Sunrise

Posted on June 17, 2022 by admin

Hit the shallows before the sun. Each time that topwater gets hit, I’m startled. Think that I would learn to expect it. Held onto 3 pups this morning out of numerous bites. Fished for cobia once the sun came up. Caught five….four little ones and one at 47 inches. After the evening storms passed through, I ran back out after the topwater bite and caught another pup.

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Happy Birthday

Posted on June 13, 2022 by admin
My birthday was this weekend and I celebrated by going fishing…because it is not like I celebrate every single weekend by going fishing. Started out in the shallows with Stan Simmerman on Saturday. We caught puppy drum and houndfish. I do think we had some speckled trout bites but we caught puppy drum and houndfish. When the sun came up, we moved to structure to try for sheepshead. We caught tautog…28 of them. All released with tags; 23 with new ones, 5 with the tags they already had in them.
Sunday I went back out after sheepshead in Hunter Southall’s boat. We fished the CBBT and caught more tautog. When the storms started to threaten, we ran closer to home to try some wreck that Hunter had found. First drop and I got slammed. I was sure that was the sheep. It was another tautog. A big old tog. They are following me around. I have never caught one that big up in the bay before. Maybe the old-timers used too…oh, that is starting to hit close to home.
Hunter had me stand on the other side of the boat so that the shore would not be visible in the photo. This was smart on his part because after that lost tautog, I had a really good oyster toad bite going. Never want to give up a secret toad wreck.
Back to work this morning but not before another sunrise trip. Caught more houndfish.
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Mornings

Posted on June 5, 2022 by admin

Saturday morning I went with Hunter Southall to try for a sheepshead. Hunter is a Marine Patrol Officer. Soon after we got to the CBBT, Hunter’s phone started going off. This was the first time I’ve had a trip cut short due to a police emergency. We did manage to catch some tautog before Hunter had to make the run back across the bay. Sunday morning, I went cobia fishing with Charles Southall and Stan Simmerman. We went to area where Stan and David Brabrand had caught 14 cobia the previous morning. It was a different morning. We missed some and tagged and released 3 small cobia. David was next to us and he caught 2.

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Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on May 30, 2022 by admin
Fished every morning. Did not go far and I was home for lunch each day. Tagged and released most everything I caught except for some puppy drum when that bite got really hot and I wanted to get casting again as soon as possible.
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Fishy Weekend

Posted on May 15, 2022 by admin
The wind let up and the fog rolled in. We can manage the fog. Spent some dark time on the dock catching perch, speckled and gray trout. Saturday morning I spent a little time on the flats then ran to Back River Reef and caught a dozen togs to 17 inches long. Two of the togs had tags in them. Today, we (Johnny Boyd and Stan Simmerman) hit a couple of ocean wrecks for the last day of the tautog season and the opening day of the sea bass season. We caught larger tog up to 28.5 inches long and an easy limit of sea bass. Most of the weekend was spent in the fog but we did have a pretty ride in.
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Morning Tautog

Posted on April 30, 2022 by admin

Stan Simmerman and I ran out this morning for a half-day togging. We caught tautog to 25 inches long, tagged and released some, and caught some sea bass including one that had a tag in it.

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Reds

Posted on April 24, 2022 by admin
I fished the past 3 days for speckled trout, puppy drum, tautog (really hoping for sheepshead after Wes Blow caught some really early sheeps while tog fishing yesterday) and spent at least a part of each day fishing for big red drum. I caught oystertoads, stingrays, and big reds. Yesterday, I started fishing for pups at first light up next to the marsh with peeler crab under bobbers. A little topwater I threw did not get eaten by a pup or speck but by a way-too-big red drum for that little spinning rod. I spent most of the morning chasing that fish all over the flats while Stan Simmerman was sending me speck reports about the fish we did not find the day before but he and David Brabrand were catching. I said he was making stuff up and that speckled trout do not exist. He sent photos. After my red drum was done showing me the entire flats, I went back to the marsh and fed peeler crab to stingrays.
After topwater drum bites for the past two days, Stan and I went back out early this morning with topwaters on more appropriate tackle. They did not want that. We then went after tautog/sheepshead and found a good oystertoad bite. We then went back and found the big reds cooperative.
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Not Trout

Posted on April 22, 2022 by admin

Stan Simmerman took me trout fishing today. We did not do anything with the trout.

We were actually fishing Keith Nuttall’s boat. Keith was in another boat. He was right beside us when this fish blew up on a topwater bait.

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Today’s Tautog

Posted on April 16, 2022 by admin

We ran over a lot of good togging grounds to get the Triangle Wrecks today. The catch made the run worth it. We kept a box of nice togs, tagged and released others, and caught four that had previously been tagged. This included a 24-inch tog that Wes Blow re-released with its tag. Both Wes and Stan Simmerman caught togs that will weigh in the double digits. We also caught some nice sea bass that should be there when that season opens.

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Specks

Posted on April 15, 2022 by admin
I had planned on tautog fishing today but the forecast made me chicken out. Turned out a lot nicer than I thought…anyway…  Stan Simmerman invited me to give the speckled trout a try. Apparently, we stole Keith Nutall’s boat. It started out slow. I told Stan to call Keith and tell him that his boat was broken…it doesn’t catch fish. Stan just laughed and showed me photos of Keith’s recent gators. Then Stan proceeded to catch speckled trout. I got to net them. We hung out until I finally caught one. I thanked Stan and told him that one fish would keep me from being made too much fun of. He said that he should have just taken me in after I told his one boot, one shoe story last week. We will give the tautog a try tomorrow.
I did ask Stan if I should be a real speckled trout angler and blur out all of the photo backgrounds. He said he wasn’t worried about that so you can see the super-secret area I wasn’t catching trout in.
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