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Matt with a hefty 40 pound bass that bit a cork screwing tube and worm.
Last night and this morning was absolutely incredible. The midnight bite and early AM bite were awesome. The weather was pretty good too.
I had my cousin Matt with me on this trip. Matt is always good on the boat and rarely takes naps. Although he did clonk out for a couple hours towards the end of today’s trip which is of course A-OK.
We found acres of big bass spread out amongst vast expanses of virtually structureless ocean. No birds or anything to lead the way. Part of today’s trip was luck and the other part was being able to use a half way decent sonar unit correctly. I’m just glad we found them!
Small tubes were the ticket during this trip on bass up to and above the 40 pound mark. Interestingly enough, we had one run where we went 30 pounder, 30 pounder, 30 pounder, 40 pounder, 6 pounder. It was quite the mixed bag this trip, with fish of all sizes included in the mix.
The bass we found were feeding voracious at 15-35 feet beneath the surface. I’m not sure what they were feeding on but I would be willing to guess either sea herring or mackerel based on the marks on the sonar. I would mark clouds of bait with huge orange arches right smack dab in the middle of them.
We were literally on top of a pretty cool and healthy marine ecosystem during this trip.
The key to catching last night and this morning was using “kinky” tubes. What I mean is trolling tubes that are basically all screwed up. These tubes have been used and abused by bluefish and are ripped to shreds – but cork screw like a champ. That awfully weird looking cork screwing motion was the key.
Matt and I enjoyed non-stop action from the time the tubes went in the water until the hour leading up to when we decided to call it quits. Final tally was 35 recreational keeper stripers up to 41 pounds, including a half dozen 30 pounders. We also managed a few monstrous bluefish as well.
Tube and worm caught most of the fish but we put a few bass in the boat using eels. Generally when we hook up with a bass on the tube, we will flick out the eels and try to pick up a bonus fish. It’s a simple technique that you can check out in the below video.
All in all just another awesome trip.
I’m looking forward to getting a few hours of sleep and hitting the water again!
Click here for more information on this trip, areas fished and techniques used.
Take care and tight lines,
Ryan