Not a promising start. On Wednesday I started out at Buckroe Pier and managed 13 spots. Then I fished the east wind for two days at Jennettes while the Nags Head Surf Fishing Tournament was happening on the beaches. While the wind was E-15 and should have been drummy, the water was king green. I tried and managed a couple of atlantic sharpnose sharks and one ribbonfish. I got one bluefish out of my hours and hours of throwing stingsilvers and gotchas for big spanish and false albacore, which were popping up everywhere in rivers of glass minnows all around the pier. I didn't score, but a Hokies did (grad of 08 who plugged for hours and managed five spanish, with three 3-4 pound class 22-24 inch fish.) My friend Hampton got the only albacore.
I could have fished today, but the weather is the same. I bet they have another big run on Saturday when the bigger blow starts.
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Thanks French. Big blow coming down the coast over the weekend. 30s out of the North. I'm sure the drum will be chewing.
I finally went to the doctor yesterday for X-rays and have three broken ribs, 6, 7, and 8, in my back. She said they "splintered in a very interesting manner," like she hadn't seen them break like that before. I am bailing on the ND game and I am not happy about it. Probably the only one I could swing this fall. Lots of friends in town and I need at least two rails. She told me 8 weeks of recovery. No boating or guiding for me for at least another week and then I'm going to try.
Thanks for the well wishes. I don't recommend falling off of your boat 4 feet onto pavement.
On a positive note, I've officially done over $10,000 in earring sales this year. Crazy how this has blown up, and I only use fly tying materials. Pretty much done with the fly tying business and will be earrings from now on, the money is too good.
Glad to hear you know what ya gotta do to heal up and hope ya have a fast recovery. Funny how the best lessons learned are usually learned the hard way.
I'm off to go get ya some pheasant feathers this weekend I'll let ya know how the haul looks by the end of the trip.
Funny how the best lessons learned are usually learned the hard way.
That is a painful truth in more ways than one.
Sounds good on the feathers!
Hey man...sorry to hear about your injury, but glad to know your earring business is taking off! On that note, i promised I'd buy 2 sets for my wife and daughter for this xmas (or birthdays- they're both in december, my daughter the day after xmas). Can you help me out with a link to your site or email me at: cmahler - at - potterarchitects - dot- com? Also, do you have any ones specifically in Hokie colors? Thanks in advance buddy. Hope you feel better soon!
Thanks Topher, it's not the worst thing that has happened to me. I'll be better soon enough.
The website is www.prettyfly-designs.com I'm going to make a code for a discount for any TKPers. 25% with TKP25 at checkout. I'll probably have the code punched in tomorrow.
I can definitely do some in some muted Hokie colors, but I don't have any of those on the site right now. Maroon is a bit hard to find. If you don't like what you see on the website, most of my styles are on IG, @prettyflydesigns_ .
Thank you!
Order placed bro. Thanks!
Amelia Island on Monday. Amelia river and St. Mary River and adjacent marsh. Guide: Ben with Fire escape Giude service. Awesome time, caught some lady fish and whiting for bait. Great spot for keeper red (3) and then 3 bull red drum, found a great grass oyster bed line for some fun trout on shrimp and finished with 3 sharks. Best part was that on the monster drum as I was holding them I got to feel the drum thump, first time for me.
Will attempt to post pics later.
Felt the drum thump, you are ruined now!
Congrats!
You have some serious tide there. I used to fish just south of Nassau Sound and have ventured into Georgia a couple times.
I'm kind of in the same boat as FlyGuy (pun somewhat intended). Was moving some of our stuff around in storage a couple weeks ago (to make room for more new house stuff that the Mrs. just HAD to order before we even got into our house) and felt a good pop and a ton of pain in my shoulder. Turns out my rotator cuff is torn (again) thanks to some hardware from my last surgery coming loose and getting stuck right where it could have done the most damage possible. So I'm done fishing for a solid 6+ months depending on when I decide to get that fixed.... This getting old stuff is for the birds. FlyGuy, I hope your recovery goes well, quickly!
Brewin has no idea how bad he's going to be jonesin for a red thump here in a few days! Good job gettin on em! Amelia is one of the places I really want to get to before long.
Y'all are gonna have to invest in the rocket fishing rods that shoot the lures
Oof, sorry man. I hope the recovery is quicker than 6 months!
Looking for folks around Richmond who can fix a guide. Not a big fix- just replacing an eyelet on a guide. But, it is on a Century so I don't want to do the whole do-it-yourself deal.
