OK, Charlie and I hit up the Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook are for the second straight day...this time for a shorter trip as I had a graduation party to be at midday. We had an awesome day yesterday, landing a two man limit and with the light NW winds and beautiful day ahead of us...we were certain we'd continue to beat on the fish again today! Needless to say, we were pumped to get out there...as a matter of fact, Charlie was up tossing and turning at 3AM and ready to go...I got a call at 4:10AM asking where I was...which was just leaving my town since we had a 5:00AM departure time set. I tell him to go gas the boat up and get everything out of the way...turns out he was ahead of the game and already had all of that done! Haha, ya think Charlie was ready to go or what?!?
Well, I get there right on time...5:00AM, and we slip the boat in at the ramp, pack the gear and we're off by 5:10AM. What a beautiful morning, hardly any wind in the back river, and some awesome, scenic skies on the way out.
Wow...what a morning!
Unbelievable...
Why we get up in the morning to go fishing (and hunting)...
Unreal colors...
We head out to the grounds we fished the day before, but decide to stop at a spot on the way. Charlie drops down and lands a keeper in like seconds...before I even have my line in the water. I quick run and mark the spot on the GPS and commence fishing. We pick up a few more shorts, but not a lot of fish, so we decide to stop wasting time and head to where we caught them good the day before. Well...little did I know, I overwrote the waypoint we marked the day before by marking that first spot! DoH! So we are studying the GPS to find the hole based on the depth changes we fished the day before and wind up way south of where we should have been...all the while thinking we were on the spot.
So we setup, drift is slow, Charlie drops down and immediately hooks into something BIG. Straight up and down, and he can't move it off the bottom. We're both pumped, thinking he has a monster flattie on. He's fighting the fish for 5 minutes or so now, every time he gets it off the bottom, it rips the drag out and sits right back down...we are seeing some deep head shaking action to the rod, so we're still thinking good flattie. It's about 8 minutes in now and I'm getting doubtful, so I toss out a my bucktail, two hops and BAM I hook up with something BIG too. my drag is going (little too tight) and pops almost immediately...I reel in to find a missing bucktail but the teaser is still there. UGH! Charlie's fight is approaching 10 minutes now...and the line starts heading out away from the boat...so now I'm thinking maybe a nice striper! Charlie's getting tired haha...and doesn't think it feels like a striper, so we decide to BACK DOWN on the fish like we are fishing offshore! Hahahaha Well, it winds up being a big ol' doggie, tail wrapped and thrashing like a mofo. I'm assuming I hooked into the same, as we proceeded to get beat down by the dogs for another 15 minutes or so before we opted to move to another location.
Charlie fighting his fish...look at the grimace!
We moved a little closer into the beach and battled absolutely driftless conditions...and still believe we are fishing the "right" spot. Boats are moving all around, an indication of people trying to find fish...some going south, some going north...but very few actually fishing anywhere within eye sight...pretty odd. We picked at some shorts, then I landed a keeper, so we continued fishing the area a bit but the conditions were just dead calm, no wind, no drift...nothing...and very few fish.
So we opted to head out to the channel to pick up some current and see what was doing out there. Party boats and a few private boats were out in the section we opted for...but conditions were still slow on the drift and worse with no fish, no hits, nothing. Keeping a close eye on the other boats, we didn't see a single net go either.
At that point, we started studying the GPS again and finally realized we weren't in the "right" spot before...so we shot back in to fish the grounds we fished the day before. Fishing was slow, drift was non-existant still...so we power drifted a bit and I believe that's when I picked up my second keeper...lots of sea robins as well. Not a whole lot doing and it was getting late in the morning so we headed up towards the tip of the Hook for a few quick drifts before heading in. We picked up some shorts, ran into Tom on the Daly Double...our first confirmation Tom has a boat...we've heard about it, we've talked about it, we've made plans to fish on it, but it was plagued with engine trouble last year, so we never saw it...plus I had plans to fish with Tom on Sunday, so it was a relief to see he really does have a boat...and it runs!!! haha
Ultimately we ran out of time as I had to head in, and we just couldn't locate that pile of fish we had the day before. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I realize we didn't fish the right grounds given the conditions anyway and should have altered our game plan. Both Charlie and I are new to the water out front, so it's all a learning process and we're having a blast just being out there and trying to figure them out!
We finished the day with just 3 keepers and probably about 30-40 shorts with doggies and sea robins mixed in. Still a beautiful day out there, and we learned a good lesson.
1) Learn your GPS
2) Don't overwrite your waypoints
3) Fish the right grounds given the right conditions
OK, so here's a few more pics...
Tom...yes there really is a Daly Double!!! Sweet!!!
Final fish pic, our keepers from the morning...
That's all folks...little report on the day...next excursion with Charlie is set for Saturday, and Craig is coming along too!
Nice! Can't wait!
Until then...
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