What a nice day!

[Got Stripers]

I had to force myself today, but I had it in my mind to give the 8 inch grub a workout, especially after I nailed a nice one with GB one night. That night I was strolling, which is trolling but using the trolling motor, slower and quieter. I was basically just dragging it and snapping it every few seconds.

Today after I loaded the boat with some horse mackeral just outside Scituate Harbor, then towed a boat in that was in trouble, I headed down my favorite milk run of ledges. Not very promissing and 1-1/2 hours later, throwing my split tail and dragging a live mac, I still had no bass to show for my efforts. I finally picked up one outside Cohasset a nice fat fish around 26 inches and 9 lbs, then I decided I head to Boston. I wanted to work that grub around Hardings Ledge because of the depth around and throughout the area. Sweet man, 3 nice fat 24-27 inch cod, and a half dozen bass to 33 inches. I only keep one of each for diner tomorrow night with my brother-in-law coming in, the rest were released.

Then later working back I I nailed another half dozen bass on a ledge close to Scituate, all just under/over that keeper mark, all on the grub either cast or strolled. Man the tail on that thing has an unreel action, both swum and on the fall. This thing might just push my split tail aside, not for fun but for versitility. I'm hoping the major move for fish hasn't begun, because I wasn't all that impressed by the numbers today. Some nice fish to be sure, but early June better bring some better numbers.

I have to say, it was nice not having to deal with wind for a change, what a sweet day. Some rain early, but then mostly overcast, partial sun and some decent fishing. Nice day to get back on my home waters.

[GBOUTDOORS]

Sounds like a great day Bob. I owe you some money and would like to get some of those 8" curlytails please So lets get together some time this coming week.

[Got Stripers]

I'll call you, my brother-in-law is in for a week on Wednesday and at some point he will want a striper fix. I want to get a scope on things down your way as the tides are looking good this weekend.

[Van]

GS:
I was fishing hardings yesterday also.
We live bait fishing some smaller mackeral and were nailing bass from 27-30".

What time where you there?
I only saw three other boats.

[schoolie monster]

First of all, Bob, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you Sunday. My daughter has picked up a new habit of playing our messages... at 4 1/2, she's not quite versed on passing on those messages. Apparently sometime Sunday afternoon when they got back home, she pressed the button... our machine saves the messages automatically, but I didn't get yours till last night while cleaning out the "archives"...

I was "guiding" monday, so I wouldn't have been able to go, but I felt kinda bad. Glad you had a good trip out and thanks for the invite.

Anyway, yes, yesterday was fantastic... after non-stop winds for a month+, it was great to get out and not get too beat up. The morning was so quiet and calm... it was just awesome. I took my cousin's fiance out for his first taste of saltwater fishing. We had a blast. I had him fishing mostly with a FW special... pearl cocahoe shad w/teaser and he caught 39 stripers with the bulk of the fish between 16-24". He also go quite a few of those on popper's. The teaser produced well including numerous doubles with the bigger fish more often caught on the teaser. I felt that the smaller fish were getting to the bait first, with the bigger fish following them then hitting the teaser. Todd is an avid freshwater bass angler who fishes tourny's, etc. so he's a good fisherman, but he was in awe of the incredible action. Add dozens of hits and explosions on the popper and we had virtually non-stop action throughout the day.

I had my fix of numbers from Sun, so I fished mostly larger jerkbaits and was really picking up the bigger fish regularly. Most of my fish were over 20" with many just under keeper size. Out of the 24 fish I landed, only two fish measured, both 30"... Todd lost the biggest fish of the day right at the boat... it was probably 34" and thick.

There was a big school that stayed up most of the morning, but their where a half dozen boats on it, so I stayed after the faster moving "off-shoots" to keep to ourselves a bit more.

For the weekend overall, the harbor and rivers are loaded. Saturday I didn't find any fish up top... I think the wind had the bait spread out. I found fish on Jacknife Ledge, the flat at the mouth of the Neponset River (on the incoming), up in the river, and on the outgoing tide in the Back River. I had a bunch of keeper size fish follow my bait or a hooked smaller schoolie and I landed 3 fish 29-32" and had half a dozen more that were right under the mark. Most of the fish fat and healthy with alot covered with sea lice. The big producer was my new GS smoke/clear belly jerkbait... its got quite a bit more mass than a slug-o and the bigger schoolies were diggin' it.

More wind on Sunday so instead of fighting it (and spending an hour waiting to pull the boat out), I switched to smaller jerkbaits and shads and hit my favorite shore spot and caught fish after fish, mostly small, but a few decent mixed in, including 2 keepers. Again, there were alot of those micro bass (10" and under) that I don't remember seeing before. Tons of those on the cape this spring...

Anyway, when I bought the new boat, this was the type of fishing I had envisioned... fast exciting action with light tackle and artificials. I gotta admit, I'm pretty darn happy. The damage for the weekend was well over 100 bass (plus, Todd's 39), plus Thursday's bluefish action down on the cape. I'm one content tired raw handed SOB right now.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend as much as I did.

[Got Stripers]

It was later in the morning before I hit Hardings and I tried raising FW on the VHF a couple times, but I never thought to try you. Do you have a VHF on board or a cell phone I could have raised you on. Sounds like there was better action inside then out.

[Van]

GS:

I do have a VHF and when its on I monitor 68 and 69.
Vessel name is KARAVI.

I was at the ledge around 11am til about 1pm with my son.
In our 201 Proline with evinrude OB.

Is your boat the one in the attached image in your post? LUND?

What is the vessel name?

Also MSBA is starting a list of member boat owners, who eventually will hail the same VHF station and hopefully share info.
Keep it in mind.

Are you from the south shore area? No location on your screen name?

[Got Stripers]

Yeah Van that's my boat, a Green Lund 1890 ProV with dual consoles and a 130 HP Honda 4-stroke on the back end. You might have been there when I was, you would have seen me dragging a mac and jigging with my trolling motor down.

Vessel name isn't on it, but Got Stripers works for me. I really don't monitor the VHF, as I find it just takes away from the experience I'm after. I only put it on when I want to take a break and see whos out and about. It might be nice to put a list together, I'll start a post on the boaters forum.

Tight lines.

ps: I was selling rubber at the How To MSBA meeting so you might have met me then.

[Van]

We must have missed each other somehow, or I didn't notice.
Ditto on the radio thing.

The MSBA boat list request was in the spray this week.
I answered by e-mail, and filled in the required info.

As for the how-to meeting, I think that is the one I missed
because my son pulled some internet crap that got him
on the SH_T list at home.

I was at the meeting last week though.
I still don't know too many members, but I'm getting there.