Riptide Charters

After the long canyon trip Saturday was slated as maintenance day. So Miike C and Jr came by and we did all the scheduled maintenace on the big Verado's early. By lunch we were done and talking about fishing. My buddy Luke (a non-fisherman) even showed interest in going. We discussed tuna in the bay but sharking south of the islands won out. With that we made a lazy lunchtime run to Falmouth. We loaded up on bait and sharkin' stuff and headed out in search of some bluefish.

We ran through the hundreds of boats in and around the Sound. No sign of a slowing economy out there for sure. Seemed like EVERYONE was OTW Saturday. We found some scattered terns and picked up a few rat blue doing the run and gun thing, but they were spooked with all the boat traffic so it was like playing Whack-a-mole trying to get on top of them. We tried another option, which we thought would work but it was better in theory than in practice. We had riggers on the boat so we put out a full spread of Yo Zuri's and trolled around near Dogfish bar. Again in theory it was a good idea for making bait fast, in practice I think we just looked silly and it only got us one more bluefish.

We pushed on to our last bait spot since it was starting to get late. We found a few more terns and allot less boats. First cast I'm tight to a nice baitsized blue, then it all went down hill. Cast after cast we began hammering 10-20# stripers! Awesome fishing, **** poor bait making. I even went to a popper to tease up the bluefish instead of the bass. I was rewarded with 20# bass smashing my Yo Zuri Hydro popper on every cast and had 20 more follow in the hooked fish. Mike C went to throwing tin and we rewarded with a platter sized scup???? That was followed to the boat by Basszilla! An EASY 40+ pounder that was trying to eat the 2# scup.

Finally with about 9 blues in the well and the clock nearing 1600 I set a course for a near shore temp break and a little structure. I made some serious time getting there so we would have time to acctually fish for the target species. In 25 minutes we were going lines in. The chum was out the baits were set and the new kite was flying in all its glory. That might seem like a small thing, but me and kites don't get along well. Many is the day I've spent cursing a kite and stoping around like an angry child trying to get them to fly correctly. This new Frenzy kite is no exception. I wanted an SFE (the only kite that seems to like me) but Mike C was only able to get Frenzy Kites at the time. What followed was Sage Flyguy and myself in a looming thunder storm in my front yard playing Ben Franklin with a kite that wouldn't stay up on 30 kts of wind. Today the Frenzy played nice and with a few adjustments I was flying high Charlie Brown!

It took all of 15 minutes for the first clicker to sing and Luke our newbie was strapped into his first shark. Its always fun to see a non-fisherman that works out at the gym get dragged around the boat by "just a fish". In good time Luke had the 150-175#er to the boat and we released it. For the next 3 hours it was fish after fish with doubles. We C&R'd a total of twelve bluesharks from 150-250# by time it was over. Luke was a good sport and helped with the chumming. After all the excitement of being dragged around by Jaws the 3' swell got to him and BLAAAAAHHHHHH he was confined to the beanbag chair on the bow. Not one to ruin a good time he quietly suffered up front as we hooted and hollered at the back of the boat. Only interupting our party 2 more times with that BLAAAAAAHHHHHHHH we all know too well.

When it was all over and Luke was completely empty we packed it in and headed for home and stable ground. For his pain Luke landed his first shark and clearly his biggest fish ever. He was thrilled at the accomplishment and loved the whole event, except for the swells and the dry heaves. He wants to go fishing again soon.....just not drifting for sharks. We ended up with a final tally of 12 for 12 on nice mid sized blues. The bait of choice was fresh bluefish and bluefish chum. In my limited sharking expeirence I have found that the bluefish chum hands down out fishes the plain Jane bunker/herring chum most places sell. That stuff with a nice oil/milk drip just seems to draw the sharks in like no tomorrow. The water was 69 degrees on the edge of a 69-71 break with a 20-30' change in structure on the bottom. we managed to go the entire trip without one dogfish!!!!!!

Overall a great late afternoon shark trip. No exotics, but we were not there very long. The great bassing was a double edge sword. We wanted bluefish and were geared with lite tuna casting rods to winch them in fast, so the bass we a bit less sporting that they normally would have been. Luke was rewarded with dinner and a few drinks to settle his stomach back down. It was a nice trip with allot of fish landed and all were released (except the bluefish).
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Good Luck,

Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com

On The Edge

Terry, any tips on getting the kite flying? I picked a Frenzy kite this spring and have not had a chance to get it flying yet..

__________________
Catch um up

1999 proline 2202 wa
1999 200 merc

Riptide Charters

Just play with the bridle. I had trouble in the front yard with it, but OTW it tooko only a small tweek to get it flying high

__________________
Good Luck,

Capt. Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
www.riptidecharters.com

On The Edge

I was going to try it in my yard but with all the trees and hills the wind kinda whirls around alot untill it gets up above the trees.. Maybe i will head to the high school ball field or a local farm for some wide open spaces for the test flight..

__________________
Catch um up

1999 proline 2202 wa
1999 200 merc