I always send my stuff back to St Croix to get fixed as I suck at fixing an eyelet. Had the love bugs in Tampa strip off all the eyelets on a mojo and had them redo all of them for a reasonable price
Took the little boat out on the flats for a rising flood tide Sunday. Probably should have looked at the forecast before making that decision it was a little 12ft sailboat out on every flat I got on - immediately blown off the flat or into the grass. Tied off to my push pole and targeted a few areas but I certainly wasn't efficient in fishing.
Tried rolling through some tight creeks for some fish to avoid the wind. Was hardly any more effective fishing but got distracted just full throttle rolling through creeks in the little boat it was an absolute blast. Realized I was being a bit reckless when the boat didn't bite on a turn and I just slid at 20mph sideways into the marsh, caught at the last second and throttled down just in time to keep me from being ejected. Got back to the ramp and dropped my auto-inflate pfd in the water on accident didn't inflate so glad I didn't actually crash, time for a new pfd.
Well, the first half of the week sucked due to weather but maybe things are turning around!
Nice puppy drum!
I went down to Florida with a couple of buddies to target tarpon and snook from land. It was a slow first few days of fishing. Wind direction switched and pushed mullet to the beach more and fishing picked up. Jumped a half dozen tarpon. That first run of them just smoking drag is addicting. After a long night of fishing, casted into a school of mullet and an upper 30s snook ate my swimbait. That fish definitely made the trip for me and was the only fish I landed other than a random sailcat. The guy who has been going down there for years and has his technique dialed got an overslot snook, juvenile goliath grouper and managed to land 4 tarpon.
That is an awesome snook
Thanks man! Pretty stoked to get one in general and cherry on top that it was real nice fish. Can't wait to get back down there.
The picture of that snook got some ohhhs and ahhhss on the end of the pier today. Man, what a horse that is. And is that Nick with the tarpon? I need to go down and wet a line with him again. Real nice dude.
Thanks! It was a really nice thick fish for sure. It was a solid fight but tough to compare after getting those first runs from a tarpon are completely different. Yep that's Nick. He's the man. Crazy amount of knowledge and skill. Super nice guy learned a lot from him this year.
He deserves every fish he catches. Works his tail off on technique, time, and scouting new locations. Good dude.
Hell of a snook man well done. From the beach those guys can be stressful with the surf they can do some voodoo to get off. Glad to hear you were successful in your encounter!
Oh yeah I was so worried the whole fight about pulling the hook. The fight is kind of a blur in my mind. Thanks, it would have been heartbreaking to lose that one.
Fishing has apparently been in fire here the past two weeks. Massive spanish and tons of blues, with Albies mixed in. Bull reds were caught in the shoals. I have such bad cabin fever. Ribs are incrementally getting better, but certain movements are a sharp pain. This week I might try to hit some dock lights and see how it goes.
Good to hear. I'll be down in a couple weeks. Camping on CALO
So, after my last run south, I found that I had popped an acrylic eyelet out of my bottom guide on my Century Surf Machine. So, I tied together a trip to drop it off for repairs with a day off to get a three day weekend to do a little fishing. However, some very poor choices messed up the trip.
I left around 8AM on Saturday to drive from Richmond to Rodanthe. It was a SW light wind day, very hot, so I didn't expect much to go on. I hit up Hatteras Jack's to drop off the rod and I bought about 18 pounds of corn cob mullet. On my way back, I drove past Jennettes to avoid the Bluegrass Festival traffic. It didn't appear much was going on, so I went to the hotel to watch the Pitt game. When I got to the hotel, I realized that, while all my fishing gear, laptop, and outerwear had made the trip, I managed to leave without my suitcase. So, I rushed over to Belk and dropped $120 on two pairs of golf shorts, some ill-fitting tighty whiteys, and some socks to get through today. Strike one.
Strike two was going back to the hotel to watch the game. Strike three was not going to the pier in lieu of the game. While I settled in to watch three hours of offensive football so bad that one of my testicals attempted to reascend, there was a respectable drum bite going into the evening tide change. Whoops.
After watching the game, then finding a film copy and rewatching the game and writing my review, I wrapped up the film study around 11PM. I slept for about 4 hours, gerded my loins for the big weather change (it dropped about 20 degrees with a NW wind at around 20), and trounced my way down to the pier.
There was a slow pick of drum early after a wave of sunrise sand tiger sharks (what a pain in the ass!), and the spot cooperated before low tide, but I didn't get a run on my intended quarry. Several friends did. After a lull until around 1:00PM, a slow pick started to pick up pace into the afternoon and early evening, but fresh cob mullet head, spot heads, and mullet chunks produced nothing. After throwing 10oz pyramid sinkers every 20 minutes all day, I finally sat down around 7:00PM when my rod finally went off. It wasn't the biggest one of the year, but number 5 was defintely the most work.
