5/10 Pink is the New Black!

[Riptide Charters]

Today was another serious day of navigation by radar. The NOAA forecast read like this:
MARINE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA

DENSE FOG WILL REDUCE VISIBILITIES TO NEAR ZERO AT TIMES THROUGH
THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON.

Since the boat is equiped with state of the art electronics zero vis, just means go slow, post a watch and have the fish all to yourself. So thats exactly what we did.

Bill drove down from western Mass last night and crashed at my house. Dave met us at 0730 for a gentlemens leave time. Since the bite has been best for me from 7-11 we figured we could take our time and not rush out too early.

We hit the water at 0745 and eased out of Bourne Marina on radar. Dave and Bill kept watch from each side of the console while I worked the new electronics. Just a side note; having good electronics is nice, but practice is key when the fog shuts down to 100 yards or less. I tryto tell everyone to practice your navigation by electronics only with lookouts when the weather is clear so when its poor your VERY comfortable with your gear. For us this was just a nice slow easy trip out to the west end of the canal.

When we reached the end of the canal things were a bit different than yesterday. I marked a bunch of birds on radar in several locations. We ran to the first group and began to hook up about every third or forth cast. Good action but slower than in past days. IT was nice having the birds as reference, but the fishing was a bit slower and the size was down some. Most of these fish were 20-28".


Bucktails were the rule and since Bill and Dave were new to fishing them it took a while to get the feel for it. But in short order they were hanging fish consistantly.



After a 3/4 mile drift and a good number of fish were decided to move out from the 10-15' of water we were in to some deeper water hoping for larger fish. We ran about a mile or so to a small group of birds in 25-30' of water.


The sounder lit up and the fish were all over the jigs as soon as they hit the water. While the guys hammered the fish on jigs I decided to try other lures to see what worked and what didn't. When I saw a bass chase a 6" squid clear out of the water I decided to go pink.



I tied on a large Salty's Danny plug in neon pink squid. The lure no sooner hit the water and it got crushed by a fish much larger than we had been catching. The fish looked around 40" and it came right to the surface and thrashed 30' out for a good 15 seconds. The big tail threw water up in the air as we all watched. THe big fish rolled up on the 25# flouro leader and that was the end of the show. Either his gill or his dorsal sliced the leader and witha big splash he was gone. The bad news is it was the nicest fish I've hooked this year. The WORSE news is that was my only big pink danny plug.

Since pink seemed to work I tied on a Bomber Long A in neon pink. I couldn't get two cranks on the reel before a fish wuold inhale it. Since Dave has a bad shoulder he was getting tired of working the bucktails. I switched him over to another Pink Bomber so he could just cast and reel without having to pop the jig for action. From there on Dave went on a tear. EVERY cast he hooked up! I went back to the bucktail for the ease of the single hook and the hope of a big fish down deep. While Bill and I had a very steady pick on the Spro's with the pork trailer, we just couldn't hang with Dave and the pink Bomber. He was truely unstopable.



By 1130 Dave shoulder was smoked and we had landed a ton of fish. I asked the guys how many they figured we caught. To my surprise Dave replied "I got 54!" I looked at him kind of funny and said are you sure. "Yes" he said I kept count! Bill laughed and said he was counting too, but he gave up around 0930 when he reached 30. So suffice to say the count for the boat was way up there, especially since we only fished from 0800 to 1130.



Final tally another day with a bunch of fish. The size was off a bit with the biggest fish around 30" my "big one that got away" not withstanding. The lure of choice was the Pink Bomber Long A. I wish I had more time with the big Saltys' Danny I think it would have produced as many fish as the Bomber, but due to it's size I think we'd have seen some larger fish. The white 2 and 3 oz. Spro's with white splittail pork also held their own. While I was trying out other lures I threw some surface stuff but unlike yesterday the fish would follow and occasionally eat, but they really wanted something subsurface. The water ranged from 10-30' depending on our spot. The temps were a consistant 55.5 over all the areas we covered.

Overall a great day OTW with Bill and Dave. We all had a great time and what made the day even better than just catching fish was Dave's homemade brownies and a HUGE tub of "LUCKY CASHEWS!". With a one two punch like that how could we loose?

[Hudson]

That's a great day. Thanks for the report