July 24, 2015 - Quick trip and still killing it

Got down to the island Friday for a quick trip.  It wasn’t on my regular every-other-week schedule, but the fishing has been so good lately I couldn’t resist. Launched right at peak low tide, intending to catch the first three hours of incoming tide.  Forecast was for winds 5mph out of the NW.  Yeah, it was more like 15-20 out of the NNW.  This made keeping on bottom incredibly difficult, and I had to really work my line, continuously letting more out.  This eased up about 2 hrs into it, and I was actually able to get a 2^nd line out.  The bite was slow at first but picked up nicely after an hour.  I put some really nice fish in the cooler, many in the 12 to 13 inch range this time.   I even caught a 13-inch double header which was quite a nice pull on the 6’6” Ugly Stik.  Almost all fish were caught in the 36-46 ft range, more shallow than usual for afternoon.  Most of these were 42-46 ft.  It might have been a function of not being able to hold bottom in the deeper water, I don’t know.  I put a total of 19 fish in the cooler and am confident I could have limited out had I pursued the back end of the incoming tide, but enough was enough.

Still no reports of trout or drum, so I’ll continue to work the hardhead while they are still available.  I’m expecting the bigger fish to go scarce at any time, so I’ll take them while I can.