Fishing Report 8/20

Saltwater Striper Fishing
1

Put in a Hallmark Shores and went all the way to the back of Yacht Cove and pulled umbrella rigs out and down along the shoreline …

Marked a lot of fish along the way, but they were deeper than my rigs would go …

That is, until we got in front of Pine Island … Had two of the rigs go off and it looked like topwater behind the boat …

I was one short of a limit on the 3-Arm rig and we had another 2 on the 4-Arm rig …

Once I got the 3-Arm to the boat I realized I had 4 fish on the rig … all keeper size fish …

I also realized that I was twisted around Liz’s line and I had to give my 3-Arm a little slack to untangle us … once clear I went o bring the rig in and saw the biggest of the four (26 - 27") was no longer hooked, but still floating there with the rest …

As I reached down to grab his lip that’s when his eye rolled up at me and then he shot off down under the boat …

At least I can say he probably lived to be caught another day …

The other three were 22", 23", and 25" …

Liz got her’s to the boat and she had a 24" and an 18" …

Water and weather was spectacular, so the two and a half hours we spent trolling for 10 minutes of fun was well worth it …

Odd thing - these fish hit when we were in 80’ of water …

Rigs were running at 20 - 25’ …

Water temps were 87-88 degrees …

… it’s my Wife’s fault we HAVE to fish !!!

2005 Sea Pro 2100cc / Yamaha 150hp 4-Stroke

2

Sounds like a good time.
Too bad you couldn’t scoop the big 'un with a net instead of lipping him. Maybe he would have shot right into the bottom of it.

3

Pulling U-Rigs is kind of a sketchy thing …

First, you gotta put out between 130 - 200 feet of line depending on the rig just to get them down to 20 - 25’ …

Second, you’re dragging them at 2.5 - 3.0 mph and if you stop then any rigs not hooked up fall to the bottom and can potentially get hung so you pretty much gotta keep moving …

Third, we were hooked up on two rigs already so neither one of us could go get the net … Not that I like using the net with U-Rigs anyway - too many hooks to get caught up in the net …

It’s my fault I should have kept more pressure on the fish while I was untangling the lines … I’m just glad it kicked off strong like he did … We were in the area for another hour and he never resurfaced so I’m sure he’s fine - other than the hole in his mouth … :smiley:

4

Nice haul there! Awesome to see em biting shallower even with these hot couple of days we’re having. Great job!

16ft War Eagle 648MV/ Johnson 50HP

5

Rick, I know that was fun. Nice catch.

Molon Labe!

Until you have loved a dog, part of your soul remains unawakened. - Anatole France (paraphrased)

RIP my “Puppy Dog” 10/15/2004 - 1/14/2013. Still can’t get him out of my mind. What a special friend he was.

6

it was … for about 10 minutes … then I was apprehensive about continuing to run the rigs … 5 and done kinda sucks for U-Rigs … LOL

… it’s my Wife’s fault we HAVE to fish !!!

2005 Sea Pro 2100cc / Yamaha 150hp 4-Stroke

7

Great catch

WILDBILL

8

Nice catch rick! I think the one that got away was probably ok. Coming from above the thermocline the fish was accustomed to the warm water. Sounds like normal trolling, hour of nothing followed by a fire drill!

<’)))))<
Tight Lines!
DANO
Hurricane 198 w/115 Yamahammer