Warning, kinda long report to cover past 4 days!!! Sorry, no pics... accidentally left camera at home!
Started out Thursday, my Brother Matt and Father (capt'n Walt) headed out to try and fill the livewell with spot. I had to work, and couldn't get off Thursday so I had to wait until Friday to meet up. No worries, hopefully they could load up the spot pen for the rest of the weekend! Well, they got about 30 or so keeper spot most being 5-9"s. They then proceeded to tell me they caught about 50 "peanut spot" and let them all go.
Learned from last year that many times those tiny spot are like Gold when you get over fish that are lower 20"ers as those smaller Rock can't quite get a 8" spot down very easy. Generally ends up in a missed Rock and a mangled Spot! So we made due and first thing Friday we headed out. We ran off of Sandy and found decent marks and I sent over a fat frisky 8" spot. He quickly was slammed hard and I brought in what I figured to be my first "30 inch +" live lined rock!
Now, those of you who know me, know I've never caught a 40" trolling and 30+" live lining. So I look at this fish and know he's gotta be 30. "Dad, hand me the measuring stick!" WHAT!?!?! YOU LEFT IT IN THE TRUCK!?!?!"
No worries, we'll measure when we get back. Long story short, we got our limit with 1 other rock about half an inch - 1 inch longer then mine "30", which were our only 2 overs. WE then decided to scoop up some grass shrimp, and go play with some perch for a while. Luckily MLAG showed me a sweet set up using Shad Darts from Martys Tackle earlier this week and I really wanted to try it out with my dad and brother. So off we went and in no time, we had over 35 perch with a 9" minimum and 12.99999999999999999" Maximum. Juuust couldn't stretch that last .1" to get the citation. After that we ran to hacketts to try and replenish our spot supply and picked away at spot. most were peanut spot but a few were the nice 5-7"s. After an hour or 2 we had about 20 small spot and maybe 6 or 7 medium ones. Plenty for 1 more day of fishing. We ran back to the dock where i ran up and grabbed the striper measuring stick. Could it be? Did I finally get my 30"er! "YOU GOTTA BE (CENSORED) KIDDING ME!!!! 29.5"s!!!!"
well, I blame the ice shrinkage. But i'll let you be the judge as to whether it was a 30"er before the ice shrinkage.
Anyway, Saturday brought wind, rain, and more rain. My cousin, oldest brother and neice showed up to fish for the day so it would be a full boat with my older brother myself, and dad on the boat as well. So with what spot we hand left we ran up tot where we left the rock the day before. I was the only one who wanted to brave the rain and made quick work of a chunky 24"er. This was the only rockfish of the day as the weather turned worse as the winds picked up. We ran to Sandy Point and docked up for a few hours, but decided to head back south to South river when we saw the rain wasn't going to let up. My Oldest brother really didn't want to Striper fish, but just wanted to load up on big spot and perch to take home to eat. Well, with the weather looking bad, didn't look too good. Once docked I took a wild shot and pitched a grass shrimp and shad dart under the marina dock and promply got slammed by a fat 10" perch. SWEET! Throw the lines out! The next 2 hours we filled up the fish cooler and sent my brother home with who knows how many perch, a few up to 12"s.
This morning, the crew would be just myself, my cousin and Captn' Walt. As of the night before we still had many of the spot we caught the day before and kept them in our spot pen tied to our dock at the marina. Well, This moring, i go to put the spot in the livewell and the pen looked a little more "empty" then when i put the spot in. There were maybe 10 spot left out of the 30 or so we put in the day before! WHAT THE!? a quick inspection showed a crab hanging on the side, with a freshly cut hole and a chewed up mangled peanut spot stuck in the hole. I figured either a crab or somehow a hole got cut in the pen, alot of the spot escaped, and this one got stuck and became crab bait. "DANGIT!" off to hacketts we ran! We quickly found good marks deep, about 18 - 20' and quickly replenished out spot supply. Except this time, most were 7 - 10". Eh.. hope we don't run into any small rock that want small spot! Off to our ledge off sandy pt to try and find the rock. Long story short, we needed the small spot as the big ones would get "nervous" but woudn't get hit. So with the few small spot we had left we put 3 20's and a 22 and a 24 in the box but were still hunting for our limit fish. with a dying tide the bite quickly shut off. We made one last ditch effort and ran out to a deep drop closer to the channel where the tide was still running and I threw over a 8" spot. the spot no sooner dove down towards the bottom and SLAM! Brought the 26"er in and finished out our 4 day fishing trip.
Oh, BTW, anyone traveling the South River, beware of the crab pots inside the channel on the northern channel traveling towards the lighthouse. A few crabbers ran their pot lines directly across the channel. Makes for a fun ride playing dodge crab traps at 25 knots!!!
4 day fishing/catching report
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