After 10 days of getting the "PROVIDENCE II" all spruced up and ready for our trolling season we were back on the scene for our first striper trip of the fall season. The unusually warm weather we have had this fall is making for some 66 degree water temps as we start out. Thats not good for trolling, plain and simple but we gave it our best shot and were rewarded with plenty of action from the linesiders and some good quality bluefish.
Mr. Harris Bucklin came down to fish with us today bringing with him 11 other anglers looking to crank in some early season stripers. After an 8 am departure time (not my idea) we headed for Windmill bar and trolled on some working birds there. All throwback stripers, healthy looking fish but under the 18 inch minimum size limit. After steaming up north to an undisclosed location we found a big bird show and went at it. Plenty of action from the stripers and blues here. Most of the stripers were throwbacks but you would get a keeper in the mix. Id say the ratio was 5/1 on the throwbacks. These were not tiny throwbacks but were just barely under the 18 inch mark. We had hours of fun catching fish and managed to take home a good supply of fish for the freezer on an absolutely gorgeous day. Considering the warm water temps and the late start, we had a great day catching fish and a good start to the trolling season. The fish at this time are definitely scattered all over the place. From what I saw today we are still a little early and we were very fortunate to have caught anything at all on the troll. We were persistent and worked hard for what we got. Our group had a blast today cranking in the schoolies and I enjoyed having them aboard. The cooler temps associated with this front barreling in on us is going to be a big help to the trolling bite. After this blowout on Friday we will be back at it again Saturday. We will be reporting after every trip now so stay tuned. The angler in the picture is Jonathan and his fish was caught on a trip with us in early November last year. It wont be long before we will start seeing some stripers like this coming over the stern!
