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05-07-2007, 08:05 AM
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Quote:
__________________
~Sam - Pray for East Wind! 
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05-07-2007, 08:48 AM
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Well, what a weekend.....Arrived in Princess Anne around 11pm fri night. We had a few beers, got the truck and boat ready to go. Up around 5:30 Sat morning, stop for breakfast and lunch at royal farms and headed to Deal Island. We finally arrived and got all the rods in the water at 72a around 8:15. Trolled across the channel, then north to get clear of all the boats around the bouy. I ended up with graham a friend of mine (first striper trip ever) on the boat with me. A rod goes down....He jumped and grabbed it. After helping him get the belt on and drag set properly he settled in for the fight (which put him into the rails a couple times. I watched this fish swim to the surface, thrash around and then dive again several times. Graham finally landed his first striper ever, a NICE FAT 40 3/4" fish. Unfortunately it wasn't quite the 41" that needed to be so a couple photos and back over the rail it went...she swam off to fight another day. 5 min after the release another rod dives....Graham ends up with a nice 34" keeper...into the cooler she goes...and a nice big waypoint is marked on the GPS. Unfortunately in the process that fish wrapped up 3 other lines. While graham sat on the back of the boat untangling I managed a small 22" striper..that fish could barely fit the 6oz 12" bucktail in its mouth. Another run through the waypoint produces a couple knockdowns and a 34 1/2" striper that I pulled in. Limit by 11am. We decided to fish C&R for a few more and made a couple more passes at the waypoint. Every strike or fish we had on sat was within spitting distance to that waypoint. We fished until about noon and managed one more 38 1/2 " throwback before we headed into the sound.... Bloodworms and squid on hand, we broke out the light tackle, and drifted from the edge of the channel to about 12' of water...in 13-14' the white perch were unstoppable. We fished there for about 1-1 1/2 hours before the rain came in and the wind picked up too much to control our drift with a sea anchor, but we managed 22 White Perch in the cooler and 4 or 5 throwbacks....All in all an absolutely GREAT day on the water.
Last edited by Sam; 05-07-2007 at 09:17 AM.
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05-07-2007, 09:01 AM
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Now for the report
So the first thing to worry about on this fishing trip was where to ramp and where to fish right? Of course not, it was will my truck be fixed in time to get the boat to OC. After replacing the fuel pump
 I find that I have also blown an intake gasket and my engine has filled with water . So I replace the intake gasket finally finishing up at about 9:30pm Friday night. Should I trust my truck to pull the rig all the way down to OC, no I didn't, luckily my buddy has a nice new Chevy to pull the boat with.  Its Sat. morning 4:00am time to get moving, I wake my boy up(it only take me saying his name once, how come he doesn't get up like that for school  ). We head to my buddies house and take off. We leave Chestertown about 5:00 and hit OC about 7:00. Pehaps a bit late but according to the tide charts just right to catch the incoming tide. Finding the public ramp is a breeze(thanks to all of you for the directions) While motoring out we rig up with some top and bottom rigs, fish finder rigs, and store bought fluke rigs. For bait I have brought squid and live minnows. Never having been here before, we take our time to read the depth finder and try to find some edges. While motoring toward the Route 50 Bridge there is one lone Carolina Skiff who is running a drift from the 6mph buoy(can) out by the inlet to the 6mph can by the bridge. We decide to ask a question or to and low and behold while tlking to them, they hook up with a beautiful flattie keeper. Well I have seen enough and give them plenty of space but hop in the drift with them. One bait or another didn't seem to matter, the flounder would bite just plain minnows, plain squid or a combinaton of both equally well. The key was the size of the bait, the flounder wanted big baits, I was cutting the squid in 5 to 6 inch lengths, and the bull minnies caught better than the small minnows. So back to the fishing report, On our first drift my buddy Steve hooks up with a 15" flounder, back he goes, On our second drift my son David hooks up with a 15.5" flounder, in the box he goes. Then OMG did all hell break loose, we hit the blues and man did we hit the blues!!!!! We were catching blues so fast that when we finally took a break to motor back up to the inlet can for the drift, we had to look up the regs on how many we could keep. We made about three drifts and had the majority of the blues in the