Alright, so after an absolutely awesome morning hike with Tom Elefante, I met up with Doug and his buddy Jay for some evening striper fishing aboard The Sykk Physh with Joey!
The action's been GOOD, real good...and we were hoping to get in on it!
The weather looked perfect...hardly any wind, overcast with some passing rain and flat calm seas!
The boys getting ready!
The Sykk Physh!
Joey's ready!
Jay's ready!
Doug with a classic face...umm I think he's ready! Haha
Bunker already in the livewell, nice!
We break the marina...bunker all over...but this isn't where we're fishing! :)
We cruised out on the 20' Robalo with the throttle pushed to the hilt headed oceanside and pumped to go!
We arrive at the rocks with some sick bunker pods all over the place!
Oh my!
Joey is flippin plugs on his Cabo and hooks up!
Big ol' slob blue!
Action!
Little while later, I have a serious runoff...and let him go for about 15 seconds before setting the hook hard.
I have him on for about 10-15 seconds of all out drag ripping action with my rod tripled over...Doug looking on with a WOW expression on his face...serious fish and then SPIT...come back with nothing but the hook...and I throw up in my mouth a little. That fish was big, real big.
Then Jay had a runoff, but the fish spit as well before he even set the hook.
The ocean was nice, real nice...
Then Doug gets a runoff and lays the screws to one!
He's not sure what it is...not running hard like a striper...just comes in lazy...but then it surfaces!
Big ol' striper comes into the net, virtually calm as could be...likely full of bunker and just stuffed!
Oh baby, 41 pounds on the handheld!
Joey and Doug with one hell of a bass and Doug's personal best!
We ran around a bunch but struggled...well I struggled. I was getting twice as many runoffs as anyone else and went from 5 second countdowns to the hookset to 15-20 seconds to 45-60 seconds and kept coming up with spit hooks. I just didn't understand it and it frustrated the hell out of me...I felt like Scrubby all evening! Haha
Seriously though, I had 7 or 8 runoffs on the evening, 5 or 6 spit the naked hook or bunker back out...and 2 broke right on the hookset. After the first spit, I switched from 7/0 Octopus to 10/0s...and still couldn't get a solid hookset with BRAID and a 25-30' mono shock leader with about a 3' fluoro leader to the hook. After the second break, I retied with 60# fluoro but didn't get another hit after that as the storm rolled in.
Meanwhile Doug had a few run-offs and spits, and had another one hooked and to the surface when it spit the bunker back at him.
Joey managed to hook up twice with snagged and dropped bunker but they immediately broke the braid on his Cabo...12-14 turn Uni or a Palomar dude! :D
Joey also hooked two on his Chaos rods...landing one and handing the other off to me (no pics in the action, I wanted IN the water again!)
Then the fog rolled in from the north and a sudden shift to east winds put it right on top of us with increasing seas!
Here it comes!
A few sunset shots as the action died down...
And the fog rolled in...
Sinking slowly...
We headed back north to try to locate some more bunker but the seas just got plain ugly.
We took an absolute soaking on the way home but managed to get there in one piece!
Here's a few shots back at the marina...
Group shot...
Doug...
Jay...
And I...
Well it was definitely a fun trip, but a shame that weather rolled in on us like that...and even more of a shame that I lost so many fish...UGH! Stripers drive me NUTS!
We knew we had a great shot at beating our personal bests on this trip, and Doug pulled through as he always does! :)
I was sucking wind while Jay just had a rough time even working up the hits.
Joey got us on the fish, just was a tough bite with all the available bait but had we landed half the friggin hits I had...we'd have limited with ease.
I need to regather my thoughts and per Doug's recommendation I'm going to switch rods...and maybe take a chainsaw to my current striper rod! Haha
Going to go with something a bit meatier and shorter next trip and see if I can get a little more leverage...but with braid, I just can't imagine *needing* it.
Ah well...next time we'll get out there and beat em down!
Big thanks to Joey for running us out there, was a great time and I think we all definitely want to get out again SOON to take advantage of the sick bite that is going on!
Until next time...
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