[Rockin' Robin]

The second half of Trophy Season was great with a few trips with 10-15 slot fish caught and several over 40" fish. I don't like to eat fish over 30" or so, so I am very happy to catch and release those slot fish. 1st half of Trophy Season, however, was pretty painful only catching 1-5 fish per trip and constantly dealing with jellyfish.

When Trophy Season ended 2 weeks ago, I downsized baits to Tony 17 and tsunamis (5" and 6.5") behind Captain John spoonbrellas and spreader bars on all boat rods, but I continued running boards with all tandems with 9" shads. During 1st few slow trips I realized that the fish were only hitting the longer board lines with heavy tandems. This made sense because the big fish marks on the finder have moved down in the water column to 15-20'. So all tandems are now 8-12oz total weight, 80-100 feet back. I also added a few mini ubmrellas with 16oz inline closest to boat, with single 3oz 9" parachutes, 80 feet back. With this setup all rods have been catching fish, more than half coming off the board rods, and nearly all fish over 26" coming off board rods. Only a few fish per trip with 20-23" fish hitting board lines and not breaking the rubber bands. Most trips we have caught more than a few over 30", and this week we have had a 40+, 36, and many 28-34, lots of 22-26" fish, and few 18-20's. We have been getting 10-20 bites per trip, 5-12 keepers per trip. Chartreuse and White have both caught equally well. I use blue and gold tsunamis (one of each on each spoonbrella or spreader bar), and the blue ones have definitely outperformed gold by a wide margin. Last week I was focussed on 29-33' water depth, but I have worked out to 31-35' and then 35-45' in last few trips.

2 reasons why I am sticking with all 9" shads on boards:
1) I don't want small fish hitting board lines and not breaking rubber bands
2) The bait fish that the bigger fish are chasing is still 9-10" (see photo of snagged baitfish from this week)

So while many have stowed their boards for the summer and are chumming or running only boat rods with small baits and catching huge numbers of 18-19 3/4" fish to find their keepers, I am still having a great time with boards and 9" baits catching many nice size fish and wonder if it can continue until the spot come in and we start live lining.