August 3 and 4, 2019: Fishing still hot !

I know this is starting to sound old, but I don't care: this is the best year of fishing I've had in awhile.  With the decline and eventual departure of bottom fishing culminating in 2015, I had to re-invent my game.  I've had some good outings for rock and speckled trout the last 3-4 years, but this year I am absolutely on it.  Meaning, every time out since early June I am catching loads of rock, and sometimes speckled trout.  Last year I used mostly artificial and swore I was done with bait.  This year, it's been all soft crab.  It makes a mess, but it is can't miss so far.

My pattern continues to be later in the day (launch ~330pm), catch last hour or so of previous tide, and /or the first part of the next one.  The catch starts with the slack- as soon as water starts moving, and continues with the moving tide (coming in or going out) until the water is simply moving too fast.  This past weekend, the tide was early and it was blazing hot, so we got the outgoing tide only.  And Saturday, I had to wait on my WVU buddies traveling in southern WV so we got there after the tide was rolling out.  Sunday, we timed it right and got there just at slack.  Note to self: the tide charts for this spot tend to be trending a little later than actual.

Saturday we put only one keeper in the cooler, and one 18-inch speckled trout.  But, we caught a lot of nice fish and of course released all those under 19".  Sunday, we put 3 nice keepers in the cooler and caught a ton of total fish.  I'll include a couple of video clips of TJ, Pat, and Jack from my gopro- unfortunately didn't have it running while catching the bigger fish.

Headed to the Target Ship Friday on a charter, and maybe back to this spot on my boat Saturday for a quick fish. #dealislandrandy