On Saturday we fished with longtime friends and frequent "pro bono" clients Mike "Gilligan" Shina and John Hupp. Started at the number 1 can off of Hackett's point, about a mile out of Whitehall Bay. Off the dock at 0800; lines in the water by 0830. Although we set up bottom fishing cut Alewife, the first fish was the best of the day; a 25-26 incher by Mike bottom bouncing a soft crab. For the next couple of hours the bite was solid, and by 1100 we had 4 keepers in the box, with several 19 inch throwbacks. From there it was off to the Kentmorr over on the eastern bay for soft crab sandwiches. Around 1300 we dropped Mike off so he could clean his bathrooms, and headed back out. We made a command decision to head to the "sewer pipe," literally an old sewer pipe a couple of hundred yards north of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. We set up the anchor, and within an hour and a half had two more keepers in the boat. After that, the bite slowed, but we were able to learn some valuable info from a boat that virtually pulled alongside us after we netted out 5th keeper. Ordinarily, that would be a point of annoyance. But in this case we watched as the captain had his clients tied into a dozen keeper Rocks within about an hour. The secret was that, during slack water, the big fish sit on the bottom. So this captain was simply bottom bouncing small pieces of Alewive tied behind a 1 ounce in line sinker. A valuable lesson that would be put into play the next day.
On Sunday we were joined by former squadron mate and long time friend Tom Cosgrove, and Capt. Jeff Macris and his son Joseph. Jeff was a colleague of mine in the History department at USNA. Since we left in the afternoon, we opted to go straight to the sewer pipe. Conditions were similar to Saturday. We started bottom bouncing soft crabs and Alewife around 1330, with some decent hits but no fish. At about 1500, we decided to anchor up and wait for the incoming tide. Turned out to be the right decision. The tide began to come in around 1515, and at 1545 it was lights out action for about 45 minutes, which was enough time to put six keepers in the boat. We boated fish both dead drifting (Jeff's son Joseph got the ball rolling with a keeper bottom bouncing a soft crab. By the time the bite tailed off, everyone had caught at least one keeper, five over 24 inches, and one at 27.
I decided to make this post short for a reason. I'm going to let the photos and video do all the talking:
Tight Lines,
Mikey D Fishing
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