Left the South River shortly after dawn with Gary (crabby and son). A fairly heavy fog had settled in over the waters..................................
I told Gary that I was concerned that the fog might be even heavier on the open waters. Only one way to find out. We had about a half a mile of visibility in the river. I was pleasantly surprised that visibility increased to about a mile as we neared the lighthouse.........................
We made our way past the last line of pots in 70 feet of water
Gary took the helm as I began putting the boards and lines in the water. I had 3 boat rods and 4 planer rods out when one of the planer lines gets hit. I handed the rod to Gary and took the wheel. A couple of minutes into the fight, I backed our speed down a little to help Gary out. This turned out to be a mistake. 30 seconds later another planer rod gets hit but did not hook up. Dang....that's the problem with going too slow. A minute later another planer line pops and again no hookup. Okay Gary...you're on your own. Back up to 3 kts. We no sooner land Gary's 37 inch fish when a boat rod get hammered with drag running out. This was the most drag I have heard being taken from one of my reels in a long time. About the time I grab the rod the line goes limp
Dang it man. I reeled the line in and find that the big fish had folded the shad tail over the hook.
As I begin to send the rig back over the last planer line left in the water gets hit. I hand the rod to Gary and soon we have a 36 inch fish to finish our "over" limit. This has all occurred in about 20 minutes. I have 4 planer rods lying in the boat along with the boat rod I had just checked. I told Gary to take a deep breath when one of the two remaining rods in the water gets hit. This fish did not appear to be too big. I was thinking...27" under. As the fish appeared Gary and I both say......definately an under. As we land the "under" I tell Gary that we better measure just to be sure. 28 1/2 inch...."over"........back you go little guy
Funny how a 28 inch fish looks small compared to these big ocean going rock.
It was pretty funny to see two empty planer lines and only the wwb rod still in the water. We got the lines back in the water but the action was over. We fished for another couple of hours and called it a day. Good talking to Drichitt (Don) amd 5th Tuition (Marty) out there. Good to see that there were a couple more crazies out there on a wet rainy day.
Gary with dinner............................................ ....
Fun..............wet...................day........ ....................Mark