the first "wave" of fish moving into CC Bay. When I get skuked on the Buzzards Bay Side, inevitably the guys in CC Bay crush big fish on macs. The timing is almost perfect.

5/18/08 was no exception. After bailing fish to 30# for the last two weeks I finally hit "The Gap" as it will now be known in my reports. Ruge, Dave, Drew and I headed out of Bourne at 0530. We hit a local bay and found a dozen live pogies for the well. Not a ton, but I was pretty sure that would at least put us on the board for the day.

We then covered over 100 miles of water. I hit every place we had been fishing, several that should be coming around any day now and a few that we just took a shot at because things were so slow. The only fish we saw were a few scattered small pods right at the west end of the canal. Of course in looking for bigger and better things I blew right by then in the morning and they were gone when we came back in later in the day.

The wind came up mid day and made for a sporty ride even in the big boat. The West End of the canal with a West running tide and a stiff SW wind had the big boat barking the props and throwing water 100' to each side as we busted through the stacked up 5-6's.

Final tally was 2 pogies getting chased by something too small to eat them and one pogie getting bit in half by a mid size blue (based on the bite mark). If pogies count against the skunk then we are safe, but I'm thinking they don't. We fished Buzzards Bay, Vineyard Sound, Nantucket Sound, several Holes and some fringe water that is just plain ocean. All for nothing. We had a huge fuel burn and a bumpy ride and thats about all.

Overall, what can I say, we don't do the walk of shame often but we do it once in a while like everyone else. I may just take the 18th-the 25th off next year and try to dodge the skunk. But I think it's like death and taxes, you have to pay eventually and it's coming like it or not.
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Good Luck,

Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com