I ended up fishing until closing. The bite really slowed down after the tide change. After six broken hours of sleep, I checked out of the hotel and got to the pier at 5:30AM (gates open at 6.) It was a much smaller crew, and sure enough the sunrise bite hit. There were six of us, and five decked a drum before 6:45. Of course, my spot heads were being decimated by small bluefish, so I had gone through three baits by the time the fish quite biting. Two more hit randomly between 10AM and 1PM, but I needed to get back home. I bet they had a good bite at dark tonight.
I hope to squeeze one more trip in (I have to go back to get my rod.) It is going to be tough to break my record (9), but I am going to give it my best effort.
Oh, and saw my first pier tripletail this morning (in 62 degree water.) It wouldn't eat a zig jig.
Glad you got one to make your trip worth it. Good decision to get it done by Ryan White seems like a real good guy and does all the custom rod stuff.
While I settled in to watch three hours of offensive football so bad that one of my testicals attempted to reascend
I laughed out loud. My best friend and his family lived on a farm next to us in Gainesville. At some point, his father decided to add pigs to the mix of cows and chickens. Well apparently you have to castrate them before they grow up to be slaughtered because they will taste funny if you don't. I didn't do the castrating but heard about it. One pig in particular got one ball cut off and then somehow sucked the other one up inside of its body. They couldn't get it out to cut it off. As kids, we named all of the pigs of course. That one we named Drew Carey because he drew the ball up into his body and carried it around with him.
Welp, I had it with the cabin fever. Wednesday night I went out and fished dock lights and it was on fire with the full moon. I caught a dozen fish, most of them drum. Biggest at 28". My newest fly is the simplest, dumbest thing and it looks so good in the water. They couldn't ignore it. Tore it to shreds. Time to get back to the vice and make one that lasts a little longer.
Yesterday was 19 days since I had been out on the water real fishing (not counting the easy dock light fishing.) I got up early to an epic sunrise and putting the boat in the water, said to myself, well the last time the wind was out of the west, it was bad fishing at the Cape. I went further north that day and it turned out well with the wind direction.
So I pulled out of the parking lot and went north to another put in to run over to Drum Inlet. I got there and I was the only boat in sight. Also in sight were birds. Everywhere. Spanish mackerel were busting glass minnows everywhere. I caught two at 21" and 24" and saved them for smoked dip. I saw more birds on the horizon in the ocean and sped off. Ribs were feeling good.
Spinner sharks were jumping everywhere on the far side of the shoals. I tossed a custom tied bucktail deep and felt a thump. Reeling it up, it was a monster red. Sharks swirled and I freelined the fish. It dove. The sharks left and I cranked back down and got the fish aboard. My 30 pound boga very easily pegged to 30. I'd say that was a 40 pound fish. Got some photos and safe, strong release.
I tie on a big popper to my ten weight next. The second hunch of the day pays off and minutes later I see some of the big drum a few feet under the surface. A dozens casts and they wouldn't come up to hit it. They disappeared.
Sat down and started to rummage through the fly box for the biggest sinking fly I had. Looking up, the school surface. I just stared. A thousand reds and I am not exaggerating. It was the size of my entire backyard. They were finning and tailing on the surface. I saw some big sharks amongst them and several giant crevalle jacks. My knot tying skills went to hell but I somehow got it together, and tied on a big clouser. Calmy coiled my line, watched the school for another few seconds of appreciation and awe and then shot my cast 40 feet into the school. A dozen fish bolted, spooked, then another dozen charged it and it was just like those insane movies filmed in New Orleans with bull reds trying to eat a popper. It was unreal, watching multiple giant fish with their eyeballs out of the water trying to eat a quickly stripped fly. I easily hooked up and the school vanished. Sharks appeared again and I freelined the fish on the fly rod, then landed it when they left. Got a few pics and released it. This fish was 30 pounds.
Continued cruising around for another 3 hours hoping the Drum would show again. They never did. My friends arrived and caught 3 off of the bottom after marking them. I landed a few albies that showed. Could have had dozens of spanish and albies if I had wanted to but couldn't stop searching for the drum school amongst launching spinner sharks. I called it a day when the wind kicked up and the chop got bad. Can't wait to get back out there next week. My ribs are definitely sore this morning.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVTUvIzpdw9/
great day and pics!
