Got to Man Up
 

5th Tuitions got skunked today. Put in a 6 rod spread down near Bloody point around 8 am and fished till about 1 pm without a knockdown. First time in a long while we had that smell on the boat. Tried pulling small umbrellas off the boards, switched out two umb,s for tandem rigs later in the day and still no takers.
I know lots of you are going out tomorrow, I hope you have better luck than we did today.
5th (Marty)

Good on ya Marty...wasn't the first, won't be the last...thanks for reporting though! I'll be out tomorrow and hopefully I'll redeem for ya!!

FWIW: I heard it was a very tough bite in the area you fished.

Still a great day weather wise :)

As you passed us on your way in the kids on Bfailthful noticed a foul smell:D
Part of the game 5th. Heard it was better south...
We didn't light it up either...6 knockdowns and 4 landed. Tough, long day but the kids loved it.

Marty,

I am with ya...Tried for a few hours this afternoon all over north of the bridge...All I ended up with was a pertch and something I couldn't tell what it was....Got desperate and we started throwing spinners to get the skunk off....

Going to try to get out tomorrow as well...Hope its better than today....

I was out down further south for a couple hours this afternoon.....caught a few.

You heard right;) Had a good day today.

Oh Hell Paul; those are rockfish; we caught plenty of them. We were slow trolling for flounder and got skunked. I hope you didn't think we were skunked on rock:D.
5th (Marty)

p.s. I will ask a question:). Where's the beef (bait)? Anyone marking decent bait balls north of Chesapeake Beach? If not, why are the menhaden not here yet? Exactly one year ago, and a day (March 31st 2009), I have a photo of a HDS 10 showing a water temp of 46.9 degrees in the Poplar Island area in 46 ft of water. So it's NOT the water temp.'s. Could it be all the fresh water flowing into the bay? Could the fresh water be keeping the bait (and rock) further south.
Or, is it just me not reading bait on the finder? What do you think?
5th (Marty)

I'll be giving it a go in that area tomorrow. Launching from SPSP. Thanks for posting Marty.

Marty,

Couldn't ask for a much nicer day on the water, fish or no fish. You'll make up for it next time. Not many marks in my area today either, but I found a small area and worked it hard. LOTS of debris in the water, and I was constantly cleaning my baits.

Hey Marty,

It's the full moon doing this. It sends them into the spawning rivers. I remember last year it did this exact same thing in early Apr...wide open bite and then literally in one afternoon the place shut down before the full moon that night.

I'm just glad that this 1st group is spawning earlier this year. Gives them a chance to make a getaway before season opens. But don't worry, there are more on the way!

Marty good point on the bait...I have not been south that much but north of the bridge has been almost a no mans land for bait fish...o2 levels are good, water temps are good....I dont get the lack of bait....

The fish were further south yesterday. We ran from SP until we found any bait at all and then finally put out the spread. Within minutes, had a 43" to the boat and it stayed pretty hot all day:D:D:D. We ended up with 20 to the boat, 2 good knockdowns and one lost. (Really, not an April 1 report). The hot bait of the day was a Warren's daisy chain in white. Most of the others came on white chutes fished high up off the boards. 1 on a chrome 19 tony way back.

The lesson that I have been learning over the last couple of seasons is that I don't put the spread out until I find decent marks. It took us close to 2 hours of big S turns to find anything worthwhile--but once we started fishing, it was totally worth it. We ended the day with some great gannet actions and a late flurry of fish and then a 25 mile run back to SP. Ran into B-faithful and crew there--nice to see you guys!

Hans

Maybe it's the thousands of big cows the North Carolina boys slaughtered this winter.:mad:

It was a tougher day out there. These fish come in waves and follow the bait. There was little bait to be found. It was still a great day to be on the water fishing. I am glad we got out.

Sounds like Hans was winner for the day! Nice work fellas! :)

I imagine that means tomorrow I will be buying big cans of tomato juice to get the smell off the boat.

I will be out of Breezy if anyone is around.

Hans

Just to add to Morsax's report - it was a great day and for me (still learning), a great learning day. The long ride was cold (why would I wear shorts?), but worth it and like Hans said, we didn't put anything out until we marked something. We also worked a single area pretty hard, but did have a late day shift to a new area. In fact, the late flurry happened because we we went back over a spot we had picked one up where we didn't see bait. Literally about 10 minutes later we marked bait, fish, and eventually had gannets diving around us. I'm pretty stoked to have had that type of day...one to remember even with just 6 rods out.

Nice to meet you Greg, and that sure is a sweet boat you got there.

Tight lines everyone, I'll be working on the house and yard this weekend most likely.

Cheers,

Bob