Today was the last of a three day marathon for the VIP's from Navionics. We had done both sides of the Cape and given the guys what I consider a fairly good pick of fish. The numbers were not awesome, but both days had fish over 40" and everyone got their share. Today was a short day since the guys had to be in Logan around 1600. So the plan was to get them back to the dock by noon. I was hoping to go out strong. I had no idea just how outragous this short day would be.
We splashed early at 0400 in Sandwich and headed out in the dark. My plan was to get on the live pogies again and try to maximize the bite. Since it was a shorter day if we could get bait fast and get on the fish fast we could extend the 1.5 hour bite we had two days ago and make this a solid couple hours of catching.
We got on site and there was no bait on top. We cruised around a bit but conditions were tough for spotting bait and the wind was kicking up. The tide was almost bottomed out and I was dragging the big Contender's belly on the bottom. This was NOT how I wanted this day to start. After a little searching we found bait....and a bunch of big fish crushing it! We made bait as fast as we could. Four guys snagging and in no time flat we had both livewells full and a 42" fish in the boat that just could not let us make bait in peace.
We figured if the fish were hooking up while we were making the bait when we tried to catch them it would be easy. WRONG! The fish and bait went down just as the tide died. We worked the area hard without anything to show for it. So I decided that maybe too much bait was not a good thing and we should get a short distance away from it and get on our numbers from two days ago. They were less than a mile away and without the huge mass of pogies, our baits would be a bit more obvious.
As I cruised to the numbers I spotted an acre of pogies being tossed 5 FEET into the air by big bass. Then another acre, and another and another. There were HUGE schools of pogies EVERYWHERE and they were being distroyed by big bass. I eased into one of the school and the fish didn't flinch. They were so busy eating the boat didn't bother them at all.
Everyone cast out and instantly SMASH!!!! NO MORE POGIE!!! FISH ON!!!!!!
Huge holes opened up in the water and our pogies fell into them. The guys were quadrupled up on 20-30# fish. This went on for several hours!!! It was such chaos, Jeff and I had to take turns rigging and landing fish. It was so busy we kept saying we were going to take more pictures, but nobody wanted to stop fishing long enough to snap a picture of the fish.
We burned through 5 dozen live pogies and when we talked about going for more bait the guys said "Hey Capt, we are tired of landing all these fish on live bait.....can we chuck POPPERS at them too?" CAN I GET A HELL YEAH!!!!!!! With that Jeff and I riiged up the heavy spinning rods with 2 Salty's Danny's and 2 Ocean Lure "SP"s. It was a toss up which lure the bass hated more. They knocked each lure several feet into the air as soon as it hit the water. Itwas nearly impossible to toss either type of plug into the masses of fish and get it back without a fish attached.
We crushed the fish for another hour on plugs before finally it was time to leave the fish biting and get the guys to the airport on time. As hard as it was to do we had no choice.
Final tally for the day was over 50 fish from 15-30+ pounds. The lures/bait of choice, live pogies, Salty's Dannys in Olive and Yellow, Ocean Lures "SP"s in Yellow. The fishing was nothing short of world class. It was the best surface feed on pogies that I've ever witnessed. Watching big fish on big bait on the surface is just AWSOME! What made it nicer was there were no other boats working these fish. Also for the majority of the bite the wind died off and left us with FAC conditions to watch the show. The conditions were overcast and drizzly just the way we like it. The only down side was Ruge couldn't make it today so I left the HD camera home. It was not a big deal because with the rain on and off I'd have been hesitant to break out the camera anyway. But the footage would have been insane. We all have it burned into our minds eye.
Overall the best day of fishing I've had this season and in fact the best I've had in recent memory. While there were no monsters in the mix the average size was over 20# and the number of fish was wild. Add int the conditions, no other boats, a very capable crew to take advantage of the situation and most importantly the fish being so incredibly aggressive and you have the makings of a day of a lifetime!
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Great way to show the bosses a good time. Always save the best for the last. Glad to hear the pogies are here in good numbers. Can't wait to liveline some myself and hopefully hook into a monster striper. Great report rippy, keep them coming.
Impressive - & I thought the day was going to be a wash-out. Great fish, and sounds like you put the work in to get the fish (as usual) from Minemnsha to points north over the 3 days. I hope those pogies find their way into BB some how.
I can relate , We were out Tuesday and had a similar experience . Best day of live lining I've had in years . As soon as you lobbed a Pogie out Wham No Huge fish mostly in the mid 30" range
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