All good things must come to an end.....so they say!
We finished up our last bay bottomfishing trip of the season on Thursday with a very slow trip. As my previous reports indicate, we have had some awesome spot fishing this fall. With the unusually warm temperatures, the fish held on a long time for us this year. Our last really good trip was on Sunday. We loaded the boat once again and came back Monday to find less than half of what we caught the previous day. The days this week progressively got worse on each outing. Yesterday was a complete disaster. We went from catching coolers full of big spot to basically less than 20 fish per person and the fish we were catching were back to the smaller size. Is there more spot coming or is it over? That I couldnt tell you but its over for me. We start our striper charters on Nov.1st and we have plenty to do the next week or so to get ready for that season. "PROVIDENCE II" will be hauled out Monday morning to start the process.
2 things to mention before I close out the final Bay bottomfishing report for the year:
We did have one saving grace yesterday on our trip. We found acres of birds working yesterday off of the Windmill Bar area in the morning. We went out and investigated. Bluefish all over the place on top feeding on glass minnows and peanut bunker. TROUT! were underneath the blues and feeding like crazy! Our party did manage to limit out on those and caught probably 3 times that many of throwbacks! That was an awesome sight to see and really got my appetite whetted for striper fishing.
The other mention is about this past Saturdays trip.
Long time friend and client Tommy Turner came back to fish with us bringing his Carolina crew up with him. He brought some rookies with him to introduce to the sport. Now when folks show up with bobbers and split shot on a bottomfishing trip you know your in for a long day. But after a little coaching from yours truly and some of the experienced anglers on the trip, the rookies got in the game. The "FISH GODS" smiled on us that day and we left with every cooler full. The ladies really represented, Debra, Sheryl, and Trina did a hell of a job and beat the crap out of their significant others in the game. As a captain there is nothing I enjoy more than seeing new fishermen catch fish and truly enjoy themselves.
All early reports indicate one hell of a striper season upon us. We have a few dates left for the month of November for striper fishing or wreck fishing for tautog. Dec-Feb we have some dates available from Va beach. Anyone interested give us a call soon. As the weather continues to cool, dates will go fast! 804 725-6288
Thanks to everyone who fished with us this summer and we looked forward to seeing you in the upcoming months for the tremendous STRIPER fishery. We will report again on our first striper trip- Nov. 1st.