I was glad that Bery Edmonston and his Coastie son Jonathan were able to come aboard Mikey D Fishing on Saturday. Jonathan had liberty for the weekend, but I guess it is much better to be on the water with a rod in your hand versus a mop on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter. Conditions were typical for July. There was a 5 knot steady breeze from the west. Temperatures were in the low 90s while surface water temperatures had climbed to the low 80s. We were working the first part of an outgoing tide as forecasted by the Nautide fishing app. It not only predicts tides and weather, but it also gives insight into potential fishing activity throughout the day.
Most of the charter fleet had transitioned to working the pilings on western side of the Bay Bridge. Hoping to get back into our traditional method of chunking for stripers, we sunk alewife chunks and soft crabs in hopes of enticing some keepers. As a refresher, chunking involves fresh bait on circle hooks (at least 8/0). We use Penn and Okuma bait runner reels with 3 or 4 oz. weights. The weights are attached to a sliding swivel allowing the enticed target to take the bait without feeling resistance as the bait runner drag readily yields line. It takes some patience and discipline even for experienced anglers to let the striper peel line off the reel before setting the hook and fighting the fish.
After setting up on a spider piling, we consistently marked fish on our Simrad. The fish finder didn't lie as we proceeded to bring 10 stripers to the boat including 4 keepers, the largest of which was 24". Most of the fish were caught in a 45 minute window on the incoming tide. The bait of choice was soft crab outperforming the alewife 2:1. Bery and Jonathan both landed nice keepers within minutes of one another. For a brief period we almost doubled up as fish began to bump multiple rods.
Finally I feel like we are back in the game. While the numbers aren't as strong as the last few years and the probability of limiting out a bit lower; nevertheless we are catching healthy keeper sized stripers again! Fingers are crossed that strong summer fishing will continue and eventually give way to robust fall top water action.
Tight Lines,
Mikey D Fishing
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