Jamaica Bay Tournament

What a great trip this was! This was my second year attending the Jamaica Bay tournament held at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, NY. We had around 12 members represent Maryland and Snaggedline this year. Everyone managed to land fish with a few catching some nice trophy bass.

 I left the Maryland area Wednesday at midnight and arrived at Floyd Bennett around 4 am to do some recon fishing before the tournament with Jack (Pinch) and Redfish (Michael). We all did pretty well, each of us had a SLAM that day with a bass, blue and flounder. Too bad it didn't count for the tournament but we had some good pullage.

THE BASE CAMP

Chef Jack....pancakes anyone?

Pancake burger...don't knock till you try it.

Friday - 1st day of Tournament -
Friday we wake up at 4:30 and head out to our fishing spot. Last year I tried trolling around tube and worm without any success. I vowed to never ever buy another tube again. Well, things were a little different this year. I started out trolling an x-rap and a bomber plug without any hits. I look to my left and see Pinch landing fish. I look to my right and see Redfish landing fish. Ok, time to change up. I set up one of my rods with a tube and a gulp bloodworm. Deployed the line and bam, fish on! Its crazy how the blue's are picky up in Jbay. Bluefish in the Chesapeake Bay hit on pretty much everything, plugs, rattle traps, metals, soft plastics etc. I did manage to pick up a few blues jigging BKD's and Hogy's but the majority came on tube and worm.  I only managed some blues this day but I believe Redfish and Pinch hooked up with some nice stripers. Fluke fishing was also on point this day. We used the "do nothing method" which is essentially dropping your jig to the bottom and doing nothing. Surprisingly enough, we kept landing fluke without even lifting a rod to jig the bottom.

Michael with a dogfish

37inch striper

Saturday - 2nd day of Tournament -
Saturday was an incredible day of fishing. Again, we wake up and head out at 5am. There were schools of bunker everywhere so we decide to put the tube and worm away and live line BUNKHAAAAA. Bunker is like spot up in NY. You drop it in the water and right away you have bluefish and striper attack it. This was probably the best day fishing of the tournament. We all caught numerous bass of 35inches. Biggest being 37-38inches. The bite kind of died in the afternoon so Dail (stupidjet) and I decided to move locations. We both still had live bunkah on our lines and slowly made our way to a different spot. At about 6ft of water, I hear Dails drag screaming.....fish on! A nice 37inch striper!

Dail with a 37incher

35incher

Stripaaaaaa

Sunday - Last day of Tournament -
Sunday was just miserable. Like the rest of the days, I wake up at 4:30, look out the window and it is pouring down rain. Back to bed. We wake back up at 9am and decide to get a few hours of fishing before the end of the tournament. It was windy, cold and rainy. We tried for bunkha but they were spotty and hard to snag so we decide to fish for flounder. I had a few hits, managed to land a shorty but that was it for me. Dail (Stupidjet) was able to land a nice 19incher before heading back in to shore. Overall, it was a great tournament. They had close to 300 kayak anglers attend. Fishing was excellent for the most part. Will be back again next year.

Maryland Kayak Fleet

Jack Daughtry:   Delaware Tog Bonanza. (5/8/13)

Bait of the day: Green Crab

Finally got a nice window from all this windy weather to go out and get on some tautog in Delaware Bay. Launched from Cape Henlopen State Park to a beautiful 4 MPH south wind, PERFECT! On the way out to the walls I watched an angler on the pier catch a nice size flounder. I took this as a sign to bust out the bucktail/ Gulp combo and poke around the pilings at the end of the pier. After 30-45 minutes of nothing I moved on. Hit the inner wall and started fishing with half of a green crab on a 1oz white bullet head jig. Almost instantly I was drag deep in a feisty and pregnant female tog. I fished in a few different holes and was finding decent success but with the tide going out the water quality was fading fast. With poor water quality I decided to hump it out to the bay side of the outer wall. I really got into them out there. This is only the second time I have ever run out of bait fishing for tautog. Since I was alone and do not have a Yakattack Panfish the only fish pictures taken are on the Hawg Trough. Biggest fish of the day went 23'',21'' and 18'' pictured below.

Jamaica Bay Spring Bass

Jamaica Bay Plug Fest

Matt With a Nice 35'' Bass

Jack Daughtry

Got out this morning 5/4/13 to do a little bit of recon for the up coming Jamaica Bay Kayak Fishing event being held at Floyd Bennett Field May 16th through 19th. We had heard some decent reports about a few areas but decided to head out and try a few new spots. The plan of attack was to use big plastics such as Sluggo's, Hogy Lures and BKD's while simultaneously locating schools of bunker to live line. The bunker where everywhere but the schools were small and sporadic;  Our plan of snagging and dropping was fading. It was slow, VERY slow, It was like fishing on Lunesta.
           The last of the incoming tide came, then slack, and finally the current started moving again. The moving current and the city's lights illuminated several different current rips. These are in areas where water is being forced to alter it's course around structure (i.e. humps, ledges, etc.). We decided to switch up our game plan. Matt and I dug through the mini Bass Pro Shop's we cram into our milk crates and started working some shallow diving plugs in the rips. I was using a discontinued style of MirrOlure (pictured below), and the number isn't coming to me right now but I will post when I remember it. Matt was using a Bomber A-Salt Lure and a Creek Chub plug.

MirrOlure Plug

After a few minutes of casting through various rips Matt hooks up with a decent 26'' bass. It was the start of an awesome and frustrating early morning. The finally tally was 9 bass landed between 26'' and 40'' with the majority being between 33'' and 35''. We had several other bass come tight only to pop off within the first few moments of the fight. The biggest fish of the night went to Matt. Sadly this fish did not get a photo opportunity. While clearing his lines for a photo op the behemoth creature twisted its way free of a pair of fish grips and mockingly swam away as slow as possible to let the moment sink in for Matt.

Yes these waders have pink booties, and no I did not notice they were "Wader's for Her" when I bought them.

Deer in the Head Lights.

Jack Daughtry
Eastern Bay Striped Bass 4/30/13

I had an opportunity to go fish in one of the recently opened fisheries for striped bass in Maryland’s Eastern Bay on Tuesday, and I took it. With the weather forecast looking gloomy I knew that it would be great bass weather.I Launched from Shipping Creek Landing around 530 just after sunrise.  I was looking for shallow ledges near deep water. I knew with an outgoing tide the fish would be stacked up on a ledge somewhere feeding on whatever edible fish food floated past their face.

It did not take long to find some fish and to figure out a pattern to their behavior for the day. At first I was looking to shallow in 4-8’ of water. After striking out on some shallower spots I noticed some moving fish on the fish finder. (shown Below)

With a DSI fish finder you need to remember that you are not looking for those upside down “V” shapes. The return you see is a return from the swim bladder of the fish. Striped bass look a lot like.. well you can decided what they look like from the FF captures. On the left you will see Rockfish in motion. This was in 14’ of water. I consulted the charts and now changed my game plan to look for fish in 15’ +or- on ledges. After a little bit of searching I found them, like cord wood (see right).

The bait of the day (shown of below) was a 7’’ ZOOM super fluke in baby bass. I spruced it up with a healthy dose of Herring Pro-cure and red spike it dye on the tail. The Jig head was a Kalin’s 3/4 oz, I love the hooks Kalin’s uses.

50+ rockfish were caught and all were released. The biggest fish landed of the day went 28''. the majority of the bass caught were between 18'' and 25''. They were all VERY healthy and VERY fat.