End of Summer Rockfish Crush

So, fast-forward exactly 3 weeks from the last time I fished.  Friday, Sep 20, 2019- totally dedicated to Dan's birthday weekend.  We launched out of Wenona at 3pm, stocked heavily with soft-crabs, which can be especially tricky to find this late in the season and especially with a major tournament being held.  We headed to the islands, back to my new (2019) secret spot.  I stil can't exactly time the tide there, but I'm close enough.  All I know is that it goes slack very briefly, and then rushes the other way with quickly accelerating ferocity.  And you need to time it to catch the first 90 minutes of that newly moving tide- ebb tide works best.

We got Thundertruck in exactly the right position to provide for the 5-10 mph southerly breeze and the tide change.  Water temp was noted at about 74F, perfect.  We caught the last 10 minutes of incoming tide, then a very brief slack. Just enough time to get rods rigged, bait cut, and the tunes rolling.  And then, it happened.  We caught a few small fish at first, and then it was rockfish city like it was nobody's business.  Dan, Mark, and I had our collective 6 allowed keepers in less than 30 minutes, mixed in with a couple of keeper (15, 16") speckled trout (which I just fried up tonight for dinner- YUM!!).  We spent the next hour catching many, many rock, including probably an equal number of keepers which we of course released.  One noteworthy observation- a lot of skinny rockfish, not all but enough that we noticed.  I started to see this in early August, and I'm not sure why.

Saturday we fished various places throughout the day.  There was a lot more exploration of other places, including the Manokin where I caught a few nice perch, and Sharkfin Shoal where I caught a keeper rock as soon as we pulled up and anchored.  I'm looking forward to cooler weather and tossing lures at the rock fish.  So many new places I want to try.  Until next time, #dealislandrandy

Last day of August, 2019- Mid-day Rockfish bonanza

All summer long I have been catching rockfish in shallow at my new spot around one of the Tangier Sound islands.  All these trips, I've tended to go toward late afternoon since it is more comfortable than mid-day, and the tide has been favorable at that time.  This day, the tide was best starting just shy of 1pm.  This was the first opportunity I've had to fish with my oldest son Brooks in a couple of years, so I was really hoping to put him on some fish.  To seal the deal, I also invited my buddy Peter, who seems to be sort of a charm when it comes to putting fish on the line.

We launched Wenona on a hot and sunny day around 12:30 and got to our spot around 1pm.  The tide was still coming in around arrival, but just barely.  I was hoping to catch it a little earlier but this is how it played out.  Using soft crab, 2/0 hooks and 1 oz of weight- we quickly caught 6 small fish- each one a different species: Spot, Kingfish, Sea bass, flounder, Croaker, and Rockfish.  The tide slacked and it was nothing for about 15 minutes, which is typical for this place.  Then everything changed, and fast.  As the tide went out, the rockfish turned on with a fury, and in about 90 minutes time we caught no less than 75 fish.  I've never caught so many 17-18 inch rockfish in all my life (legal limit is 19")- it was fun and frustrating all at the same time.  And just like that, it was all over.  A final observation is that the water temp, which had been 86.5F two weeks prior, had cooled down to about 80.5F.

I'll wrap this up with a couple of pics I took during the 2019 Deal Island Skipjack Races.  I was blessed to be aboard The Kathryn, the most awesome skipjack of the fleet- thanks Dawn and David.  Until next time, 

#dealislandrandy

Aug 17- dog days of August Videoblog

I decided to try something different and make this update a video blog.  Welcome any feedback.
#dealislandrandy