Thank you French. Glad I finally got a drum that matched yours
Did some surf fishing at Assateague Island last weekend. I usually go there in June and am happy if I land a single fish. This trip I hit close to a dozen blues and 5 or 6 whiting, including a couple keepers. I need to go in the fall more often!
About 15 years ago, there was great fishing on the beach for striped bass on the Maryland side of Assateague. I used to drive from the DC area, leaving around 10PM. I would get to Ocean City around 1:00AM. I would bail 18-22 inch striped bass off the Route 50 bridge until around 4AM, and then I would head to Bev's Harbor Bait and Tackle to get a cooler full of bunker. I would head down to Assateague and fish off the beach all day, then drive home at dark. About the same time Bev retired and shut down, that winter bite vanished.
Those whiting (roundheads/sea mullet/kingfish) make the trip. I love when they hit in the surf.
Report coming- got to enjoy some light tackle fishing with VTFish on Sunday, and got a big drum last night and this morning. Grabbing some warm soup and heading home.
After watching the Syracuse game, I made the call to try one more long run fishing trip this season. I met up with VT Fish in Mathews on Sunday morning and fished the incoming tide at assorted spots around the East, North, and Ware River. The weather was really strange- it felt post cold front but was in front of a cold front. The fish were lockjawed. Fish was able to tease up one short puppy drum, we each got a schoolie striper off a dock, and we got a handful of short speckled trout. The one species that cooperated were the lizardfish. They were maniacal. If you use Gulp, be forewarned.
After wrapping up early in the afternoon, I headed to Nags Head. I grabbed some dinner at Barefoot Bernies and banged out the rest of the film review. I had to work on Monday, so I got up before business hours, headed south on Route 12 to see Ryan White at Hatteras Jack's. I picked up my Century Surf Machine after getting a guide fixed, and I bought about 15 pounds of corn cob sized mullet. I headed back to the hotel to participate in my daily round of Zoom calls. When they wrapped, I grabbed a quick dinner at Wendys and headed to the pier. I was crestfallen. The wind had completely fallen out. It was 70 degrees, felt like 80, and the water was king green. It wasn't ideal conditions for drum fishing, so I pulled out my spot gear to supplement my bait stash. Unfortunately, the only thing around were ravenous small gray trout (8-11 inches in length) and the occasional baby croaker. I packed it up around 7:30 and turned in early to try and catch the wind change.
And, boy did it change. The wind turned northwest blowing 20+ overnight. I got to the pier at 6:00AM on Tuesday with plans to fish all day. There was one fish caught at sunrise, and most of the incoming tide was pretty slow. Around high tide, a couple of fish were caught, and it was a slow trickle into the evening. At sunset, the bite picked up a little bit, but I was still managing to avoid getting any bites. Earlier, I managed to catch one nice sea mullet/whiting off the side of the pier, so around 8PM, I tried that instead of the cob mullet. Within five minutes, I got a run but the fish dropped the bait. I reeled up, and the bait was still in good shape. I threw it back out and within 40 seconds of putting my rod down, I was hooked up. This was my first fish on my old Penn 525 since 2018, and the fifth fish of the year on my Century, and my seventh landed fish of the year total, making it my best year since 2009. Of course, three people I know have broken the 100 mark for this year (every fish over 40 inches) so I am a long way from those folks.
I got one more bite (slack bite, difficult to hook up on circle hooks), but it didn't pull tight. I went back to the room with about 10 baits left in the cooler. I decided to go for my record and fish in the AM instead of sleeping in and then driving back (like I had promised, so I am in Chateau Bow Wow today!)
The sunrise bite was a slow pick, but right at high tide, I got my second fish of the trip. This one ate a cob mullet head and put me one fish short of tying my record.
Several folks caught fish, but by 9:00AM, the water started to clear up a bit and the garbos (sand tiger sharks) moved in. I lost a half dozen 10oz sinkers and the rest of my baits to bite offs, so I ended up leaving around 11:30AM. My understanding is that the evening bite was much better, and they have been catching drum all day today. In addition, a gentlemen fishing the north side around the end bait cleaning station absolutely wore out the sea mullet/whiting on the outgoing tide.
I stopped by Barefoot Bernies on the way home and got back to back bowls of amazing New England clam chowder and shrimp gumbo. The gumbo was one of the best bowls of gumbo I ever had.
As much as it pains me, I am done with drum season. We are in the stretch run of football season, I have several family obligations in November, and the fuel and hotel costs are adding up. I am going to do a dudes trip to nominally fish for stripers and togs on the Route 50 bridge in Ocean City in two weeks, and I am hoping to fish with VTFish again in November.