[PhilK999]

Finally had some time to go fishing today and had a crew of Ed and Pat. At first we were going to do an ealry morning trip, but decided Saturday to move it to an afternoon trip so I could get some much needed rest.

Yesterday I headed in to Tochterman's to order the tackle boxes for our Wish A Fish event and while I was there picked up a dozen bllodworms but had to go to Bluefins for chum and alwifes because Tony's freezers were down. First thanks to Tony for helping us again at Wish A Fish, but I want to mention, when Tony gets the freezers back up at Tochterman's next week, he will be handling fresh chum 3 times a week besides frozen chum for the rest of the season.

Decison was made at the boat this AM to start at the Mud Flats so off we went at about 12:30. Got there and was amazed I did not see any fleet of boats after hearing from Steve F by phone that the fleet was there earlier. Oh well, maybe with less boat traffic it would work out well.

Dropped in the anchor after finding a few marks and started our chum line. In about a half hour had one nice pull down and just after Ed got the rod out of the holder the fish spit the hook. That was it for action there.

Once the tide died, we decided to make the move to Podickery. At least there, if we did not get any fish chumming we could put the bloodworms to use for some perch. Got to Podickery and saw a lot better marks and set the hook, but with no tide moving we could not get any bites.

After while we changed strategies and Pat and Ed drifted the bloods and I held out hope for a striped creature and stuck with cut bait while drifting.

Pat and Ed gave the perch hell for a while, then Pat got a hit that damn near ripped the rod out of his hand and once he got it to the boat, he landed a nice 15 1/2 croaker. Ed followed suit with one about a 12" a little later. May need to head back the late one afternoon next week with some softcrab for a few more croaker.

Nice relaxing day on the water with some nice croaker to show for our efforts.