River slaughter
Since I was doing a solo trip I decided to stay inside instead of running off to some lumps for bonito after hearing from a buddy that it was a little sloppy out.
Had lines in at 6 and the slaughter continued until I ran out of bait. Fished from the mouth of the canal on the North side to the sea wall. Didn’t really matter where you were but what bait you were using. Out of all the boats I saw out there I think I only saw about two dozen fish caught. I fished fresh peanuts netted the night before and that morning. Took a whole 2.5 gallon bucket full to the top and used it all! Lost count on how many shorts I caught after thirty something but would venture a guess of well over a hundred due to the amount of bait and leader material I went through.
Did manage two nice keepers both 21″. Water wasn’t too dirty from the rain and the rain was either light or stopped but came and went throughout the morning. I tried various gulp baits, spearing, squid…all they wanted was peanuts. They hit both the trailing hook and the bucktail and I had several double headers and several times when the drift was light where the fish had both hooks in its mouth.
They are feeding heavily and voraciously most likely fattening up to start moving on. Plus if this tropical depression off the Cape Verde Islands forms and comes up the coast you can bet that will chase them out in a hurry. I would definitely concentrate outside though, the last few trips we made outside produced some really nice fish…get them while they are still here.
Tags: bait, bucktail, fluke, Gulp!, jigging, peanuts, spearing
