Wow; what a crazy day. I was curious to see first hand what the water was like after all this rain. We had a charter today and I had the boat all set up for catching spot, livelinning, and trolling for blues
If you looked at the boat at 6am; you would have thought to yourself, "these guys don't know what they are after
I had the little spot rods in the gunnel holders, the livelining rods in the rod holders behind the engine box, and the troling rods in the rocket launcher.
We left Deale under DARK skies. The clouds were so thick it looked like midnight. We had heard the spot were moving out into deeper water. We have been very successful in 22-25 ft lately. We tried this depth first, with no success. I guess the other Captains really do know what they are talking about
We slid out to deeper water and soon saw the charters from CB looking for spot. We had the entire crew and both John and I with rods in our hands. Normally, John and I don't need to fish for bait.
We caught two spot
I kept fresh bloodworm on everyones hooks, this was not the time to be dunking "washed out worms". We needed bait.
We tried drifting, we tried anchoring, we tried a goofy version of the "rain dance", we couldn't catch spot, even if they had a bounty on their heads.
John finally said "F,it", lets troll
I put away all the bait rods and livelinning rods, and we ran across the bay to the eastern side. THE WATER LOOKED GOOD for all the rain we received. Their wasn't even grass to contend with. Sometimes we get a lot of eelgrass or debris from up north (it might come later).
The birds were not helping us today
We trolled all our normal haunts. We only picked up small throwback rock and blues. Were did our 15-22 inch blues go
We trolled until it was time for John to fix lunch. This is when I get a chance to take the wheel
John cooks, I troll. Not bragging, but every time I get the wheel, we find some fish. Not today!! John said, "Do you realize this is the first time this year we haven't caught fish with you at the wheel?" Actually, I did; don't rub it in (chuckle with clenched teeth inserted here).
It got to that time of the charter where you begin scratching your head and tugging at your jaw. John says, "What do you think". I said, "Obviously, trolling ain't gettin it".
We pull lines, head in to 32-35 ft of water, and start cutting up worms. The spot rods come back out and we catch 12 spot. Now we already had two in the livewell, so we had 14 total.
We run to Stone Rock and anchor up. I give a quick refresher course on livelinning. Normally we have 60 spot and the customers learn by mistake. After they lose a couple (forgetting to set to hard drag, not counting long enough, not moving their feet to keep lines from getting tangled when a fish is on) they normally get the hang of it. Today, we had to keep misses to a minimum.
We came up one fish short. Eleven nice fish in the box. We could have had our limit, but a couple 18" fish went back. I don't trust those "cooler" rulers
The customers had a ball. I'm sure they were all set for an empty fishbox.
We pulled it out of our a$$ today. I even gave John a "fist bump" before he pulled anchor. That was close
So, in review. The water was not bad. Spot are hard to find, and getting larger. Blues may be moving out (or at least weren't biting today). Livelinning is still the best way to a limit. Expect to use more time than normal to catch your bait. Blues didn't tear up our spot (we had only a couple spot bit in half today.
And last but not least, never give up until you run completely out of time
5th (Marty)