Great Day on the Bay

I had a great day fishing with Mark Moreland, his step son Connor, son Mathew, his girlfriend Loren, Nephew Hunter and Brother Michael today.  Mathew is an active duty Marine and is set to be deployed to Japan for the next four years, and his Dad wanted to take this opportunity to spend the day fishing with his family.  I was honored that they decided to make the trip with me.
Unfortunately I hadn't fished since last week so I didn't have a solid game plan in place.  When we got out in the bay, the weather looked a little questionable, but within a couple hours it cleared up and turned into a beautiful day.

We stopped and looked at a few places that have produced fish over the past couple weeks, but they didn't show many signs of life, so we went out a little further to a spot that has produced fish for me in the past.  When we got set up we started catching nice size bluefish quickly, but pretty soon we hooked into something much larger.

After a long fight on light tackle, we finally got the fish to the boat and we saw that we had snagged a cobia.  This fish was followed by three more.  This type of action is not normally seen this far north in the Chesapeake bay, but thankfully the stars aligned and gave us a great opportunity.  The rest of the day was much the same in that we caught and released many fish all day long, and managed to take a good number home with us.  

Thank you for fishing with Nathan and I today Mark!  I had a great time, and I hope you did as well.  I can't wait to do it again soon!

Royal Pains

So, Dawn and the boys gave me Apple TV for Father's Day (thank you again!).  I was watching past episodes of the TV series Royal Pains on Netflix this evening after work, and take a look at what I saw.

As it turns out, the ONE DAY (now TREE SONS) was used in the episode Hank and the Deep Blue Sea while she was in Montauk, NY.  Pretty neat I think.

Come fish on the 39 Tiffany Yacht, Three Sons as seen on the TV series Royal Pains!

McCubbins Trip

My Mate Nathan & I had the opportunity to fish with Ralph McCubbins and 3 of his friends over the past two days.  Saturday was a particularly tough day dealing with 20 knots of northerly wind and 3'-4' seas.  We ran out to an artificial reef early, and while the conditions deteriorated, we managed to land a dozen or so rock fish.  When conditions got bad enough that we could no longer fish we headed into the river and finished the day bottom fishing.  Sunday morning we went back to the same spot that we started in yesterday, but conditions were much better this time.  Shortly after we got set up we started catching fish, and we managed to throw a few in the fish box to take home.

When the tide dropped out, the striped bass quit biting, but at the same time, large schools of menhaden popped up all around us.  Within a few minutes, the unmistakeable "whips" of bluefish appeared also.

We managed to make a few passes through these huge schools of bait and pick up several blues before the group requested that we go back to our bottom fishing spot where we finished our day. 

Unfortunately, today marks the end of Virginia's Striped Bass season, however all signs point to a good upcoming summer season of catching bluefish, Spanish mackerel and striped bass in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.

Thank you guys for a good weekend of fishing!  We look forward to doing it again!

Fields Trip

I had the opportunity to fish with Charles Fields and his crew from Luray, Va on Friday.  The day started out a little rough, but as the day went on, the wind calmed down and turned out beautiful.

We had to try a few areas before we found what we were looking for, but once we found the right spot, the bass really turned on for us.
Thanks for making the trip with us guys!  I look forward to fishing with you next year.