Crab bank 9 18 18

Got there at 730 finished at like 1030, it was kind of rough for like thw first 2 hrs and a little windy which made throwing the net and driving a little more difficult bit calmed down later in the night. We put 7 poles in, 6 felt like breaking through concrete and 1 went in some semi hard stuff. All poles straight up and down and the line was much straighter than last time and baited with bait binder. We started as the sun was setting and ran about 5 runs and caught like 20 shrimp, 0 in the first 3 runs. We were catching a lot of pin fish and small spots and there were lots of menhaden around. It was looking bad and we did another run or 2 and filled the bottom of the shrimp basket. With talks of rebaiting, relocating, calling it a night we work our way to restart a run and see some fish jumping. We shine a beam spot light and mullet jump the entire length of the beam. We pull up and mullets every where. I throw the net to get some for bait and about a acre or more just boils with 9inch mullet jumping 4ft out the water. 3 more cast and it happens everytime so we decide to try to get it on film but of course it stopped. So between the pin fish, mullet schools, crabs, menhadden and lack of shrimp we decide to rebait. In the time it takes to rebait all the mullet has moved on. 1st run on the new bait and things are looking up and wee make about 5 more runs before it fell off and wasnt any good any more. We finished with a little less than half a cooler, but i think we could of done better. We threw the net better than last time, probably like 80 percent good throws. I think the shrimp were running pretty close to the same as last week. We shrimped a little less time than last time but finished with about the same amount. The grade/quality/count of shrimp went down from the first week, there was about 20 percent meduim shrimp mixed in and about 5 percent or less of small meds. Last time it was all large with like 10 percent jumbo.

I heard a couple reports from around the harbor some areas were

My first trip of the season is usually a little bit frustrating.

The boat motor, bait ball production, boat driver, caster, net, and all the other things that need to work smoothly - don’t.

It takes a trip or 2 to get the “old rhythm” going.

Ya’ll still caught some nice shrimp and had a beautiful evening on the water! I can’t wait to get out there!

spec

1980 Skandia 21 w/ '93 JohnRude 150 gas drinker