We have run a few of those all night drum trips the over the last week or so and they have provided some decent to excellent drum fishing on every trip so far. We consider our standards pretty high when it comes to catching Black Drum so a decent trip might be considered very good to others but just decent by our standards. We have found the drum fishing to be off somewhat off from last year but we did get a late start this spring compared to past years with the new diesel engines that were installed in the Hooked Up 11 courtesy of Caterpillar so we have only run 6 trips to date compared to about 20 other years buy this time in late May. It has been drop dead beautiful out on the bay at night on all our all night trips until today and the boat traffic was almost nonexistent especially after 11:00 pm when we slammed the drum on a couple of nights trips this past weekend. We love drum fishing when we can anchor pretty much where ever we want without getting on top of another boat or be in a fleet like we experienced when we ran a few afternoon trips earlier last week. It is the way drum fishing should be in the spring but these days the popularity makes it tough at times getting on the lines ( Loran lines that run along the edges with steep drop offs or high spots) where we often find the best bite to be. I did know some spots where the boats slammed the drum last week in the afternoon but we felt we could not anchor safely with so many boats jammed together so we opted to fish in the other locations that were a little less productive than we would have liked but we still did just fine but not did not put up the large numbers a few other charter boats did but that is okay since we do not allow killing large number of drums on our boat and ended up releasing drum on almost every trip this past week. We have very powerful all custom tackle on board so we can get the drum to the boat quickly and released since a large percentage we catch are sent back alive and healthy to live and spawn to help provide plenty of drum for future generations. I would honestly say all our charters took home enough meet to satisfy their table requirements but would have like a few more bites on the afternoon trips but we made up for this on our all night trips where the bite was nothing short of great on most of the trips recently. On every trip we had to deal with far too many sharks and skates but were able to move around enough to get away from them and find the drum for various different time periods throughout the night. Drum fishing is crazy as they bite at different times during the tide with hardly any sharks and skates and other times it is all junk fish at the same location. I expect to see the doggies leaving the bay soon as the water warms up some and heading north and out back into the open ocean when their spring spawn is over... Mother Nature is still the king and moves in mysterious ways and you see it all in the middle of the night out on the bay when drum fishing or at times some might call it shark or skate fishing. Often it depends on location, water depth and stage of the tide and sometimes you just have to fight through the junk fish and wait for the drum to start biting but being able to move freely without worrying about boat traffic does help and that is a big reason I like the all night drum trips with the much lighter boat traffic. Either way we caught drum on all the trips and our Sunday night trips really produced some great action from about 11:30 pm until about 3:00 am on the hard running outgoing tide. Funny thing happened Sunday night as the location where we had slammed them all by ourselves on last Thursday in the middle of the night really turned on last again with some very large drum up over 90 lbs lbs but we quit fishing that location because of the sharks and moved to the west a few miles on our recent night trips to get away from the sharks. On Saturday nights trip we had pulled the anchor and was headed out to the East to try the deeper water but stopped short as we marked them good inside but now kind of wish we had made the move since the really big boomers seemed to show up on Sunday night at the exact spot where we had them last Thursday night but we never got out there since we had such a good bite going but on smaller size drum. One of the reasons we opted not to go back out to the spot is we talked to one of our old friends from Delaware that was fishing in the general location Saturday night and for the good part of the night all he they had was one drum and a million sharks but this all changed on Sunday night only 24 hours later. Where we fished last night it was red hot for part of the night but with no drum over about 50-60 lbs and were throwing them back by around 1:30 pm. I guess I am going to have to try the other spot on our next trip to see if those really big ones are still out there where we fished last Thursday night. My friend from Delaware finally moved in by us and was able to pick up a few drum towards the end of this trip which helped somewhat make his night. One of the things I really like when fishing for drum in the middle of the night is all the BS crap you hear on the radio during the day is almost nonexistent at night and we all help each other and this includes the well known head boats that are out every night. It is much more like when we offshore fish as there are no big secret locations and most everyone we know try’s to help out as much as they can. Same thing down in Morehead City, NC as the guys down there seem to share with each other where the hot bite is and it certainly helps out at times and in my opinion it is to everyone’s benefit when boats work together to help provide a nice catch for their customers. There is no secret locations among those of us that fish late into the night and I find this something I personally really like and depend on any assistance I can get or offer other others as one boat can cover all the spots on the bay and the fish do move around all the time. I know some of our customers were very impressed when I called in some other boats in the middle of the night to get in on the good bite we had going and thought it was a very classy act and commented on it especially since we had all we wanted and were in the catch and release mode anyways. Overall the drum bite has been very consistent if not fantastic for us and many others and seems to be getting better every trip and now the fish are spread out more in various locations which is a good thing in my mind to thin out the fleet some. We plan tofish much later this year well into at least mid-June as long as the drum are still around like they were last year and have plenty of good dates available to fish with us either on an all a night trip or late afternoon into the evening which ever works best for your group plus we will be doing some make-up charters for singles and small groups. With bite now being so good I think almost all trips will produce quite well and know one will be disappointed. Our next make-up trips are for this coming Friday and again on Sunday. We ended cancelling last night regular all night charter trip and today’s afternoon trip but plan to be back out Wednesdays early am if the weather allows.

Visti our Web site to see pictures all from drum trips the last few days