Let's try this again....

[Capt. Charlie]

Mid-Bay report for 9/27,28&29. We have been have fairly consistent luck up in E-bay lately. In general, there are plenty of fish but the majority are dinks They are also moving around a lot, one day inside the next ,outside. Our last party did real well last Mon. limiting out on rock to 24" and a boxful of real nice blues to 6lbs.! We went back on Thurs. with friends and had it to ourselves in the morning except for one other Tilghman boat. We found the fish in 32' of water right off North Point. The dink to legal ratio was 10-1 , the blues mixed in were again up to 6lbs and all real nice. Lot's of fun on our light LL'ing tackle. We went through a ton of spot but when the limit was in the box we were on our way home.
Yesterday, (Friday) I took advantage of the mirror-like conditions to take my own boat out to search for breakers and do a little LTJ . I went out to the Hook and saw bait EVERYWHERE, all of it, totally unmolested Headed up to 84A still looking....no luck. The fleet was right back on our spot in Ebay. I motored over slowly and found some nice marks to jig on. DINKS again !!
Screwed around for awhile..there was VERY slow action on the LL'ing boats so I picked up and headed south. Down on Stone Rock I saw a charter who was doing pretty well and he was all alone. I drifted around there for awhile and caught a couple of nice rock 24 & 26. I was done and headed home.
Today, the guys wanted to start up in Ebay again even though I said there was a better grade of fish down at Stone Rock. We anchored on some marks in 31' and proceeded to catch every Dink in Ebay, or so it seemed! All the fish coming over the rails attracted a large crowd even though we only had 1 legal (barely) rock in the box! Right in the middle of all the "action", we pulled anchor and left. The other boats must have thought we were done but we were just fed up with the dinks. We headed down to the spot I had seen the other charter on Friday. It was easy to find on the plotter. We anchored once but no luck. We moved closer, found the right depth, and there they were!!!! It only took about 20 minutes to limit out on real nice rock from 22 to 27'' The fleet were out in the deeper water and not doing well. We called in 2 friends and they were hooked up before their anchors came tight. While we were leaving it was amazing to see the entire fleet moving in on that spot I hope they did as well as we did but I seriously doubt it, with all that traffic.
We have to restock up on Spot so we probably won't be back out until Tues. I'll let you know.

[one fish]

Hi C,

thanks for the detailed rpt. we did ok jigging a little nw and sw of sharpes the other day. nice day on water. wtg.

[5th Tuition]

Charlie; first, welcome back, we missed your reports. Of course anyone who spends time away in Alaska, and then time in the woods bear hunting up north, can't have much time for fishing.

How about all that bait at 84. The good news is it looks to be peanut bunker, not silversides. The water just "erupts" from the bait ball. It's almost unbelievable that there can be that much bait and nothing working under it. Even the gulls leave it alone from above. I haven't seen so much "nervous water" in a couple of years.
I had my new boat down that way and only picked up a few blues and some small rock around 84. I did here the bite was a lot better just a few miles south.

All the osprey seem to have left, now it's a waiting game for gannets to reappear.

I will be in that area again on Monday with John.

Thanks for the report.

5th (Marty)

[garlien]

Charlie,

First off, I second Marty's thoughts...Great to have a really good report and a really great guy back on the board....

Agreed on the bait and the dinks....Seems like it has been going on since late last year...tons of bait, with little or nothing working under it...Seems like the best stripers I find are often by themselves or in very small schools.

I have had a lot more luck this year in less than 30 feet of water, than above... Channel edges have been great to me in deeper areas but some of my best fish, especially in the summer months have come around structure and less than 15 feet.

As I have told others the northern bay has given me a number of fish over 24" in the last two weeks...I think its going to be a great fall run....

Good luck to all....

Mike

[Capt. Charlie]

Marty and Mike.....I was out with a buddy, on my boat last evening for a little "Whack-a-Mole"
The bait you are seeing flashing around with no birds or fish bothering them are FULL SIZE Bunkers, not Peanuts! The millions (it seems) of Dink Rock are keying on the Bay Anchovies. If you toss a hook into the bait you can snag Bunker 9-10" long. When the "Bubba's come back in a few weeks ...it's gonna be fun
I can't tell you how many we caught because we had two on, all the time and were having a ball C&R on small bucktails and smak-its. There were birds everywhere and we were right off Knapps Narrows! Lot's of fun. We did manage two 5lb Blues which my Buddy kept for dinner.

Thanks for the welcome back, I've actually never left, just wasn't posting.

[Spot77]

It's fun reading about the areas that I've never spent any time in. I like looking at the charts to figure out where you were.

I haven't been out in ages, but it seems that even weeks ago we would find tons of bait, but no fish.

Then we'd find fish where there was no bait.

[1morecast]

Thanks for the report Charlie.I dont get to fish as much as I would like to.When I do get out your reports are allways helpful.Apperciate the info.

Dan

[Spot77]

Originally Posted by 1morecast

Thanks for the report Charlie.I dont get to fish as much as I would like to.When I do get out your reports are allways helpful.Apperciate the info.

Dan

Some of us are stuck living vicariously through these reports, so the more the better.


Hey I can dream about having a great day of fishing, right?