Granddaughters and their "Caretakers", DIL & Son, invaded Maine on Friday. Son & I got out Saturday evening for some reel fun w/14, very fiesty 26" stripahs, some so combative that I swore they were keepers by virtue of the long runs they made. We had to "find" the fish by "Echo Location", listening for breaking fish in the thick fog. Seems nuts, but there I was running both the GPS and the radar no more than 0.2 nmi from the dock. Regardless it was a fun evening.
Today My Admiral and my son's Admiral decided it was Mani/Pedi time and we would watch the granddaughters so we took them out in the boat to go fishing of course in the late AM. The birds were milling around looking for action so I kinda plunked the boat in the middle of the "Milling Flock" and my son quickly connected with a 28" fish, nice start. We continued to play "Guess Where" for another hour with a few massive swirls and one hit that broke off a hook of a treble, but nothing boated with the exception of a seagull, oh joy, that was quickly released.
At dead low, which wasn't a very low one, I noticed diving terns over bait and a few boils in a very shallow part of the river, which I figured to be less than 2' deep. At that point the breeze was away from those flats and the tide was coming in so I figure, WTH even if a do get stuck we'd be safe, and son wanted daughters to crank in a rat bass. He soon hooked a 22" fish that the 8 year old cranked part way in. At that point I noticed that the hook on that plug needed replacement, so I handed him my rod so I could work on that. Then there were gulls wheeling around which meant bigger bait and bigger fish, but with 1.7' feet of water, it barely passed any noticed. Suddenly my son hooked up with a fish that looked small as it greyhounded after it hit, but then we started to really wonder what was going on as this fish took off on a couple of extensive runs on my relatively tight drag.
As we were still convinced it was a smaller fish based on the visual, the rod got passed between the 8 and 5 year old granddaughters; the 3 year old wanted no part of it. When the fish got close to the boat my son commented, "Dad this IS a big fish" and I looked over the side at a very respectable fish estimated to be close to the upper end of the slot. He took control of the rod while I grabbed the net, putting it under a 30" beauty. So a total of 3 fish today, 2 of them slots for 2 hours of fishing in the middle of the day no more than 0.3 nmi from "the barn", not a bad way to spend some time with your son and granddaughters...
Today My Admiral and my son's Admiral decided it was Mani/Pedi time and we would watch the granddaughters so we took them out in the boat to go fishing of course in the late AM. The birds were milling around looking for action so I kinda plunked the boat in the middle of the "Milling Flock" and my son quickly connected with a 28" fish, nice start. We continued to play "Guess Where" for another hour with a few massive swirls and one hit that broke off a hook of a treble, but nothing boated with the exception of a seagull, oh joy, that was quickly released.
At dead low, which wasn't a very low one, I noticed diving terns over bait and a few boils in a very shallow part of the river, which I figured to be less than 2' deep. At that point the breeze was away from those flats and the tide was coming in so I figure, WTH even if a do get stuck we'd be safe, and son wanted daughters to crank in a rat bass. He soon hooked a 22" fish that the 8 year old cranked part way in. At that point I noticed that the hook on that plug needed replacement, so I handed him my rod so I could work on that. Then there were gulls wheeling around which meant bigger bait and bigger fish, but with 1.7' feet of water, it barely passed any noticed. Suddenly my son hooked up with a fish that looked small as it greyhounded after it hit, but then we started to really wonder what was going on as this fish took off on a couple of extensive runs on my relatively tight drag.
As we were still convinced it was a smaller fish based on the visual, the rod got passed between the 8 and 5 year old granddaughters; the 3 year old wanted no part of it. When the fish got close to the boat my son commented, "Dad this IS a big fish" and I looked over the side at a very respectable fish estimated to be close to the upper end of the slot. He took control of the rod while I grabbed the net, putting it under a 30" beauty. So a total of 3 fish today, 2 of them slots for 2 hours of fishing in the middle of the day no more than 0.3 nmi from "the barn", not a bad way to spend some time with your son and granddaughters...
