7/12 Sharkin' w/ a bonus!

[Riptide Charters]

After the long canyon trip Saturday was slated as maintenance day. So Miike C and Jr came by and we did all the scheduled maintenace on the big Verado's early. By lunch we were done and talking about fishing. My buddy Luke (a non-fisherman) even showed interest in going. We discussed tuna in the bay but sharking south of the islands won out. With that we made a lazy lunchtime run to Falmouth. We loaded up on bait and sharkin' stuff and headed out in search of some bluefish.

We ran through the hundreds of boats in and around the Sound. No sign of a slowing economy out there for sure. Seemed like EVERYONE was OTW Saturday. We found some scattered terns and picked up a few rat blue doing the run and gun thing, but they were spooked with all the boat traffic so it was like playing Whack-a-mole trying to get on top of them. We tried another option, which we thought would work but it was better in theory than in practice. We had riggers on the boat so we put out a full spread of Yo Zuri's and trolled around near Dogfish bar. Again in theory it was a good idea for making bait fast, in practice I think we just looked silly and it only got us one more bluefish.

We pushed on to our last bait spot since it was starting to get late. We found a few more terns and allot less boats. First cast I'm tight to a nice baitsized blue, then it all went down hill. Cast after cast we began hammering 10-20# stripers! Awesome fishing, **** poor bait making. I even went to a popper to tease up the bluefish instead of the bass. I was rewarded with 20# bass smashing my Yo Zuri Hydro popper on every cast and had 20 more follow in the hooked fish. Mike C went to throwing tin and we rewarded with a platter sized scup???? That was followed to the boat by Basszilla! An EASY 40+ pounder that was trying to eat the 2# scup.

Finally with about 9 blues in the well and the clock nearing 1600 I set a course for a near shore temp break and a little structure. I made some serious time getting there so we would have time to acctually fish for the target species. In 25 minutes we were going lines in. The chum was out the baits were set and the new kite was flying in all its glory. That might seem like a small thing, but me and kites don't get along well. Many is the day I've spent cursing a kite and stoping around like an angry child trying to get them to fly correctly. This new Frenzy kite is no exception. I wanted an SFE (the only kite that seems to like me) but Mike C was only able to get Frenzy Kites at the time. What followed was Sage Flyguy and myself in a looming thunder storm in my front yard playing Ben Franklin with a kite that wouldn't stay up on 30 kts of wind. Today the Frenzy played nice and with a few adjustments I was flying high Charlie Brown!

It took all of 15 minutes for the first clicker to sing and Luke our newbie was strapped into his first shark. Its always fun to see a non-fisherman that works out at the gym get dragged around the boat by "just a fish". In good time Luke had the 150-175#er to the boat and we released it. For the next 3 hours it was fish after fish with doubles. We C&R'd a total of twelve bluesharks from 150-250# by time it was over. Luke was a good sport and helped with the chumming. After all the excitement of being dragged around by Jaws the 3' swell got to him and BLAAAAAHHHHHH he was confined to the beanbag chair on the bow. Not one to ruin a good time he quietly suffered up front as we hooted and hollered at the back of the boat. Only interupting our party 2 more times with that BLAAAAAAHHHHHHHH we all know too well.

When it was all over and Luke was completely empty we packed it in and headed for home and stable ground. For his pain Luke landed his first shark and clearly his biggest fish ever. He was thrilled at the accomplishment and loved the whole event, except for the swells and the dry heaves. He wants to go fishing again soon.....just not drifting for sharks. We ended up with a final tally of 12 for 12 on nice mid sized blues. The bait of choice was fresh bluefish and bluefish chum. In my limited sharking expeirence I have found that the bluefish chum hands down out fishes the plain Jane bunker/herring chum most places sell. That stuff with a nice oil/milk drip just seems to draw the sharks in like no tomorrow. The water was 69 degrees on the edge of a 69-71 break with a 20-30' change in structure on the bottom. we managed to go the entire trip without one dogfish!!!!!!

Overall a great late afternoon shark trip. No exotics, but we were not there very long. The great bassing was a double edge sword. We wanted bluefish and were geared with lite tuna casting rods to winch them in fast, so the bass we a bit less sporting that they normally would have been. Luke was rewarded with dinner and a few drinks to settle his stomach back down. It was a nice trip with allot of fish landed and all were released (except the bluefish).

[chumtini]

Another great report. Why is it, when your looking for bluefish, you can't find them

How did the kite work out? Was it effective? Were you anchored?

[Riptide Charters]

Kite worked well and we were drifting w/o a sea anchor. Wind was around 15kts and we had no problem with hanging a 5# bluefish from it.

[Dads Dream]

*Hey Terry-
You mentioned you set the course for an inshore temp break- what are you looking for? Is it local knowledge on that temp line- or are you getting sea temp downloads~ and why do you look for that when sharking?

I've been sharking 3x last summer- each with mediocre results- blues dogs only- one fish pushed 150lbs.....ehhhh?!

Just curious- I fish the waters up here by Shoefish-Dan...basically fishing all around Jeffries (but for sharking- our water is DEEP.....like 250-450' plus....)

We've got a lot of deep water structure....basically ups and downs...nothing really interesting though

Anybody else out there have any input?? How do you shark the Scantums/ Cove/ Southern Jeffries?

[Riptide Charters]

I was looking for the colder water in the area. A few buddies had gone out recently and hit the hot water on some of the inshore spots and done poorly. So with that info in hand I found the colder water on several of the inshore regular spots and aimed for them. I was looking to run a bit farther to another break, but it took so long to make bait I had to pick a closer spot. It worked out.

I'm no shark expert. We have had very good luck sharking with 2 records, but truth is I dont spend much time doing it. Guys like Capt Bill Brown are REAL shark experts. Guys like him are the ones to answer your shark questions.

[chumtini]

basically fishing all around Jeffries (but for sharking- our water is DEEP.....like 250-450' plus....)

We've got a lot of deep water structure....basically ups and downs...nothing really interesting though

Structure isn't just about the depth and seafloor topology. Temp breaks, color/turbidity, weeds, currents/upwellings, bait, etc can be considered structure.

BTW some might consider 450' as shallow

[Dads Dream]

* Yah-yah....

I get ya Chum ~ thanks Nuge!

If you guys do make a few shark runs, do you wait until mid Aug or does that interrupt your offshore stuff (I can't play with the big boys with my little CC)

Sharking- I know last season I passed over a bunch of herring in some shallow water hump as I had my mind made up I needed to be further towards Jeffries (colder water/ more dramatic drops/ bottom).....some great Einstein reason)

And my buddy, who we might as well call 'get drunk & stay out til 3am'- chasing women- maybe you guys understand that.....so, he catches up to us around 0930; sets up his slick where I had marked bait.....

And what happened? You guessed it.....in 30 mins he had 4-6 blue dogs all around his boat- an hour later they'd fought and released more than that.....they couldn't do anything wrong

We worked our tails off on my boat- ripping through chum over 2-3 hr window.....had one screamer rip a good part of the spool off the 6500 baitrunner......that was it....??!!

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