Woke up and had some things to do
Quickly did my chores and headed to the boat around 10:30am. Bay was gorgeous.
I always turn south out of Bodkin Creek, but decided to run north towards Pooles Island to see what was happening above me
Not much
Found some birds working around red #4 buoy near Hart Miller Island. Played with dinks for a while, but couldn't pull anything big enough for serious pullage out of the mix. Below will be a pic of the fish finder as I begin my drift into the school. There is also a pic of the size fish. That's not a big lure
I decided to look for better fish SOUTH
Ran and found some birds and breaking fish closer to home. These were a little better, but spread out. Jigging just wasn't going to cut it.
I put out three spreader bars with Captain John Spoons but even they were too big for the size bait I was seeing. I switched out the spreader bars and dropped over two rods with #2 planers 5 bars back that had drone baits on them. These smaller baits were the trick.
I had all I could do to keep these two rods in the water
Granted, most fish were just under, but a few keepers were mixed in. The pic is of the first 21 inch fish, and another 23 to match it came in shortly after.
I ran for the barn and spent about an hour and a half cleaning her up nicely. With the days getting darker earlier and the temperatures getting a little bit cooler, the wife has been making more trips to the boat; and she likes it looking good.
I must admit, I like less flies on the boat too. How do those little bastards find you when you are miles off the beach
So downsize to drones, clarks, or small buck tails and weed through the smaller fish. Captain John did real well again from Deale to the Choptank. If I was just using the boat for fishing, I'd move it back down to Deale. I can only hope the cooler weather starts moving the bait out of the creeks soon and the fish are there to ambush them.
For the time being, I guess we have to play with small fish.
5th