Few trips

Well, I've been slacking off a bit this week with my reports. Went out Thursday morning to give a few spots in the ICW a shot for Stripers. Took my buddy Frank along. He had some good insider info on some area's where the Bass were thick. We anchored up and set out a chum bag and drifted two lines back loaded with Peanut Bunker. Never got a touch. Stayed for about an hour. Tide was screaming in, which wasn't ideal. Moved and set up again. We ended up with a small Blue and short Sea Bass. Due to some rather gross discharges in the area, we decided to call it quits. Will try again when we have an outgoing tide though.

Friday night, Rich and I decided to anchor his little boat under a bridge and give it a try. My boat is yet again back in the shop. Hopefully for the last time ever (yea, right...). Rich started things off with a tiny Bass. The little bugger grabbed his worm (which was nearly as big as him) and wouldn't let go. Rich lifted the Bass out of the water and had to remove the worm, it wasn't even hooked! Guess he was hungry. He then got another small Bass, and a short Flounder. Then I got a keeper Flounder (19"), and lost another boat side. Things got slow after that, and the Stripers we were hoping for didn't seem to be around. We moved back into the ICW and fished along some sod banks and docks. At a few places we saw 20+ Stripers of various sized cruising around. Regardless of what we threw at them, they would not bite. I finally got one to take a Berkley Jerk Shad off the bottom. It was about 22". That was the last caught fish of the night. We probably saw over 100 Bass though. Frustrating.

Saturday I hit the beach with my buddy Johnnie. We tried along side a favorite jetty, but the wind was hawking right into our faces and there was a ton of grass in the wash. We made a bunch of casts trying for a Spot or two for bait, but only managed one. On a brighter note, there were a lot of Mullet in the break zone. I tossed my small net and nabbed a few for use at our next stop. We moved further South in hopes of escaping the weeds. Ran into another guy I see on the beach quite a bit who put us onto his spot where he was nailing some nice Blues. We sidled up and started to land Blues too. Spot out caught the Mullet, but when we filleted them later, they were full of Mullet. Go figure. Anyway, despite the wind, rough conditions, and the nimrod charter guy and is son who tried to push us out of the way, we managed 12 nice Blues for Johnnie, a bunch of Spot, and some small Kingies. Not a bad day for getting sand blasted.

Tight Lines!