Surf Talk and JDRF Fundraiser

I decided to do a fundraiser on a message board called Surf Talk. It has been a success so far having raised $85. What surprised me was the tremendous outreach by other anglers out there that have been willing to donate plugs. I now have 10 prizes in the raffle. Two RM Smith plugs which run at least $25 a piece, a package of Hogy's, 5 homemade plugs that look amazing, an antique Atom plug and a couple other plugs as well. My goal when i started this was to hopefully raise $100 so I am almost there, but now I have a feeling that I may get closer to $150. As of right now I have 5 entrants in the raffle so each person will actually win two things and when I repost a new thread I will include pictures of all the great prizes and discuss the incredible odds of winning. Hopefully this will gain me another handful of entrants at $5 a piece. Here are some pictures of the prizes being offered.

Getting Ready to Heat Up - Or Cool Down

The general temperature of the Cape is starting to cool down quite a bit which means to me that the fishing will start to heat up. I have been disappointed at the lack of bluefish, albies and bonito in Buzzards Bay this year and I am hoping that those that fish these waters regularly are rewarded with a nice fall blitz. Overall I am very happy with the season I have had as it has been the most productive in terms of keeper bass that I have caught on my own ever. It will take a long time to add up to two of the amzing trips I have gone on with Steve Page where we threw back probably close to twenty-five 40" fish each trip. In a way though I do not even count that trip. I did not catch the fish. Yes, I was holding the rod and reeled the fish in etc, but I was not the one who found the fish and chose what rod, lure, line etc. to use. With the lack of fish in Buzzards Bay it has meant that I have had to make many a trip to the Elizabeth's in order to find the good fishing which has been loads of fun, but it has not been kind on my gas bill. Yes, I get great mileage on my boat and can get three to four lenghthy trips out of it, but it adds up real quick for a family of teachers. Christine has been awesome about letting me go out on the boat just about whenever I ask. I alos think that I am quite reasonable about it too and try to make it as painless as possible. In the early summer i could leave at 4am and have enough light to see so I was done fishing by 9am. Now that I have to leave at more like 5am I am done around 10am, but the possitives are that I really still have an entire day to spend with the family after I have done a morning fishing. I am thinking that I am going to have to be willing to get down and dirty this fall. Lots of layers and deal with some heavier seas and not be afraid to get a little rained on. With school in full swing I am going to need to take advantage of the weekends as much as possible. I am not afraid to take a sick day or two, but with having to be out a good amount for Thomas and music festivals etc. my days add up really fast. Before my last trip with Gene I told myseof that I would like to get just one more keeper before the season is done, but since it already happened I think I may add one more to the list.

Labor Day Weekend Fishing

I was looking forward to getting in some fishing this weekend before getting back to school. I went out early on Saturday morning with some eels and Hogy's. My plan was to fish the Vineyard sound side of the Elizabeth's. I started out casting around some rocks near Robinson's Hole where I have caught some bass before. Nothing there. I moved on to some rocks near Quicks' Hole and still no luck. I decided to move towards Cuttyhunk. This is the first time I have fished the Vineyard Sound side of the island. I went right up to the fishing club and stated throwing some eels. I saw a few fish near the surface that were pushing some bait around, but they were not interested in eels so I threw the Hogy at them and soon after I started doing that they were no where to be seen. I ended up going all around the island fishing rocks and the rip that sets up at the end. Still no fish.

On the way home I decided to fish a couple spots around Naushon to try and avoid the skunk. I did manage one small schoolie and a few casts later while I was getting out a knot I reeled in and had a fluke. My first one of those.

Yesterday I went out with Gene Bourque. There was a stiff NW wind that made Buzzards Bay pretty unenjoyable on the trip out to the Elizabeth's, but after we went through Wood's Hole Vineyard Sound was as flat as could be. Gene showed me some great spots along Naushon to fish. At one spot Gene got two nice keepers in the 30-35" range and I missed two fish and my line snapped on another upon setting the hook. Maddening. We worked our way south and Gene was able to get one more fish just under keeper size. We were almost at Cuttyhunk and decided to fish these rocks on Nashawena that looked rather fishy. This time I hooked up twice and brought in a nice just under keeper fish and a nice 30+" fish.

The interesting thing about the fish we caught was that each time one of us hooked up the other one missed a fish at just about exactly the same time. It was like as soon as one fish decided to attack another followed.

The ride back was awful. Vineyard Sound was OK in spots, rough in some and dead flat in others. After thinking we may go through Robinson's and return through Buzzard's Bay the 5 foot waves changed our minds really quick. We were able to really make good time from Robinson's down to Wood's Hole on the Vineyard Sound side, but it took nearly an hour to get from Wood's Hole to Fiddler's. What an uncomfortable and bumpy ride. But, worth every second of it.

Marshfield Trip

Before leaving for Marshfield I did some research to figure out whether my boat was capable of getting out to Stellwagen Bank safely. Seeing that it was possible I needed to then figure out how to fish for tuna with my limited resources of rods, tackle etc. The guys at Hogy were helpful in showing me the best things to throw at busting tuna with spinning gear. The guys at Bad Fish hooked me up with a nice trolling spread at a reasonable price.

Went to Stellwagen three times. I had a nice map and Christine's hand held GPS was very helpful. Within two miles of the bank I was looking at some boats and saw this huge black mass come fully out of the water and splash down. Humpback whale, so cool. I have been on three whale watches and never seen a humpback. I did see a few schools of tuna rise, but they come up and go back down so fast I only managed a few casts that had a reasonable chance at hooking up. I trolled for a while too, but no fish. On the radio it sounded as though nobody was hooking up so I didn't feel that bad.

