Soooooo, I might as well jump in here to post about how 5th Tuition is doing; now that I have moved back north to Bodkin Creek (my summer hideout)
Slid the boat into the Bodkin slip sometime around the 10th of June. The last two years, the fish have moved north with me, and again this year, the same thing has happened. Friends on this board informed me that the Eastern Shore area was the place to go
It has been game on with early limits of over and under fish for the box. Now I have to say, as the time goes on, the larger fish are getting harder to catch (on the troll). If you got there early enough (6am), the fish were stacked like cordwood and one pass of 6 or 7 rods netted you 4 or 5 nice fish (25-30 inches). You could swing around and go through the same group and start selecting what size you needed to fill your limit. You had to keep track of how any "overs" you had in the box to remain legal
About a week ago, I was very happy with all 24-27 inch fish caught quickly (less than an hour of trolling. Today, I am weeding out a lot more "shorts" and filling the box with 22-25 inch fish with an occasional "over"28.
My "normal" spread of umbrellas with green mylar sunammi (sp) shads is still working, but today we needed about 2 1/2 hours to fill the box with keepers.
As you know, I'm a troller
I box my fish, and then look for a chance to jig. This is not the most productive way to "limit out" over there any longer
The chummers are catching better quality fish in quicker time. Today we trolled a set pattern and followed an "edge" that was very heavily concentrated with fish. A friend came into the area to "chunk" and we set him up on some nice fish that we were working on the troll. In 45 minutes, he had all the fish he needed with his supply of "overs" in the box.
Now; I will say that after we limited out. I changed to pulling only three rods with Rock Hall Red hoses as close to the bottom as possible, and we picked up a better grade of fish DEEP in only a few passes.
We then switched to jigging, and Mlag gave us a lesson on catching some keeper fish on the jig
We drifted over a lot of "shorts" that kept pecking at your lure, without taking it
With Mark needing to get to work, and my other friend Ed, having a conference call later in the day, we quit at 10am and headed for the barn to clean fish/boat.
Mark got stuck by a "fin" and bled all over my boat
He made more of a mess than the fish
Between the rec's, charters, and Hook n Liners; it is becoming fewer and fewer fish to take. Make the run now, the "picking" is still worthwhile
5th