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A nice big bass just under the surface with a setting sun looming on the horizon.
What a beautiful weekend we just had. Right now it’s just past midnight on Sunday (technically I guess it’s Monday morning), and the wind is still nonexistent. It’s been flat calm and perfectly sunny for quite a few days now. You really can’t beat the weather we have been having.
The fishing this past weekend was stellar. I had Andy, Rob and Matt with me. A couple of weeks ago I had to cancel a trip with this same crew due to high winds and a persistent chance of thunder and lightning. It’s always tough making the call whether or not to postpone a trip, but in this case things worked out fantastic.
There’s been a lot of bait out there over the past few days – baby bunker, adult pogies, squid and who knows what else. All this bait has been driving the bass and bluefish crazy. Fortunately for the greater part of our trip this weekend we had bait, bass and blues underneath the boat.
Actually, from about sunset until midnight we had red and orange marks on the sonar. We drifted with the engine off for more than a half of a mile, and the marks on the sonar never slowed down. Not only were we catching fish but we were conserving gas – which is always appreciated by yours truly!
Andy, Rob and Matt had a ball fighting around forty striped bass up to 32 pounds on the light spinning setups. No absolute cows this trip but real steady action with bass in the 15 – 32 pound range. For quite a while it was a constant dance of double and triple hookups.
With the guys help I was able to get some pretty cool underwater shots of some of the fish, just as the sun began to set.
[slideshow id = 26]It felt more like late September and early October out there. The bass were super aggressive which has been the case for the majority of the 2012 season.
In past seasons it was not unusual for us to drift through huge masses of fish and not elicit the slightest bit of interest from the bass. For whatever reason, encountering large schools of finicky stripers has been a lot less common this year.
I think the guys were all in all pretty happy that we did postpone that first trip a couple weeks back!
I’d love to elaborate more on this trip but I’m exhausted and need to hit the hay.
Tight lines and have a great start to your week!
Take care,
Ryan