Saturday Fishin' Mission

Saturday was the make-up day for the flounder tournament but with not too many flat fish making an appearance we decided to go after more spades and see what we could make happen. Arrived at York Spit Light at about 6:30am to try and beat the rest of the boats out.. IT WORKED! After resetting the anchor a handful of times, we finally got set up with the stern of the boat perfectly facing the lighthouse platform and got the bag of clam chum tied on the back of the boat. Unfortunately I managed to get the mesh clam bag mixed up with the prop in the process. bag shredded and all the fish attractant gone, we started to fish. Not 15 minutes later we already all had caught some spades and they were swimming circles just off the back of the boat.  other boats started showing up and eveyone had a good old time.

 After catching over 50 spades and running out of clam we decided to go looking for cobia as the sun was up, not a cloud in the sky, and it was looking fishy. Proceeded to cover alot of ground from york River channel to the concrete ships off Eastern Shore. on our way back home i spotted a NICE 50+ lb cobia  and pitched it a live eel. He immediately wolfed it down and it was game on. I handed the rod down to Ashley and she got him all the way to the side of the boat but in the hectic moment she had gotten the line around a rod holder and it broke off. Saw 10 cobia all day from 24 inches to some larger fish around 50 inches. Got to see alot of sea turtles and stingrays as well. Lost a nice fish but still had a great day on the water with some friends.

Fourth of July Fishing Fun - Spadefish, Triggerfish, and Red Drum

Went out early yesterday morning to try and beat all the boat traffic that is always present on 4th of July.  Me and my friend Buddy met our girlfriends ,Ashley and Nancy, at the ramp and were on the water and heading to our destination by 6:30am. Upon arriving we were surprised to see we were the only boat at YSL. We dropped a bag of clam chum over the side and gave a little coaching on what kind of rigs to tie and how to fish them. While i was still cutting clams into bait strips i hear drag screaming and look up just in time to see my girlfriend's line snap from rubbing on one of the pilings. That insighted urgency in everyone to get a line down and almost immediately we were all hooking into nice 3 to 5 lb spadefish.

 After about an hour I decided to cut a piece of bait off of a live spot that Buddy was about to throw back and dropped it down on a ball jig. a couple minutes later it was fish on with a nice keeper red drum. This continued for a couple hours and then we decided to go sight fishing for cobia. We pulled lines up and slow boated across the bay to the eastern shore, made a tack and headed back to our port. One the way back we threw a few eels at the floating channel markers for the York River channel and i managed to hook up on a just under keeper cobia. I passed the rod down to Ashley and she did get the fish all the way to the boat only to lose it at the last second. Still produced a smile so mission accomplished. Then we sotted a few more swimming together but just as we headed their way the cloud cover picked up and shut the sight fishing down. Headed back in, treaded a couple dozen clams and went in to have fish grilled spadefish and clams casino. Great day on the water with everyone catching and some good food to finish off the evening. Not much more you can ask for.