Fished the last 1.5 hours of the outging and 3 hours into the incoming. Beautiful day!!! Found 4 schools of which 3 were slot sized with 5-10 fish. The fourth was 50+ strong with a few slots, but most all were 26 to 30++". Fished Z-man Paddlerz, but the bite was sporadic and short when they did hit…only got three on artificials…frozen shrimp to the rescue. Boated and tagged a total of 11 with 8 being over 26". Big fish of the day was 32.5" with another at 32": we saw a few that were probably pushing mid thirties. The bite and fight was definitely stronger on the incoming. Either way it took some work as every time we hooked up the school would spook and we had to wait for them to bounce back down the bank or slowly sneak back up to them.
Saw some bait in the water as well. Glass minnows and a few shrimp pops.
Iain Pelto
Sea Hunt Triton 160 w/ 90 ETEC “JB3”
Native Manta Ray 14
Excellent report! Thanks.
Capt. Justin
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth”
Albert Einstein
quote:
Originally posted by hairball
Fished the last 1.5 hours of the outging and 3 hours into the incoming. Beautiful day!!! Found 4 schools of which 3 were slot sized with 5-10 fish. The fourth was 50+ strong with a few slots, but most all were 26 to 30++". Fished Z-man Paddlerz, but the bite was sporadic and short when they did hit…only got three on artificials…frozen shrimp to the rescue. Boated and tagged a total of 11 with 8 being over 26". Big fish of the day was 32.5" with another at 32": we saw a few that were probably pushing mid thirties. The bite and fight was definitely stronger on the incoming. Either way it took some work as every time we hooked up the school would spook and we had to wait for them to bounce back down the bank or slowly sneak back up to them.
Saw some bait in the water as well. Glass minnows and a few shrimp pops.
Iain Pelto
Sea Hunt Triton 160 w/ 90 ETEC “JB3”
Native Manta Ray 14
Why do you think this is? Is this something you’ve observed over time? And thank you for yet another comprehensive, informative post.
“I’m not a hundred percent in love with your tone right now…”
Just about everytime I have fished the Stono this winter has been the outgoing in the morning switching to the incoming late morning or early afternoon. Most of my success has been on the incoming which I think is mostly linked to the slight rise in water temperature later in the day. I also think that they have been conditioned to be more wary on the outgoing because that is when I have seen flipper. Again probably linked to water temp making them easier to catch. On a side note I did not see any dolphin feeding on reds this time. On Sunday we did have some success on the outgoing, but again the water temp was already elevated from this great weather.
As for the fight, I can not explain that. On the outgoing they would fight for 10-15 seconds then for the most part give up. Then once in the boat they went nuts. On the incoming they exhibited the typical 2-3 strong runs then bullish fight next to the boat.
Iain Pelto
Sea Hunt Triton 160 w/ 90 ETEC “JB3”
Native Manta Ray 14
i think they eat and fight more because of the rise in water temp as mentioned, and i think the change in their behavior has a lot to do with flipper too- watching a school swim around nervously in water that they know is getting shallower, and then watching the same school push up toward the grass each inch the water rises, they seem to be more comfortable knowing that shelter will continue to increase for the time being.
i had a very similar experience with a large school of mostly over-slots yesterday after i saw some single fish as i pushed a sunny, calm bank on the rise… but unfortunately, the one i found had been balled up by a single dolphin that appeared to eat a couple before i got there. they took about 20 minutes to spread out a bit, they wouldn’t eat a paddletail but i caught 4 on quartered crab- an upper slot and 3 over including one over 30. strong fights, i’m sure the water was 5 or 10 degrees warmer where they were. the biggest one wanted to be in the middle of the school once hooked, so that pretty much ended things as the tide hit the grass and they spread out again.