captmike28
Well-Known Angler
Today’s crew found long term loyal crew members John and Rocky joined by Chef Nader and his friend Will for our next attempt at local North Fork Tog fishing.
With a forecast NW breeze due to freshen by late morning the logical place to fish was the CT side and since my favorite reef drop has been very productive of late that was our first stop. With 2 hours of flood tide remaining, we began with the usual sequence of small Sea Bass followed by small Tog taking our baits. The Chef started us off with a smallish keeper Tog to initiate the box. Shortly after John gets a nice hit and has a good fish on taking drag at several turns. However, his fish comes free about 2/3 of the way up and then mysteriously the Tog bite slowed down as the tide petered out. Re-anchored for the start of the ebb and the bite finally gained a little steam with both shorts and some keepers mixed in. Eventually the crew managed to add 6 more keepers to 4# to the box before the tide was just too strong to fish effectively.
So off to the local jig spot to “hide from the tide” and soon we developed a fairly steady bite here. First Will adds another 17” keeper to the box then John follows. The Chef also puts another in the box as things are looking up. As the tide began to slow just a bit, the Chef gets a massive hit and soon his rod is bent right to the butt as he keeps it high overhead to try and direct the fish away from the rocks. The fish makes a couple of strong runs against a fully tight drag, but the Chef holds on valiantly. Just as it seems he was making progress the leader parts and what I am certain was a DD Tog won its freedom. Over the years, I and my crews have taken at least 4 DD’s from this drop so I know what a trophy fish looks like in the hands of a skilled dangler. Nevertheless, we all tried to put the loss behind us and went back to work. Slowly but surely the entire team added more keepers up to 4.5# to the box as we reached a limit for the crew plus another for the captain. A bit more work and concentration was required today as compared to the last 3 trips to this area but still the results at the end of the day were nice full bags of tasty Tog filets.
Looks like the big fan is set to blow hard again for the next few days so hoping to make the next charter date happen sometime mid-week. We all hope November allows us to work the grounds a bit more frequently than October as the fishing is very strong. We shall see!
With a forecast NW breeze due to freshen by late morning the logical place to fish was the CT side and since my favorite reef drop has been very productive of late that was our first stop. With 2 hours of flood tide remaining, we began with the usual sequence of small Sea Bass followed by small Tog taking our baits. The Chef started us off with a smallish keeper Tog to initiate the box. Shortly after John gets a nice hit and has a good fish on taking drag at several turns. However, his fish comes free about 2/3 of the way up and then mysteriously the Tog bite slowed down as the tide petered out. Re-anchored for the start of the ebb and the bite finally gained a little steam with both shorts and some keepers mixed in. Eventually the crew managed to add 6 more keepers to 4# to the box before the tide was just too strong to fish effectively.
So off to the local jig spot to “hide from the tide” and soon we developed a fairly steady bite here. First Will adds another 17” keeper to the box then John follows. The Chef also puts another in the box as things are looking up. As the tide began to slow just a bit, the Chef gets a massive hit and soon his rod is bent right to the butt as he keeps it high overhead to try and direct the fish away from the rocks. The fish makes a couple of strong runs against a fully tight drag, but the Chef holds on valiantly. Just as it seems he was making progress the leader parts and what I am certain was a DD Tog won its freedom. Over the years, I and my crews have taken at least 4 DD’s from this drop so I know what a trophy fish looks like in the hands of a skilled dangler. Nevertheless, we all tried to put the loss behind us and went back to work. Slowly but surely the entire team added more keepers up to 4.5# to the box as we reached a limit for the crew plus another for the captain. A bit more work and concentration was required today as compared to the last 3 trips to this area but still the results at the end of the day were nice full bags of tasty Tog filets.
Looks like the big fan is set to blow hard again for the next few days so hoping to make the next charter date happen sometime mid-week. We all hope November allows us to work the grounds a bit more frequently than October as the fishing is very strong. We shall see!
