Always a mix of excitement over the Skipjack Races and the sorrow over the effective end of summer, Labor Day 2014 was no different. Typically I don't get much fishing in over this weekend, preferring to focus on the festivities. This year, I decided to break that mold. Plan A was to fish Friday and Sunday afternoons.
Friday arrived, and it was a glorious day at about 78F tops, so typical of this untypical year. The winds were light, actually too light as the 5 mph NW wind only served to nullify the incoming tide. As a result, the drift was never really a drift. Additionally, the high tide was at 4:45pm, a full two hours earlier than what I preferred. The first set of drifts was on the west side of the channel parallel to the northern point of South Marsh Island. This produced 3 decent hardhead in quick succession, and then it just died. After picking up a decent kingfish, time to relocate to buoy 12. Here the focus was on 45-48 ft, where I managed to land the two largest hardhead of teh season at 14.5 and 13.5". after one more keeper hardhead and a few throwbacks, it was all over.
Saturday, I returned to Millsboro to watch WVU vs Alabama. Returning to the island on Sunday morning, I fried up yesterday's catch and ohhhhh were they good. One key feature of this day was a relentless 20-25 knot South wind, which only seemed to get more intense as the day wore on. So, the evening fish was scrapped. Bummer.
As a consolation for scrapping teh Sunday fishing, I was able to hook up with master shipwright Mike Vlahovich on Sunday evening, and he was able to connect me with a probable ride on a skipjack for Labor Day. And so, Blair arrived early Sunday and we got aboard the Rosie Parks. It was a nice ride, a nice but sultry hot and humid day. We finished 7th out of 10 boats. And this was how the weekend ended. Looking ahead, I will be returning in 5 days to run the Skipjack 5K. After that, I don't know exactly when I'll return or whether I'll be fishing or crabbing.
