Whacked them again, July 21, 2016

You know the old saying about "striking while the iron is hot"?  Well, that's exactly what I set out to do.  Heading into a "short weekend" (one where I needed to be home on Saturday), I jump started this thing by bailing out of work spur of the moment on a Thursday afternoon.  By 3:30 I was in the middle of Tangier Sound off Wenona, ready to coincide with the peak high tide.  With a steady light breeze (5-7 mph) out of the SW, I was pulling a nearly straight west-to-east drift with the remainder of the incoming tide, drifting slightly north too.

Going strictly with squid now, I picked up a few croaker in the first 2 hours.  What was immediately noticeable was the larger size, as these fish were falling in the 11-13-inch range, with one at 13.5".  And boy were they fat too, mostly females bulked up to spawn. At 6 pm, 2 full hours into the outgoing tide and finally a slight bit cooler than the 92F I was fighting earlier, the fish turned on like magic.  It was basically one right after the other until i hit my cooler limit of 25, at which point I had to stop.  Oddly once the bite really turned on I caught the fish at all depths, from 32-62 feet.  For the first two hours, I caught the first 8 fish exclusively in the 42-50 ft range.  Note to self,...

The next day held forecast of wind 12-15 all day, with forecasted increase after 5 PM to 20 mph.  So, despite the now 95F heat, I put out around 1:30-2 PM, ahead of the 4:30 PM high tide.  Wow, I found myself fighting 3-4 ft seas in my little 17ft center console.  I took quite a pounding too for several hours before I finally headed back to the creek behind the island and anchored in order to save my spine. Unfortunately this move did not bear fruit either. With one fish in the cooler, darn near heat exhausted, and with the prospect of increasing wind, I called it a day around 5:45.  At about 7:30 that evening I began to regret my last choice, as the wind and seas laid down to about 5-7 mph and 1ft, perfect conditions for an evening fish.  Oh well,... the forecast is often the best info you have to go off of for making key decisions, and I had no reason to doubt this one. My Windfinder App is usually pretty accurate. Not so today.  Looks like I'll spend the next 2 weeks dreaming about and planning for my next opportunity.

Oh, and by the way I've decided to begin referring to the much-maligned croaker as "Silver Drum".  I believe that will garnish a significantly higher level of respect for the fish, don't you?