It was just brutal cold on the drive down as my truck's temperature gauge read a bone chilling 8 degrees!
Craig and I arrived first, and met up at the local Wawa for some coffee and to get some lunch, and then proceed over to the boat launch. Al and Matt arrived shortly afterwards with Bobber and JR not far behind. JR and I had plastic duty again, but things went together a little smoother this time!
The guys loaded the rest of the gear and bait up, and we slipped the boat in just as Jim arrived. Craig...being Craig. Newman!!!
JR...growing the beard for his airline pillow attendant! Haha
Bobber, wishin he was in Florida!
Oh so pretty!
Backin her in, Al is ready on the dock!
Reverse angle as we pull away...
A nice morning...
Nice sunrise as we cruise out to the inlet...
Alright, why not a few candid shots?
How about JR mid battlecry?
Al looks tired huh? Don't worry, he'll wake up quickly later in the morning!
Matt, hangin out...ready to get out there!
El Diablo and Bobber!
And Newman, errr I mean Craig, workin the hair...alright, I'm just jealous!
Alright, it's off to the races! Another beautiful morning, cold and crisp, but a promising forecast of 10-15 out of the West, shifting to the SW later in the day and 2-4 foot seas. We cruised out to our first spot and it wasn't too sloppy but it wasn't exactly flat either out there...more 4s and later 5s+ than anything with a ripping breeze.
We dropped the hooks on the first spot and got set up over the piece. The current was ripping pretty good to start, far more than earlier in the week and the bite wasn't nearly as fierce, very subtle scratches and bites. Jim and I were on fire early, bailing tog left and right while the others started putting together a steady pick of keepers with a few throwbacks mixed in. We adjusted as we went and picked through the spot and managed to put a good number of keepers in the box.
Here's a few shots of our results in the morning...
Matt with a nice tog!
Bobber, tearin it up!
Al, warmin up with a nice one...
Jim, landing a nice tog!
JR...well...ummm...not quite a tog...nice skate buddy!!! Haha
Mr Isolation, Craig, landing a nice tog in the bow...
Bobber with another nice one, JR...El Diabloing him!
The bite started to die a bit, but that's just when Al was getting started. Midmorning onward, Al started beating on the tog nonstop with a solid mixture of keeps and throwbacks. In the meantime, the bite died for the rest of us and we contemplated moving and were just about to pick up the anchors when Al lands a 16lb 4oz giant (weighed on two different hand scales back at the dock, hovering between 16lb 3oz and 16lb 4oz).
Here's a pic of the beast! Congrats to Al on his personal best tog ever, and he's fished for them since he was 12! Nice!
After that, we fished for a bit longer but the bite pretty much totally died, so we opted to pull the hooks and move elsewhere...well that was the plan anyway. Unfortunately one of the anchors got snagged in the wreck, we circled around it trying to pop and pry it free but the anchor line rubbed against an edge down below and got sliced. Ack!
Well, we hooked up a backup anchor and headed off to the next spot. Once we arrived, we drop a single hook to feel out the area and managed to hook up a few fish but not the kind of life we expected, so we picked up and moved off to another area. Once there, we dropped a single anchor again and had some decent action, so we picked at them for a bit and then rolled up and dropped the second anchor and sat back on a different section of the structure. We spent the next couple hours there and managed to catch a few more keepers and a healthy number of throwbacks too. Both Al and JR hooked up with some solid 10lbers too!
Here's some more shots from the trip!
Al lands this nice 10lber shortly afterwards...
They must be THICK down there!!! Here's El Capitan, JR with a beauty of a 10lber! P.S. I didn't catch anything big, today so they weren't that thick afterall!
Pile-o-tog with THE CHICKEN!!!
Al with his two big tog from the day!
And we can't forget the hero shot with his candycane fishing rod!!! Al is now known as The Candyman! Chicken Approved!!!
Well, another great trip aboard OOAL4 with another great crew! The fishing was very good, as we caught over 40 keepers and just as many or more throwbacks...keeping our 7 man, 4 fish limit. Big thanks to JR for having us out again, sorry about the anchor dude! And it was great to fish with Craig, Bobber, Jim, Matt, and Al! Hope we can do it again real soon!
Beautiful sunset in the making!
What a day!
No comments:
Post a Comment