Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating - View Single Post - I say we start a 2021 no bashing fish pic/story thread

Linesider82 · 10-26-2021, 10:47 PM

I had a friend and his son (15 or 16 y/o) out with my son (6 almost 7 y/o) over the weekend.

I woke my son up at 4:15am and managed to move him to where his fishing attire was located away from where his little brother was sleeping. I made him a cream cheese and jelly english muffin with a peeled clementine ready to go at his seat in the truck, which he ate and took a little nap before getting to the ramp. My other party was there ahead of me, which was great, and we launched in the dark after moving some rods around at adding lunch to the cooler.

Made a short run and started working a shoreline for bass with the doc and my son had a grey lady tackle 200 which could be a needle or a pencil depending on how it was worked. on the second drift my son's plug was knocked into the air, then followed in boat side without any luck. two more similar drifts happened with attempted strikes and no hook ups, I wish I had put a needle or loaded redfin on one of their rods if I had a second shot. I called it, and said time to tog.

So we shot over and anchored in one of my favorite places for tog, as an incoming tide has been best for me in this particular area. My son got to work immediately, he started cutting crabs and sending the legs and claws over the side. He devised a rating system for the crabs, which should be sent down first, the yellow kind, orange inside, stinky, juicy, and stinky and juicy. We managed a bunch of short fish and only added 3 to the box at 20", 18" & 16.5", & decided to have lunch early before moving. During our snack, a big flock of geese flew over head and I asked my son if he knew why one side of the "V" in the geese flocks was always longer? I told him, because there are more geese on that side. wahhhnt waaa waaaah. Anyways, we decided to get the flock out of there, and while doing so, I noticed a pile of fish on a 45'-50' breakline and decided to switch all the tog gear to vertical jigs. I asked my son to get the squid pack from the cooler, and he got to work. By the time I had the gear swapped out on 4 rods, he had the squid cut into strips and 4 drifts produced a bunch of BSB and decent scup. My son managed about 10 fish including two keeper scup and 1 keeper BSB which was the perfect pick-me-up we needed leading into my move to a spot I had picked out and never tried for the turn.

I sent the anchor down and kept it short on the rocky hump and we started all over again, chumming legs and dropping tog jigs down. After about 15-20 minutes the fish found the food trail and it was ON! we quickly went from our 3 to 9 and let a bunch others go over size, my son had one off the bottom a few turns and then it just smoked the drag and cut off on the reef below. We left them biting, but I had to call it a day.

I asked my son if he wanted to ride in the beanbag back, but he insisted on sitting next to me. That lasted for a 1/3 of the ride in before the tug on my arm, "Daddy, I think I'm going to fall asleep" he slept until about 15 mins before getting home, woke up and started laughing to himself, saying "I thought we were still fishing". I told him how proud I was of him for all the work he did on the boat, making the trip the best possible for everyone on the trip. No doubt he was the MVP.

10-26-2021, 10:47 PM	#160
Linesider82 Registered User iTrader: (0) Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: CT Posts: 2,296	I had a friend and his son (15 or 16 y/o) out with my son (6 almost 7 y/o) over the weekend. I woke my son up at 4:15am and managed to move him to where his fishing attire was located away from where his little brother was sleeping. I made him a cream cheese and jelly english muffin with a peeled clementine ready to go at his seat in the truck, which he ate and took a little nap before getting to the ramp. My other party was there ahead of me, which was great, and we launched in the dark after moving some rods around at adding lunch to the cooler. Made a short run and started working a shoreline for bass with the doc and my son had a grey lady tackle 200 which could be a needle or a pencil depending on how it was worked. on the second drift my son's plug was knocked into the air, then followed in boat side without any luck. two more similar drifts happened with attempted strikes and no hook ups, I wish I had put a needle or loaded redfin on one of their rods if I had a second shot. I called it, and said time to tog. So we shot over and anchored in one of my favorite places for tog, as an incoming tide has been best for me in this particular area. My son got to work immediately, he started cutting crabs and sending the legs and claws over the side. He devised a rating system for the crabs, which should be sent down first, the yellow kind, orange inside, stinky, juicy, and stinky and juicy. We managed a bunch of short fish and only added 3 to the box at 20", 18" & 16.5", & decided to have lunch early before moving. During our snack, a big flock of geese flew over head and I asked my son if he knew why one side of the "V" in the geese flocks was always longer? I told him, because there are more geese on that side. wahhhnt waaa waaaah. Anyways, we decided to get the flock out of there, and while doing so, I noticed a pile of fish on a 45'-50' breakline and decided to switch all the tog gear to vertical jigs. I asked my son to get the squid pack from the cooler, and he got to work. By the time I had the gear swapped out on 4 rods, he had the squid cut into strips and 4 drifts produced a bunch of BSB and decent scup. My son managed about 10 fish including two keeper scup and 1 keeper BSB which was the perfect pick-me-up we needed leading into my move to a spot I had picked out and never tried for the turn. I sent the anchor down and kept it short on the rocky hump and we started all over again, chumming legs and dropping tog jigs down. After about 15-20 minutes the fish found the food trail and it was ON! we quickly went from our 3 to 9 and let a bunch others go over size, my son had one off the bottom a few turns and then it just smoked the drag and cut off on the reef below. We left them biting, but I had to call it a day. I asked my son if he wanted to ride in the beanbag back, but he insisted on sitting next to me. That lasted for a 1/3 of the ride in before the tug on my arm, "Daddy, I think I'm going to fall asleep" he slept until about 15 mins before getting home, woke up and started laughing to himself, saying "I thought we were still fishing". I told him how proud I was of him for all the work he did on the boat, making the trip the best possible for everyone on the trip. No doubt he was the MVP.