Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

I got an invite to fish on the Special Kate, it was going to be nice, and the dolphin bite is decent. Then, nope, it’s not going to be nice. Then, “I don’t think it will kill us, let’s go”. It was a bit nautical, and it did not kill us. First bite was not a dolphin. It turned out to be a blue marlin. We did pick up a gaffer dolphin then Hunter wanted a snowy grouper. Quick stop resulted in a couple of tiles and Hunter’s snowy. Back on the troll, we worked north where some tuna were being caught. Our next bite turned into another blue marlin. We released our second blue marlin of the day. We did get a tuna bite but pulled the hook on our one shot.

The kids are visiting for the weekend but…they were asleep and they were going to their grandparents this morning. As long as I made it back in before lunch, they wouldn’t know I’d gone. I quietly left in the dark and ran over to the eastern shore. I think I messed up my stealth mode when I started texting them photos.

The first drum was a beast. In the breakers and a strong current, that fish gave me more than I wanted. I thought about going home then but…

Three rods went off at the same time. I managed to hold onto all of them. When releasing the third, my 4th rod goes off. Got that one also. I’ll call that a triple plus one.

That was my sixth red drum release of the morning, and I really needed to run back across the bay. So, I put out two more baits…because, I had to. One of those goes off but I pulled the hook on that one. I left them biting and ran back across the bay. I managed to beat the kids home.

I ran over to the Eastern Shore for this morning’s sunrise. I caught 4 red drum from 42 inches up to a fat 50-inch fish. I pulled the hook on a 5th drum. I was back in time to take Tricia Neill out to get a softshell crab sandwich for lunch.

I ran over and watched the Mother’s Day sunrise in the breakers on the Eastern Shore. Tagged and released 3 big red drum and made it back in time for Mother’s Day lunch. Happy Mother’s Day!

I had the pleasure of fishing on the Special Kate yesterday with Charles Southall and Hunter Southall. We turned south out of Oregon Inlet. Put a spoon out in some busting fish and caught a big false albacore. Some grouper season is opening soon and Hunter wanted bait. Bait acquired, we looked for drum and found a school of reds along with a dozen other boats. I picked a big red out of that rodeo. We left them to go off on our own and found multiple schools of big black drum. We caught all of those we wanted. Measured one at 49 inches. We left them and looked for a cobia. We found rays, turtles and more black drum but never saw a cobia.

Went out after tautog with Stan Simmerman and Johnny Boyd. We caught 45 tautog before running out of bait. No big togs. I did lose a real one that hurt my feelings. Johnny’s feelings got hurt by some impressive sea bass that he had to release. He kept describing how he would have prepared them. Something to do with butter and garlic. We kept a few togs but tagged and released most of them. We recaptured one tagged tog that we had tagged a couple hours earlier.

I spent the past two morning fishing for speckled trout. Yesterday, with Stan Simmerman in his boat and again today with Stan and David Brabrand in David’s boat. Catching was good both mornings, tagging and releasing for the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program. A good number were over 20 inches. Stan caught the most fish each day. Today, he out fished David and I combined. But…both days, I caught the biggest fish 🙂 Five citation-sized fish over the past 4 trips, I’m on a roll!

Note: Today, the VMRC made speckled trout catch-and-release only through the month of June in response to the winter kill.

Went out and tagged a couple if specks this morning before deciding I had enough wind. Largest was 24 inches.