East Yesterday

[SaltyDog]

Not fun posting the shutouts but sometimes it helps others as much as the slayed 'em reports. The Salty Dog made the first trip east yesterday from Falmouth and as soon as we had lines in at 715a the fog lifted and the day was beautiful. Birds and bait going crazy with some tuna around but just not biting strong. Tried everything from bars, daisy chains, rigged mackeral and ballyhoo, and even a planer. Just not our day. The birds were killing my trolled mackeral and ballyhoo, and we hooked 3 of the fluffs. A few fish taken but seemed to be a tough day for most boats. My last 4 years the boat log shows the first trips were June 15-19 and each time the fish were voracious, all up on top, and we were boating 5-9 fish each time. Hungry fish from the migration I assumed. Not so yesterday. I hope that the fish will continue to arrive in greater numbers and that it is still a little early. Dont want to overreact from one trip but hopefully the overall numbers are not down from them getting hammered all winter in the Carolinas. Clearly they are bigger fish and more finicky. Although a dissapointing day the conditions were fabulous and cant wait to next week to do it again, tuesday looks good. I also wonder if the bite is not better further north for those considering a spot.

[starrfish]

good post, your right, the shutouts help also.. looks like the fish are wising up, and some of the not so smart ones are gone.

[seagorilla]

were you as far as the sword or closer to the ledge? sounds like you found the bait! some earlier reports had the fish in pretty close to nauset.

[SaltyDog]

I was in 90-150 feet just off of nauset region, slightly north of where the fish were holding all least year, most of the fleet( 10 boats ) that day were with me including the few who got fish, i took a 1/2 ride north towards wellfleet and also east towards shipping lanes 200+ feet looking but didnt see much, lots of seals, going to be a great year for Greg Skomal and the great white tagging team...

[mzajac]

Same here. No tuna but came tight on a bunch of birds. Lots of life out east with birds and bait showing well. It got real snotty in the early afternoon.

[Goodnyou]

Got a fat 66 inch fish there friday at the am slack on a ballyhoo with pink white islander deep on the planer. Most of the stuff on top was on 2-3 inch sandeels. Pretty quiet though.