Thanks for turning that frown upside down
When we cleared the Bodkin Channel (and said "Hey Jake" to my uncles ashes at #5 day marker) Mike asked "Which Way? Left or Right?"
Uncle Jake rarely lets me down, so we turned in the direction I felt called
At first, I was nervous. Didn't see much of anything flying or breaking. Saw a friend of Mike's out trolling, and not producing
Then we saw a ton of eel grass floating along a tide line that would have made trolling difficult.
I was beginning to wonder if Jake was toying with me
Mike said, "You take the wheel. I have to kill some of these flies". They were voracious last evening. Mike had the deck looking like rabbit poop was all over it
I spotted some action in the distance and we ran to a productive area where we stayed for almost 2 hrs (until sunset). At first, fish were deep, and as our drift took us up and over a hump, we would pick up a few nice fish on each drift.
As the evening grew dimmer, the fish came up to feed and birds helped show the way. Instead of a few fish under us, it was "Game On".
Not all big fish, but the quality of keepers was fantastic. It would go something like this, 19, 18, 19, 26, 19, 19, 18, 29, 19, 18, 25. Heck, I can deal with that
Not planning to keep any fish that evening, Mike left the net at the dock (mistake). I got his 29 in the boat and a few other keepers (we were releasing 23 and under). Mike hooked up another real nice fish, and when it came boat side, I reached over to lip it when it suddenly went berserk and threw the treble into my knuckle. At first, Mike said "Wait until I post on CBA that Marty lost my big fish". But when I came up from the gunnel with his lure in my hand, he softened
Luckily, THE BONE kept it from digging deep into my thumb, but it is sore today
I certainly didn't think it would be a problem launching my boat (extremely high tides from Jose); but Mikes invitation to fish made the evening a good one. Always a pleasure to fish with Mike, and Jake was right once again
5th