Went back the next day with Christine's dad and brothers Mike and Dan. The seas were choppy and the ride there was slow. When we got there we did not see any tuna, but we saw the most amazing whale show. We were beside a humback for about a half an hour and he was jumping up and out of the water for us. Incredible.

Two days later I took the family out with Christine mom and Aunt Bitty. About half way to Stellwagen we saw multiple small schools of tuna rise up. I made a few casts, but still no luck. We went out to Stellwagen and it was feeding time for the humpbacks. They were travelling together today usually in groups of tow or three and coming up to gorge on food. While I was there I saw the hugest school of sand eels that I have ever seen. Off and on I would mark bigger fish down below and was hoping that they would come up to feed on those sand eels, but no luck. Christine got some great pics. Here is my favorite.

Why So Early?

Mike Earley doesn't quite share the same belief as I do that the early bird gets the ....... fish. Well, I think I was proven right today. No, we did not catch a large number of bass or any keepers, but I do not think that many people do this time of year at the West End of the canal. We decided to use eels. Right off the bat we were hooking up with blg bluefish. Unfortunately the blues were biting off our rigs and boating the fish was near impossible. We decided to enter a cove where there were birds working and we were rewarded with a bunch of schoolie bass. We went back to a couple drifts that we like and we started to get some good bluefish action on plugs. There were multiple boaters that were having horrible problems with etiquette. Annoying, so annoying that I will choose not to discuss it much. I truly feel these people were just dumb and not intentionally being pricks. Moral of the story: I would say that Mike and I boated 4 bass and 3 bluefish plus multiple long fights with blues on eels only to break off at the boat. I only saw a couple other boats get one fish let alone many fish.

That's why so early.

A week of firsts

This past week was a week of firsts.

1. The family went out on a little boat trip with Suzanne and the Earley children. On our way from West Falmouth to Meganssett I saw a boat approaching and I just knew that we were going to get boarded. Long story short we did not have a third adult life jacket so the Coast Guard was going to follow us in so that we could get one. The funny thing is that I knew this would not be the case. Tommy Earley was on the boat which meant we really could not go that fast. After about 2 minutes of following us they pulled up beside us and said they weren't going to follow us in.

2. Mike Earley and I went out on a fishing trip that we turned into beer drinking, sightseeing, maybe a little fishing trip. When Mike was gassing up his boat the gas overflowed a little bit so Mike knew he had a full tank of gas. With a full tank, flat calm seas and a twelve pack of beer we decided to head towards Cuttyhunk. A first for both of us. On the way there we came accross some unorganized bird action which turned out to be a few schools of schoolies. Mike got hold of a nice healthy schoolie. We then road south and we did hit a little fog here and there, but we made it to Cuttyhunk and went in to the harbor. It looks like a snapshot of 1910 if you ignore all the boats in the harbor. On the way back we stopped by some fishy looking rocks just north of Quicks' Hole. I prophesized that I would catch a 32" bass and sure enough I was able to bring in a 31" keeper. We would have thrown the fish back, but unfortunately the hook was caught up in the gills so bad that by the time we were able to free it the fish was severely bleeding.

3. Yesterday morning I went on a fishing trip with Mike Kennedy. We were headed towards the Elizabeth Islands for the hopes of some bass, but the expectation of bluefish. I was right on with this prediction other than the fact that I missed about 4 bass hits near Quicks and Cuttyhunk. There were nice schools of bluefish in Quicks' Hole and Cuttyhunk. We could have stayed all day and caught hundreds I am sure.

Yesterday afternoon our family boated around to Washburn Island. We met the Fish/Lott family and did a geocache. We tied up and ate dinner before attempting to beat the sunset. On the outgoing trip it was a little rougher than we had hoped so we left an hour and a half to make the return trip. Vineyard Sound was much better on the way back with 2 foot waves, but very navigable. As soon as we hit Woods Hole the seas were down to nothing and we were pleased to see that they were the same on the Buzzards Bay side. This was lake calm and we were actually able to open the boat all the way up and we were home in no time at all.

Busy, Busy, Busy

For summer I have been so busy. Starting on Wednesday I had gigs on every day with multiple gigs on Thursday and Saturday. The big string of gigs ended Sunday morning with a church gig. Mike Earley and I had planned an Elizabeth Islands jaunt and that started a little before 4pm. With a full tank of gas and near flat calm seas we decided to head out towards Cuttyhunk, a first for both of us. We decided to fish for the blues if they showed, but they didn't. Not one. Just south of the Weepeckets we saw some birds, but they were acting a little stange. Long story short there were a few schools of bass breaking on bait, but it was pretty unorganized. Mike caught one healthy schoolie and I had a few bass follow the Ranger on metal leader that I had bought to catch all the bluefish I knew that we would be catching. I switched to a bone Hogy when I realized we were on bass, but the schools were so unorganized we kept heading south. Around the colder water there was a bunch of fog, but we were able to keep the islands in sight and get down to Cuttyhunk and back safely. On the way back we went by Quicks Hole and saw a few spots that looked rocky and fishy. I told Mike that I ws going to catch a 32" bass around these rocks and sure enough I got some really nice swirls and finally a hookup on the 7" bone Hogy. Well, it was only 31", but it was a great fish and really pulled some drag. Unfortunately the fish inhaled the bait and the hook was really hung up in its gills. When we finally got the hook out it was bleeding so bad we knew it was going to die so we kept it. I am looking forward to getting to Cuttyhunk early some morning to get a big bass.