Trolling with boards still super hot south of TPL

[Rockin' Robin]

The second half of Trophy Season was great with a few trips with 10-15 slot fish caught and several over 40" fish. I don't like to eat fish over 30" or so, so I am very happy to catch and release those slot fish. 1st half of Trophy Season, however, was pretty painful only catching 1-5 fish per trip and constantly dealing with jellyfish.

When Trophy Season ended 2 weeks ago, I downsized baits to Tony 17 and tsunamis (5" and 6.5") behind Captain John spoonbrellas and spreader bars on all boat rods, but I continued running boards with all tandems with 9" shads. During 1st few slow trips I realized that the fish were only hitting the longer board lines with heavy tandems. This made sense because the big fish marks on the finder have moved down in the water column to 15-20'. So all tandems are now 8-12oz total weight, 80-100 feet back. I also added a few mini ubmrellas with 16oz inline closest to boat, with single 3oz 9" parachutes, 80 feet back. With this setup all rods have been catching fish, more than half coming off the board rods, and nearly all fish over 26" coming off board rods. Only a few fish per trip with 20-23" fish hitting board lines and not breaking the rubber bands. Most trips we have caught more than a few over 30", and this week we have had a 40+, 36, and many 28-34, lots of 22-26" fish, and few 18-20's. We have been getting 10-20 bites per trip, 5-12 keepers per trip. Chartreuse and White have both caught equally well. I use blue and gold tsunamis (one of each on each spoonbrella or spreader bar), and the blue ones have definitely outperformed gold by a wide margin. Last week I was focussed on 29-33' water depth, but I have worked out to 31-35' and then 35-45' in last few trips.

2 reasons why I am sticking with all 9" shads on boards:
1) I don't want small fish hitting board lines and not breaking rubber bands
2) The bait fish that the bigger fish are chasing is still 9-10" (see photo of snagged baitfish from this week)

So while many have stowed their boards for the summer and are chumming or running only boat rods with small baits and catching huge numbers of 18-19 3/4" fish to find their keepers, I am still having a great time with boards and 9" baits catching many nice size fish and wonder if it can continue until the spot come in and we start live lining.

[5th Tuition]

Jason;
You certainly have been doing well this season. That's a nice grade of fish you have been working. I took my boards off the boat; then put them back on

I'm only running 3 - 4 board rods, but find my better fish have come off the boards as well.

I have the boat back in front of my house and I'm cleaning it up nicely so I can put it in the slip up in Bodkin Creek. The wife likes a nice clean boat for sunset cruises and such

I'll finally take my boards off (again) and just go with boat rods above the bridge until livelinning takes off. I hate looking up in the cabin and seeing 12 or more trolling rods. Time to cut back to 7 with three jigging rods (just in case)

I'll be off on my yearly sailboat trip soon. When I get back, spot should be available!!

Keep me posted on the availability of spot. You "southern" gentlemen" see them before us
5th

[Chessie27]

Man Jason you are really smokin em!!! That is awesome!! Keep posting similar pics and stories so I stay above the bridge. I can't risk coming down there and getting a skunk; you guys might figure out I have no idea what I'm doing!!😳.

#jasonmakingitlookeasy

[Tawn]

We put the ^#%#$ boards back on the boat as well!!

Ran a couple of trips with boat rods only and did okay and then we got our ass handed to us yesterday coming in with only two stinking fish.

Today we put the boards back on and used 6" & 7" baits on umbrellas. Needed 22 fish but came up short with only 14 but after yesterday - I'll consider that a win.

[Rockin' Robin]

Fished 1:30-4:30pm today, just wanted to get out and see if pattern changed since haven't fished since last week. I barely had the spread out (well, 15 out of 19 rods, anyway) before I started pulling lines in. 33-45' was loaded with bait and fish marks. Much more than last several trips. Outgoing current was cranking, 1-2mph! Got a 31" off board rod and 20" off deep boat rod and 2 knockdowns. Looking forward to tomorrow morning!

[Rockin' Robin]

I didn't really think it could get better than late May, but it did. 5 overs today, low 30's. Non-stop action from 7am-noon. The big bait is still around and keeping those nice fish around, too. Today, if I didn't have a spoon spreader with Tony 17's, almost all of my fish would have been off board rods. But that one rod caught about 1/3 of fish today, twice it was 2 at a time. 22 bites today, and only caught 2 shorts. Best water depth was 40-42'.

[Chessie27]

Man you are making it hard to not go out in the morning!! I am NOT putting boards back on the boat damn it!! I just won't!! Well....maybe just one.....

[B-Faithful]

Good talking to you Jason. You were on fire. I got tricked to staying up where I was because we caught 2 over 28" right away. I had to troll down to you get more fish. We ended up one short of a limit. All our fish were 26" and above and all came off the boards. All but one came on 9" baits too. I may need to put out some 17 Tony's..

[Rockin' Robin]

Boards with 9" baits still dominating... big bait is still here, confirmed when we snagged one on Sunday.

We had another 2 great days on Saturday and Sunday mornings... fished about 5 hours each morning. Non-stop action... about 20 bites each day, with half coming off board rods and those being the bigger fish. Boat rods that did most of the work have Captain John spoon spreaders, one with Tony 17's out 200' with 8oz inline, the other with Captain John spoons out 250' with 4oz inline. Several times we had 2 fish on the same rod, pair of 26's, and a pair of 23's were notable... and we also caught an 18" bluefish on one of the spoon spreaders. 4 overs (biggest 32") on Sat and 1 over (29") on Sun. Had one on that was probably well over 40" on Sunday, leader snapped when it was 30' from the boat.

Best depth seems to be about 42', we covered 35-45'.

All Spring white vs chartreuse didn't matter, but this weekend almost all fish caught on board rods were on white parachutes.

By the way, we bottom fished Hackett's on Saturday... 25 perch and 1 spot in an hour or so. Spot should be here soon!

[mlag]

Hey Brian..........how much will you sell that spot to "Uncle Mark" for?