So took a trip down to Falmouth on the Cape to do a little light tackle fishing with some friends.
Rods included medium Mojo spinning rod with older Shimano Spheres 3000 reel and 30 pound power pro slick braid.
We hopped into the boat and headed out to the rips near Martha’s Vineyard. The rips were super pronounced, a flat area ahead of a set of large rips.
I went with a hot pink 6inch RonZ, and the others went with plugs or swim shads. The 1st couple of cast I put into the rips nothing. Then I put the next, into the flat area ahead of the rips, POW, solid hit from 20+ inch striper. After a short fight, the fish was quickly released in a super healthy state. Next cast again in the flat water, picked up a nice blue that fought like crazy and destroyed the RonZ tail.
New tail on the RonZ, this time deep red, and another cast and another striper. The others in the boat were noticing my success and I passed out some additional RonZ’s to the team. We continued on drifting through the rips catching fish, many on the RonZ, but we also had success with bucktail and a Hogy swim tail in hot pink.
We had 3 or 4 passes through this set of rips before it stopped producing fish. We then headed west down the island, where we saw some birds working. Once we got over there we saw a sand bar and saw some fish splashing on the surface under the birds.
I sprinted to the bow and put in a quick cast into the middle of the mayhem with my trusty pink RonZ, a couple of quick cranks of the Shimano and I had a solid strike. Lost a bit of line then started to bring the fish in pretty easily. Then I saw the fish. At first, I thought it was 2 fish swimming super close as my mind was in schoolie mode. As I’m processing this, the fish sees the boat and goes on a tear, stripping line off the reel nearly down to the backing. We gave chase in the boat and after a bit it settled down and I was able to make head way. We finally got the fish under control and I finally got to see it’s true size, without doubt the biggest striper I’ve ever hooked.
Brian the skipper came to the back of the boat and asked if I needed a hand, I quipped back we’d need a net and he was like nah we can just grab it, then I was able to get the fish back near the surafec and he saw it for thge 1st time aas like shit, you’re right we need the net.
It turned out we didn’t just need a net, we needed a bigger net as the 1st three time we got fish and net togther, we couldn’t get the fish in. Fourth time was a charm, but next problem was the fish weighed so much it took both of us to lift it in.
So we had fish in the boat were able to get rough measurement and weight. After which we quick got it back into the water for the reviving process.
Leasson Learnt
- Big fish can be in very skinny water, less than a foot in this case.
- You can catch big fish on barbless hooks, but it’s a lot more exciting. I like to fish barbless on all my striper / blue rigs and it’s some much less stress on the fish and me to unhook, even if I do lose the odd one here or there.
- Get a bigger (stronger) net than you think you need
- Always have tape measure or stick close at hand and make sure its longer than you need
- Use a digital fish scale vs pull version, so much more accurate, but make sure it goes heavy enough.
