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Bob, I'm not sure when you're going out, I think you may be out today. I'll post anyways.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit disorganized as my wife was in a fairly serious car accident Tuesday night. She got banged up a little, but is ok, though very sore. She was at a work function late and my daughter and I went to bed. The phone rang at 2:30am and I woke up and saw she wasn't there. I got a knot in my gut... 2:30am calls are not often good news. The accident was at around 10pm... why they waited over 4 hours to call, I don't know. I'm just glad she's OK. After seeing the car, I feel that the seat belt saved her life.
Wednesday, I was supposed to have a day off to go fishing. Obviously, I cancelled that, but my boss is cool and he told me to go ahead and take Thursday too. So, I got out for awhile.
There was some decent action on Boston Harbor by the Long Island bridge and down the south side of Long Isl. There was a massive flock of birds working, but the fish were skittish, popping up here and there. You could see the birds get excitable and group up, but the fish were doin' a hit and run thing, so there was no point chasing. The birds were everywhere, so I'd just wait for a pod to pop up by me. I didn't see anyone hook up for the first hour or so.
Things started to pick up for the boats that hung around. The fish moved as the tide started to crank and we started to hook up. I didn't notice any pluggers getting anything. Some fly-guys were hooking up and I was picking up fish on jerky baits. The fish were movin' though. I was letting the bulk of the boats stay with the bigger group of fish and I worked a couple of smaller groups that were popping up. I'm sure some of the other folks had to pick up some fish, but I just didn't see it. I caught 7 or 8, including two keepers and lost several others... time to move back up to a bit heavier rods cause I've been losing too many fish lately. I've gone to lighter tackle and I must not be getting good hook penetration.
Actually, my biggest fish came at the worst time. I hooked up on the fish and suddenly there were fish cruising all around my boat. Then all at once, the ocean exploded. It was really cool. I was able to really watch 'em for a couple minutes cause my fish was just runnin' deep. By the time I had my fish beat and released, the school was 100 yards away.
I think I could've done much better, but I'm too cautious approaching the breaking fish. I don't want to put them down, so I stop short and throw down the trolling motor. But the fish move so fast, I sometimes don't get many good casts into them. As things seemed to break up, I started cruising and saw a nice group of frenzied birds well away from the group of boats. Fish breakin' like crazy. Stopped way too short of them and never got a fish. I know to watch for patterns and direction and all, but I needed to get a fish from that school... bad job, I kept yelling at myself. I'm so worried about getting 3 fish from a school, that sometimes I don't get the first one... does that make sense?
Not staggering numbers I know, but it was decent action for a couple hours. The fish weren't easy to get, but they were active for several hours, so you were always seeing fish and birds.
Lot a boats out there for a Thursday in October... I guess the good forecast probably was part of that.
Good luck this weekend to everyone... I'll be taking care of my wife, wishing the winds were somewhere under 30 knots, and shopping for a new car.
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