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