pic in less than 15 minutes. The draw back was when the first Carolina Skiff and Me started catching so many fish so fast, We got swarmed by about 20 other boats, who had no manners and would cut me off in mid-drift or motor right through the group of blues that were working and had birds over them. It completely disgusted us, instead of waiting to jump into the drift with everyone else they, just cut you off and then give you a hard time because we were to close to them. Just a big ol bunch of a-holes .So with all that said and vented(sorry about that) we decide hey why not run up and see if we can find some of the other hot spots. Through the bridge we go and toward the Thorofare? went left following the channels past the bridge and drifted with a few other boats along a section of houses and their piers. I caught a beautiful blue here and we saw the Bay Bee catch a nice flounder. Other than that not much happening there. By now we are in slack tide and hungry so we motor back up to the Rt. 50 Bridge(where there are only about 3 boats now) and go towards the sandbar and toss anchor to eat. After some delicious fried chicken, pasta salad, chips, and a visit from our friendly neighborhood DNR officer, we notice that the tide is starting roll out. Back to the drift except the opposite way. Lots of flounder, but no keepers. About 3:00 we are back at the ramp for the 2 hour ride home. Now for the best story of the trip. We are drifting the Route 50 bridge, I am holding my baitcasting rod when I hooked something big, I thought perhaps another horseshoe crab. Anyways, when I hook up the baitcaster spinsin my hand and splash, right overboard it goes. Oh man thats the second rod and reel combo thats gone overboard this year. After nearly hooking it as slowly floats to the bottom, and basically taking ever other rod in the boat with a hook on it and casting it towards the sinking rod, I give up and count the rod as lost. I grab another rod and say a few choice words about my donation We head back to the can for another drift. Halfway through the drift Steve hooks something solid, no could we be that lucky? As he's reeling in I see the butt section of my rod sliding through the water towards us, He's caught it. Steve says that he thinks there may be fish in the end of my rod cause he can feel it tugging every now and then. I get my hands back on to my rod and start to reel in and holy cow there is a fish. I end up pulling in a decent sized skate. Unbelievable that when the skate pulled the rod out of my hands all it did was settle to the bottom and wait for another meal. All in all we had an absolute blast, a great day of fishing with friends and family. We can't wait to do it again. Here's some pictures hopefully.
__________________
23' C-Hawk....."just pump and reel baby"
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05-07-2007, 09:09 AM
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Very nice, Jeff! You can't beat a day on the water like that!
__________________
~Sam - Pray for East Wind!
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05-07-2007, 09:12 AM
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Thanks!!!! Oh and I didn't mention.....got home around 6:30-7:00pm last night (way too windy and choppy for my liking yesterday so we ended up not going out. Ended up throwing the white perch filets into some seafood breading, then into some oil (with a good chunk of bacon grease thrown in) fried those little things up, made some nice home made tarter sauce and had an incredible dinner.... Well worth the time it took to filet them up right...
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05-07-2007, 09:18 AM
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Quote:
__________________
~Sam - Pray for East Wind!
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05-07-2007, 10:17 AM
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Good Job Jeff
 glad to sea you got some action
__________________
 GOT FISH need tackle: www.binnacletackle.com proud member:  www.ocmarlinclub.com www.ocreeffoundation.com
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05-07-2007, 10:26 AM
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yeah, you should've headed out!!!!! Perfect day on the water...not too crowded (not sure about up north though) You can see just how flat it was
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05-07-2007, 10:40 AM
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LOL, I know but Im saving myself for this weekend  btw, are you comming out to play on AI, saturday
__________________
GOT FISH need tackle: www.binnacletackle.com proud member: www.ocmarlinclub.com www.ocreeffoundation.com
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05-07-2007, 10:43 AM
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No, unfortunately this is my "on call" weekend. So, until AI gets WiFi I'm stuck at home on those weekends
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