At the risk of sounding like I'm "pimping" the charter boat I work on, or "whoring" some of the lures my captain sells, or even advertising for my electronics guy that just installed my HDS sidescan/downscan, here's a long report.
If you are adverse to any of the above, put me on the "ignore" list. There are too many people on the board that can learn "something" from my reports. As you will see, even I learned something this week after all the years I've spent on the water.
As many of you are doing, we decided to downsize our spread this week from large 9 inch shads off the boards with 22 rods
to a summer spread of 9 rods with spreader bars and and umbrella's. I'm familiar with umbrella's with "storm" lures as baits. Not so familiar with the spreader bars.
In order to gain information about spreader bars, I contacted a captain on the eastern shore who is known for running nothing else during the summer and early fall. Captain Charlie Schneider (Big Will Charters) who runs out of Dogwood Harbor on Tilghman Island, met me for a tour of his boat and lunch, where we discussed lots of imformation pertaining to the use of spreader bars.
Charlie runs storm shads early in the season and switches to metal (tony's) when the blues arrive. Charlie was a wealth of information to a first year mate
.
On the morning of our first summer trip (yesterday), I arrived at the boat early to switch out our large baits off our umbrella's. I placed 6 inch storm shads on all 5 umbrella's we run. Good 5 lines prepped and ready to fish
.
I brought two more umbrella's from home already prepped from off my boat so I wouldn't have to waste time making up rigs in front of the customers. I now had 7 rods ready to fish as soon as we found bait running south from Deale.
Water quality improved the farther south we ran. Found bait and dropped the 7 rods over. Tide book called for high tide at Plum Point at 8:30 am. (hint hint). We trolled southeast, south west while I grabbed two spreader bars and began putting them together. Captain John sells a metal spoon out of Marty's, Anglers, Tyler's, and a few other places. I've never fished them, but have put one over while trolling large baits this spring just to see what kind of action they produced. They have a nice wobble in the water and the nice thing about them is the faster you troll the tighter the wobble (they should be great for blues and spanish). Anyway, I put two together and put them out in the spread.
Water quality continued to improve but the customers were getting antsy. I explained we were at or near high tide and I didn't expect things to "break loose" until around 9:30 am. At 9:37 the first fish hit a stormbrella and the skunk was off the boat. I apoligized to the people for being off by 7 minutes and blamed it on a bad nights sleep the night before. They said they would have been really impressed if I had told them which rod was going to catch the first fish (tough crowd).
Fifteen minutes later, all hell broke loose. Fish were coming over the side so fast, it was hard to get the rods back over. Umbrella's and spreader bars were sitting on the gunnels as I removed more fish off the hook.
Captain John and I had a small bet as to what would catch best, my storms, or his spoons. Remember, I had 7 rods with shads as opposed to his 2 rods with spoons. As a fish would come over the side, I would say "love those storms", and he would say "looks like another spoon".
One of his spoon rods went down hard, I yelled "nice fish", and the customer pulled in the first double off his spoons. We did miss several nice fish at the boat, or close to the boat. One of the things I don't like about the storms is that while their hooks are laser sharp, they are very thin. They don't bend or break on me, but if a fish fights hard on the way in; or worse yet, spins, it makes a hole in the jaw and the thin storm hook can "fall out" if pressure is not kept on the fish.
As things slowed, John's spreader bars began to catch much better than the storms (2 to 1 in fact). I finally had time to switch out more umbrella's for more spreader bars, and the catching picked back up. Perhaps the metal flash was a better attractant? John's hooks are bigger than the storms so fewer "lost" fish? For whatever reason, we ended the day with more spreaders than umbrella's
. I had to agree, I was impressed with both the spreader bars and John's lures.
Captain John said, "If you think this is fast action, wait until the blues get here". Another thing I like about John's lure is that it is long enough to hold when the blues and spanish come in. If you are used to a drone, clark, or even a 15 tony, you know there is not much lure to grab on to. John's spoon eliminates that problem.
All of the above is good information. The fact I work for Captain John is irralevant. Those that know me, know I wouldn't prostitute myself for a lure that cost a couple dollars. Those that don't know me can kiss (well you get the message). Put a couple of John's lures on either your umbrells or spreader bars and see how they act.
After I got home, showered, and relaxed; I got a call from Craig White (Chesapeake Installers) and he wanted to come over and put in my new sidescan/downscan for my HDS unit. It is all installed and I'm ready for the spot to arrive and start livelining on my boat. I have been so impressed by the unit on Don's boat (Hunter), Baldzilla's boat, and Walleye Pete's boat, I just had to have one.
Enjoy the fishing, smaller fish were caught deep (full of mayworms) and larger fish came from mid water or near the top. I covered the water with everything from zero weight out 200 ft to 20 oz. weight out 60 ft. and everywhere in between. Six rods on a private boat with 8'6" beam would be plenty of rods. The one's where we had a "quick release" at the boat didn't interefere with us catching a limit and more. Lot's of 20 inch fish with a few mid and upper 20's mixed in.
Have fun.
5th (Marty)
A lot of news
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