Fishing report week ending 7/31/11
Fishing ended with a bang this week. For most of the trips this week we caught 2 keepers. It seemed like we were stuck with that number for a while. I did a number of 4 hour trips with chunk bait this week so 2 big fish makes for a good trip. However, even on the 6 hour live bait trips we just couldn't beat 2 keepers. Finally on Wed. 5 keepers. Then sure enough back to 2 on Friday.
Saturday was a whole different story. Heading out for live bait, my crew of mom, dad their 11 year old son and 13 year old nephew, told me how they had caught a lot of 1 and 2lb largemouth but never anything bigger and were hoping for one big fish. The way the week was going I figured we would get two. Anyway we started mackerel fishing and everyone was having a great time with some of the mackerel as big as the largemouth they had caught. When we would have 3 on a single rod a lot of screaming drag took place. This in itself made for a great trip. When we had filled the live well with little macks (striper snickers bars) we decided to head in for stripers. The first few spots yielded a few hits but we were on a learning curve and no fish were hooked. Our next spot was absolutely off the charts with fish. Eleven year old Dawson and 13 year old Gunner had a hard time at first reeling in the stripers passing the rod to dad or having him or I assist, but little by little they got better and in the end they were fishing for stripers like they had done it all their lives. In the end we boated 11 keeper stripers, (only keeping 3 for dinner) . The kids caught almost all the fish as Mom caught a 34inch striper and after that, watching and shooting pictures was all the additional exercise she could handle. Dad was more than happy to just assist the kids as they needed. Really this was the trip of a lifetime for this family. Hopefully they won't expect this every time they go out. We landed 11 keeper stripers (over 28inches) in an hour and a half of fishing with many others breaking off in the structure as the kids learned to get the big fish under control. What a trip.
Hope all your fishing is as good as Saturday. Tight Lines, Capt. Joel www.nhsaltwaterfishing.com