5/7 Gentleman Start Your Engines!

[Riptide Charters]

Cuz it's ON! It is SOOOOOO on! The weather was forcasted to be in the 70's, the winds light @ 5-10 NW. It was exactly 365 days ago that I got my fish bright keeper of 2007. Well exactly one year later, my first keeper of 2008 is in the books, along with 150-200 of his closest friends!



The game plan was to grab Casey, Mike, Capt Joe and Me at 0730 and head SW in Buzzards Bay until we found surface feeding fish. The turn back point was set at Newport,RI. Well we never did make it to Newport. Heck we never got out of the canal before we found fish. I got the boat on plane and we spotted a few birds picking bait over a couple fish. We took a few shots and bailed looking for better action.



Another mile or so and we found what we were looking for. A big blob on the radar screen and that means birds! We eased up on the fish and birds and soon everyone on the boat was on the board for 2008. The guys worked the fish and I worked the video camera. I got some great shots of the birds wheeling and diving and the fish boiling under them. We worked these fish with one other boat for about 45 minutes. Then like I always do, we opted to press on and see what else the bay had to offer.



I began running along at about 30 knots looking for more birds on the radar. I have a new Raymarine screen so I had to play with some of the settings to get things right. As I pumped up the gain I started marking what looked like birds at 4.7 miles! I've NEVER marked birds at that distance before so I was a bit hesitant to run to the mark. But since we were doing recon I headed to the blob nearly 5 miles away. As I got closer I became more sure that it was in fact birds. At about a miles we saw them and the flock was almost a half mile accross! JACKPOT!



We slid into the chaos and began hooking up to bigger fish than the first school. After a few fish just shy of legal, I got what would be the big fish of the day @ 32.5".





After that fish I went back to video duties and the guys continued to bail doubles and triples while I filmed the action. We also managed a half dozen BLUEFISH from this group including one about 8# that Casey landed on a Salty Needle.



Around 1000 the tide died and so did the fishing. We kicked back and had a snack and something to drink while we waited out the turn of the tide. Around 1130 the water began to move and the birds and fish got back into the game. We pushed a little farther down the bay and found a line of fish that extended as far as we could see. It was a few hundred yards accross, but it seemed to be never ending. That was the good news. The bad news was the fish were on micro sandeels and they were picky. We got more than our share, but I think you'll aggree when you see the video it should have been a quad hookup on every cast with the number of fish we had rolling and boiling around the boat.



We fished this never ending school until around 1400 and then we decided it was time to leave them biting and call it a day. Final tally an easy 50 fish per guy and maybe 25-30 for me since I spent allot of time with a camera rather than a rod. The lures of choice were Ocean Lures baitfish in sandeel color, Salty Needles in Yellow, Storm shad (until the blues showed up) and Bomber Long A's. The water ranged from 30-60' deep. I don't have a temp guage on the Contender yet so I don't have an accurate water temp. It was bright and sunny and we were all loving it!





Overall just a fantastic way to start striper season. I had a feeling based on my reports and the weather forcast that today would be a good day. I did expect to run farther than we did. Total distance covered for the day was around 45-50 miles total. Much less than the run to Newport and back would have been. Thansk to Mike and Casey for joining us today. They will both be fishing with me more this season now that Casey's boat is gone. As always fishing with Capt Joe is time well spent.



(note) I took around 3 hours of video today and it's going to take some time to sort through. I'll have some HD video up and ready hopefully by tonight or early tomorrow depending on how long it takes to proccess all the footage.

[dunn6253]

Great report rippy, glad to hear that you slammed them today. Can't wait for the video. Nothing like the first keeper of the year.

[Shortfin]

Way to get on em Terry

Thanks for being the scout

[Magnanimous]

thank you for the report......glad to hear that they are around...

[hotshot1]

nice report sounds like you may have most of the bass and NJ is left with the Blues

[chumtini]

Great report Rip. Mucho gracias. Game on, gentlemen.

[fin-chaser]

Video...... where's the video ??

[Riptide Charters]

Video...... where's the video ??

I worked on it most of the evening yesterday. It's uploaded and awaiting processing by the hosting site. I think I may have bitten off more than I (or my Pentium4 based PC can chew with this endevor)

It was over 7.5 GIG's of video. I had to use about 5-6 minutes of uncut stuff because the editing was SOOOOOO difficult on the PC. Way too much data in such a small space.

FWIW, the raw footage looked insane on my 46" Bravia

[Riptide Charters]

RIPTIDE'S HD VIDEOS

My original HD video hosting Site is having "difficulties" so I had to make a change. I think it will be a change for the better, since so far the new site is MUCH quicker and easier to deal with.

I've learned a few things already about shooting video so bare with me.

First, I use the zoom WAY too much and things get shaky.

Second, I pan to fast as I'm scanning the water.

Third, I need a faster PC! Editing this HD footage is a HUGE strain on my Pentium4 machine. I had almost 8 GIG's to sort through. So the footage thats up is just raw footage with no editing. I kept them short and sweet, furture videos will hopefully have a little more polished look. This is more for me to see how the quality of the hosting will work out and to act as a test run for when the "Real" fish show up. THINK TUNA!

I hope you enjoy the clips.

[dunn6253]

Great job on the video's, can't wait to see them when the tuna are breaking.