Late weekend report- Rock Hall tournament
 

Fished the Rock Hall tournement this weekend. Fortunately chose work over fishing Friday and I think it actually paid off because it was miserably wet out there. We fished Sat and Sun from Balt light to sewer pipe to triple buoys. We chose to troll even though a lot of people were chumming (I still HATE chumming!!)

We ran 1 board Saturday with 5 rods and 9 boat rods so it made quite a mess when we hooked up with a skate a few times. Biggest fish was 27.5" on small BFG with 10 oz total out about 70' in 45' of water. Did box 3 other smaller fish as well. We weighed in nothing and the winner was 16+ lbs.

Sunday trolled the same area again and caught a lot more fish, but again, weighed in nothing. This time we kept it simple by running 5 boat rods with 2 hooks on each. We ran 2 of Capt John's spoon spreader bars, a spoonbrella, and 2 rods with BFG's. A few times a school came up to the top breaking and we were quick to have 10 fish on at once. It was pandemonium!!! Downside- biggest fish Sunday was 24"ish. Upside- great time, good friends, and caught a lot of fish. Sunday's winner was 22lbs with I think 19lbs in 2nd and 16lbs in 3rd :eek:

** Question of the day- how do you run boards with all the small fish around? Run big baits so small fish don't bother them? Run super light rubber bands so they break easy? OR do something else I didn't think of? We chose small baits with medium rubber bands and a couple of times had to pull in the rods to manually break the bands (hence no board on Sunday). Most of the boats that were trolling, were all running boards. Suggestions?

Grand total of 3 rods off each board:eek: You have all the same rods off the board so you can tell when one rod is "heavy". Easy to pull in two rods and pop the farthest rod off the clip. Don't pop the first two, just bring them up the line, leave them in the water, reach over the other two Scotty clips, release the one with the fish, and send the other two back down the line.
It is getting to be a pain to run a board (for what it's worth), but in a tournament, I think it's worth it just in case:D
5th

You still running 1 board, Marty?

Phil; the fish are schooled up nicely (down south). I only use the board sparingly. We don't put it out to start:D We have 7 boat rods. If we quickly catch our unders, and the customers have saved a couple of spots for some "overs", I will put out a board to help us be successful (I have caught more overs off the boards than off the boat).
Most of our charters are more than happy with 22-25 inch fish, so the boards don't go over the side as much now).
When the blues get here, no boards at all:D
5th

Don't want to spot burn but.....
 

Just got this pic sent to me from the weekend. I love it!! We didn't really catch much of anything here tho, just where we started fishing Sunday morning and my friend with a camera happened to be there.

you would have won if you got that purdy boat dirty with chunked bunka:D

bite your tongue!!! :D