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
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