Post by striperjohn on May 21, 2016 8:56:21 GMT -5
Checked into our rental at 12 noon for the 15th annual Strippers/Stripers weeklong fun/fishing expo with 5 old friends.
Checked into house at noon, and headed out for bait. Found one helluva school of large bait in a creek and what started a great "one and done" bait throw, for once in many years (old bones and muscles LOL) I made a perfect pancake cast of my 10 foot Calusa and Christmas treed the net and upon emptying it we found this:
5 small stripers about 10 inches long,
14 blueback "herring" or whatever they are,(my buds call them alewives on steroids)
14-15 dozen alewives some almost as big as the bluebacks. I needed help lifting the net into the boat.
AT was 78, WT 71. We set up pulling bait in the lower lake after marking a couple small schools. I set out 6 planers, two floats, and two short freelines. One blueback got blasted about 10 seconds after all lines were out on and outside planer freelined at 24 feet. It was a nice 12lb fish to start. Then we ran over top a big school on a ledge and had both floats go and both outside back planers. After the chaos and stumbling around in the boat (my friends were great in a firefight but really suck at handling fishing rods- 
). We landed two of the four fish. All were in the 8-10lb range. By this time everyone was beginning to tire, one guy in particular travels down from New Jersey so we ended up calling it a day. He was falling asleep in the boat.
Saturday am, got bait at our dock light but it was nowhere near the size of the previous day. We took two boats out to look for breakers. AT 54, WT 67, raining like heck on and off--Striper weather! We hit a big school of breaking fish and caught 4 really fast ones before they sounded. They came back up sporadically long enough for us to catch 5 more between our two boats. Tons of fun and we started to drag bait in the area about 10am. We picked up one more fish on an inside planer at 18ft freelining and another on a float. Went to lunch and nap time. :)We headed back out at 3pm and set up to drag in and area that normally holds fish this time of year. We came across ledges from 118 to 75 to 50 to 30 and each time our baits crossed the 50- 30 foot ledge we caught fish. So with 3 caught there we set up and followed that contour line and started to really hit them. (Pay attention to your bottom guys it works). We caught a total of 11 that evening, all freelined except our floats were 3/8oz weighted at 12 and 14 feet. Biggest fish was 16lbs. All fish hit average size alewives.
Sunday we woke at 4am and our dock was so windblown, we decided to forget it. Ended up not going out in 25-35MPH winds almost all day. We were on the downwind side of the blow and waves were breaking over the floating dock up onto the boat in the lift.
Monday we headed out again for breaking fish and hit a school just inside a channel marker. They were driving a big school of slewives into a small cove. It worked out good for us. There were boats all around us and yet they couldn't see in the cove and the breaking fish. We caught 7 on topwater and a couple were fat 15-16lb fish full of eggs-still. Sat around another hour had no breaking. Set up to drag bait and this is when Murphy's law struck us. As the very last line was out, I had 6 planers, two floats and two free lines out. Set the last line in the rod holder and breaking fish at 2 O'clock! Crap. slowly headed that way and they were down. Then my depthfinder lights up the school and we had 5 lines go at once. This time the guys were a little better coordinated and we landed 4 of the 5. These were mostly small fish at 24-25 inches. Headed for lunch at Mitchell's, all soaked a bit. Got back out on the water about 4pm and couldn't quite find the fish and only had 3 small fish on outside planers.
Tuesday woke up to pretty steady rainfall, the New Jersey bud headed home and one other guy wimped out on fishing in the rain so only three of us went out. Now this is a guy that lived in the damned rain in Nam where it rained just about every day-yet he won't fish in it. 
We left the cove we were in just at daylight and spotted breaking fish right away. They went down fast. In the rain and fog and drizzle we managed to catch 3 on topwater, but the schools were up and down so fast it was impossible to get there in time to cast to them. But we tried. Headed in at lunchtime to dry out our gear etc. Headed back out a 4pm and had some crazy stuff happen. Dragging my same 10 rod configuration we came across a shoal and one float line bobbed a couple times and them was hung. Power pro SUCKS in this situation, do it wrong and cut yourself like a fillet knife on your hand. I wrapped a boat rag around my hand and broke the line. Float comes back up and stays there. So after dragging the area for about and hour, we caught four more small 25inch fish,I headed over to retrieve the float. Pulled those lines in on that side but kept the outside lines running. Got withing 20 yards of the float, it bobbed and headed away from us! We watched it swim around us for over and hour. Then breaking fish came up in the shallows near the float and it suddenly headed for deep water, went underwater, we could see it about a foot down for over 30 yards and we haven't seen it since. Weird.
Wednesday am AT 49 WT was about 65 and we got into breakers again, this time they stayed up long enough to get 4 more out of them. Nothing big but fun as heck. Went looking for the big bait school of the first day and found them after about 30 minutes of looking and got a nice mix of bluebacks, both big and small, and some nice alewives. Took our bait for a walk and hit a crazy school that stayed right behind the boat it seemed. We put our floats out and before we could start on planers they would get hit. Two fish on. Did that three times in a row in the back of a very small secluded cove and caught 9 fish in 20 minutes all on the floats and dropped free lines under the boat. Then as fast as it started the fish moved on not to be found again. Wednesday evening we were dragging bait and fish came up breaking so lines in and chasing again. Caught only one but had a great time. Schools are up and down so fast it's only a matter of time until a massive school gets bait cornered and together and stays up a long while.
Thursday AT 54 WT69. Breaking fish were sporadic and far between, so we called it and started dragging bait around 9am. Caught one fish a feisty 26 incher that tied a couple lines up before heading in for lunch. Came back out around 3pm dragging bait where we'd seen the breaking fish. We were in 120 feet of water with freelined planers at 24 feet, so that puts the bait behind the boat at maybe 4-5 feet. Yet we consistently caught fish across the entire flat. I had marked what I was sure were fish on my sidescan out at close to 350 feet but very shallow a couple times. It worked. We caught two fish in the slot at 31 and 34 inches. We caught 7 fish and a couple we got to the boat were regurgitating massive quantities of shad, so much so that we kept them outside the boat to get the hook out and release them. Those fish are moving around in massive schools just under the surface of the water attacking bait. I didn't mark but one or two fish yet they were there.
Freeline planers at 18 inside, 20 middle and 24 outside, floats light weights 12-14 feet, freelines 15, 17 feet.
Oh we fished below the bridge. Is that sketchy enough for you Mward? 
Friday am with our fun meters pegged and our sore weary bodies (we had a climb up to the rental house-for 5-60 plus year old guys that is tough doing it 4-5 times a day 
, we packed it in and headed home. Seeing a school of fish breaking while driving the boat to the ramp. 
A great week with great long time true friends. These are the kind of friends you could call from anywhere on the planet and say "I need your help", and they'd respond"where are you and this is what time I WILL be there."
John
