5/10 and 5/11- covering some serious ground
 

Friday morning- out of Q A by 5:30. Trolled BP to TPL to the orange ship. In 35' to 120' with 1 knockdown and 1 fish in 68' west of BPL to show for it. 4 guys as crew and 1 of them gets on the boat eating a banana!!!:eek::eek: I get him off the boat with his damn banana peel to throw it in the marina dumpster, not MY trash can!! I Commence to scolding him and none of the 4 knew about "no bananas" :cool: What good is the Internet if it isn't going to teach people important stuff like that?? So as we are still skunked at 9:30, I of course blame the banana. My buddy just ahead of us reels in 2 with us watching which didn't help solidify my position as someone who knew what he was doing :D. Then I notice it; either this other guy brought a "lady toy" in his duffle bag or that is another &$?@€% BANANA!!!:eek: Sure enough, one of the others had a banana he was "saving for later":eek: It quickly went overboard and I was thinking about throwing him in behind it but that would have been a bit rude. The guy spends a lot of money with the company I work for, so he stayed dry. The next few phone calls I got all seemed to go the same way- "How many you got?" "None, you'll never guess what we had onboard all morning?" "Not a banana!?!" "YUP!" I finally googled it and was reading them the story when BAM, fish on!! Not much of a catching day but sure was fun giving crap to the guys and the weather was absolutely beautiful.

Got them back to the dock and had a few hours to clean up before my wife and my "board man" (prefers board man over mate) and his girlfriend show up for a night in Solomon's. it was a 2.5 hour run down and we got in about 7. Stayed at the Holiday Inn/marina and got all banged up once safely in the slip. Got up at a lazy 7:30 and headed out about 8:45. With intel from Fishnut, (thanks) we started at 77 in the mouth of the Pax and trolled north with the wind and tide. By the time we got to the power plant, we had caught our 5th fish! The water was clean and the space was wide open. I really enjoy going down there. Picked up and cruised home at a comfy 19knots. 100 miles round trip and only burned 50 gallons. Came home with 4 nice fish that were all post-spawn :). Did have 1 that we had to stretch to hit 28" so it went back over. (1 fish was even caught on a new bait I had bought from Fishnut a few years ago and had never put on. :D A Smoke colored bullet head with white hair and shad??
One fish was on the 9oz N P Spankin Striper that has caught almost every trip. The other 3 fish were caught on the same rod with a tandem rig from "Rock On", Fred Connolly out of Salisbury. It was closest to the boat so only out 4 bars. (Glad he talked me into getting it at the Chestertown flea market.). The girls got to reel in the fish today and everyone had a great time!!! We were back at the dock and cleaned up by 3:30pm. AND I finally get to EAT a fish
Isn't it odd how some lures just seem to be the hot ticket some days and not others?? Is it so we have to buy enough of each bait to cover all the rods?? "Ooo, That looks good, I'll take 40 of them please". I guess that's the fishes way of getting sort of even with us!:D

"Stayed at the Holiday Inn/marina"

You mean you didn't spend the night on the boat and "christen" it:D
5th (Marty)

I travel a lot for work so have plenty of points for free rooms ;). Since we had another couple and all my fishing crap on the boat, it just made sense to grab a couple rooms. They hooked me up with nice rooms too; Platinum has it privileges!!!

Look forward to going again when we will have more time to check things out down there, it looked like it could be a fun place for a night or two....

I've never bought into the banana / bad luck superstition.

On Friday - we were just north of you - around # 86. Got four nice Rock and had bananas on the boat.

That banana nonsense is funny though and many really believe it.

Now I can see real superstitions like putting on left sock first or eating a donut right handed messing up the fishing but not a banana :D

Fishermen are a crazy bunch.

Congrats on a good catch / fun trip. Love the fuel burn - awesome for boat that size.

Nice work on the 4 fish! They probably would have been bigger and each one would have had a $20 in its mouth if you didn't have the bananas on board! :D

The fuel burn right now is practically stupid- I come out of the marina and run to BP, TPL, or Southern ship to get things heated up. Troll all morning burning 0.6 GPH, then back to the slip at Q A all for about 5 or 6 gallons of fuel. That's with the Cummings 480hp! I was burning more gas driving to and from the boat from Chestertown in my truck then I did while fishing! Fixed that though, bought a diesel Jetta wagon and now getting 43.5mpg instead of 8! :). Life is good for now. In a few weeks, I will be back up the bay at Tolchester Marina and we'll see what happens then. I hope the fish decide to hang out at Hodges Bar all summer long....

Yeah, but you bring donuts, which clearly counteracts he bananas!! :D