This morning I fished with returning guests Mike M. and his son-in-law, Keith, all thanks to Mrs. M who gave Mike a fishing gift certificate last Christmas.
Roughly 40% of our catch today consisted of hybrid striped bass. Today’s conditions were ideal — grey, warm, and breezy — just right!
Mike & Keith were a lot of fun to fish with. Poor Mike has some chronic hand problems, and reeling in his share of 72 fish didn’t bring any relief to that particular condition. It got to the point where he’d feel a fish hit and would make a noise that sounded like a excited “ooh” as he set the hook, but then that hand problem would immediately kick in and the noise changed over to a plaintive “ow”. Keith and I agreed that it kind of sounded like Mike was having a stroke, or at least significant intestinal issues. We joked that we weren’t sure if we should get the net or the defibrillator! Mike was not impressed.
For the second day in a row, the fishing didn’t start until sunrise. At sunrise white bass and hybrid striped bass began to push bait (primarily 2 1/8″ long shad) to the surface. This is not like summertime schooling action; it is much more subtle. Fish tend to be near the surface but not at the surface, and, they don’t stay there long. Sonar will typically show for every 1 or 2 fish you see on the surface, there will be 40 or 50 more down below.
This “open window” feeding time lasted for nearly 2 1/2 hours, aided by a good 7-9 mph breeze and grey cloud cover. During this time we either spotted surface action, drove to it, and slabbed, or slowly motored while watching sonar and stopped on top of significant schools. The best results today came on white & silver TNT180 slabs in 3/4 oz. fished “smoking style” for fish holding within 6 feet of bottom directly under the boat. When we knew fish were nearby but not showing on sonar, we cast both TNT180’s & large KastMasters out and worked them back horizontally. We occasionally cast to nearby fish breaking the surface, but only in quick reaction scenarios.
All of our action today came within the bounds of the roughly diamond-shaped area bounded by Areas 086/836/837/1142. This was quite similar to the terrain the fish used yesterday.
As 9:45 rolled around, the fishing was just about over. We poked around at a few areas hoping to find some still-active fish but came up with only 3 more small white bass on the downriggers. With the wind now well over 17 mph and the bite clearly done, we called it a day around 11:15.
We caught a total of 72 fish today including 2 largemouth bass, 13 legal hybrid, and a mix of 57 white bass & short hybrid.
TALLY = 72 Fish
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:25a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 68F
Wind: SSE at 7-9, ramping up to SSE17 by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were 100% greyed over, but still bright, then entire trip.