By Capt. Reese Stecher
It was a bloodbath last Thursday. We started with the trout and the trout lost. I gave up on netting. They were coming over the side faster than I could keep up with. It was the best day size-wise all week as we ended up with a dozen keepers. We then moved onto the rockfish.
Some days they bite like crazy. Some days you can’t get a bite. And some days you have to work for it. Today was a “work for it” day and we were unfortunately on a tight schedule to get things done. Over the years, I have learned that there are some little things that you can do to talk them into eating your bait when they are not real hungry. My guys were very quick learners and got to where they were using “The Force” to lure them in. By the end of the day, that got it done when most would not. Very impressive for my guys that had never been on the boat before.
Red Drum were the goal last Wednesday morning. Conditions were great, but the drum were not cooperating. We fished a couple of different spots, and did catch a shark, which usually doesn’t happen where we were fishing until next month. And, we caught a throwback flounder. Other boats were catching the trout, so we decided to head back to the trout hole. Upon our arrival, boats were catching them, but we were boxed out and couldn’t get to the honey hole. We did catch a couple, but the writing was on the wall that we were not going to do much more, so we pulled the anchor and went back on the drum hunt. Finally, we got one! That was it. We fished a half dozen different spots that morning. It was a great effort by the crew, but a poor effort by the red drum.
On Tuesday, there was good speckled trout fishing again in the morning. After we got our fill of them, we gave the rocks a try. They did not make it easy on us, but we kept at it and ended up catching a limit with some very healthy fish.
We could not buy a striper bite Monday morning at the inlet. The water was really stirred up and looked like doo-doo from the high winds over the weekend. I finally gave up (should have sooner) and we went after the trout, which was a good move. The crew opened up on them and caught 40 to 50 fish. It was non-stop action as we cast double-rigs. Most fish were just short, but we ended up with seven legal fish. We left them biting and went to striper hole in the sound and landed a half dozen there with three keepers. We moved one more time and finished up with a last-minute 25-inch red drum that topped off what ended up being a great morning of fishing that started out slow.
Fishing has been great. Come on down and give me a call at (252) 449-0232 or (252) 202-1701.
