27-28 Nov 08/Black Friday High Rise Eelin
Well most of crew bailed on me Friday, something about holding wife’s purses during Black Friday sales, so headed out with Jordan and Lanie at 6:30 am Friday. With the reports of fish all up and down the bay, Ship Shoals Inlet, Triangles and OI, I thought it was time for our coastal rocks to make their showing inside 3 miles with the SW winds. Started out at CH and saw some good bait and fish marks around the Green Can but no knockdowns. Decide to make a glory run south and make it to the end of Sandbridge with no signs of life except for a bunch of netters deploying their thing right at the 3 mile line.
10 am winds are starting to lay down a bit so I have my BFT spread ready so point her east and head out to the fish hook area and scout around for a few hours.
Blue Fin Tuna Spread
No signs of life, not even feeding bluefish or striper. Well what to do now, Plan A and B are not working out so we head back into the bay and try to salvage the day eeling off buoy 18. Eel the afternoon away without a nibble. Winds are dropping off and the bay is flattening out. Ask my crew if they want to stay out and night fish. Jordan say hell yes but Lanie is getting worn out from the day’s boat ride with no fish, plus fishing Turkey day morning and cooking the Thanksgiving feast the day before. Call Wes to see if he is game and he is in even though he worked Friday and Saturday. Run home to eat leftover Thanksgiving dinner with my family and Jordan while we wait on Wes to get off. Mikey decides to make a rare appearance with his Dad and joins us too.
Head out at 7 pm to the HR to a glassy calm bay at arrive just at the start of the incoming so find us a spot in 50 foot of water ocean side. Current barely running in and the boat to our port and starboard boat nice fish so we are in a good spot. Deploy the spread of eels to cover the water column 3 floaters and 3 with various weights.
Mikey gets the first fish at 36 inches
Next hit is a double that causes some trouble and tangles some lines but we get both fish in the boat.
Jordan gets the biggest fish of the night with a nice fat 46 incher. My hand scale showed just over 40 lbs so we keep him for a possible weight citation for Jordan.
Wes boats a nice 44 incher.
Wes boats a 43 incher then I get the last fish of the night, a 41 inch stripers as the current dies out and the bite turns off. Most of the hits came on the shallower float baits at 15-20 feet.
Mikey was doing great keeping an eye on the bobbers as a couple of the fish never pulled drag and only clue was the bobber underwater. He would yell out the bobber was down and sure enough, fish on. We almost decided to stay out and pull an all nighter but decide we already had a great night so head back in just after 11 pm.
Big fish are here, hopefully the coastal season will turn on soon for us. I think this is going to be a strange coastal season for us as the water temps are already way, way colder than this time last year and the OI boys are already getting rocks on the troll.