So, now that my laptop rebooted in the midst of my attempted blog update, I'll tell this story a 2nd time. However my enthusiasm is now fading. Hoping to pickup where I left off in June, I planned to fish July 2 and 3 despite a less than stellar weather forecast. July 2 rolled in with a rainy forecast, and light winds out of the NE. I waited until 5:30 pm to launch, targeting only the final 2-3 hours of the outgoing tide. Also, I returned to the site of my last success, just north of Wenona and on the west side of the fishing channel. Focusing on the 60-30 foot slope, I immediately started to throw fish in the cooler. And these were the overall nicest quality fish I had caught in quite sometime, all males in the 11- 12 1/2 inch range. The fish began biting in the 50-60 foot range, but by 7:30 pm were up to 30-35 feet. 20 fat Croaker made their way into my cooler.
Next day brought sunny skies and breezier winds out of the SE, with rain not forecasted to start until night. I had my friend David and his young son on board, so showing them a good time was priority #1. Again, squid was the hot ticket, so my soft crabs went home with me to be eaten. The fish were slightly smaller at 10 1/2 - 11 1/2 and all females, but we put 24 nice fish in the cooler and had a great time doing it. Most fish were caught in the 40-45 foot range. By 5:45 pm winds had picked up to >20 mph, so we called it quits. The rough ride back in was worth the 24 fat croaker we put in the cooler.
Just want to take a minute and emphasize the importance of weather in my fishing plan. I begin my weather survey a week in advance by using the Weather Channel website (weather.com), which frequently helps me choose what days might be available for me to choose from. As the week draws on and at about 4-5 days out, my focus shifts to looking at the wind forecast. When fishing the open waters of Tangier Sound in a 17 foot boat, wind is absolutely my biggest concern. I will plan everything around the wind. My two sources for getting a good wind forecast are NOAA (http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/Forecasts/FZUS51.KLWX.html) and Windfinder.com. The NOAA site gives me some good general info about the conditions, including wave height, on a daily basis. Windfinder gives me a nearly bullet-proof forecast for wind speed and direction and breaks it down to every three hours. Within a 2-day window, these are extremely accurate. Since my cell phone frequently does not have a signal while out on the water, I have got to have this info nailed down in advance. On more think I check before leaving the dock is the radar picture. MyRadar is my favorite radar app, and I can zoom in or out to whatever resolution suits my needs.
Hoping to get back out soon, and now that I've got some croaker in the freezer, I'd like to connect with some trout and rock. We'll see,...
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