Poor Start But a Great Finish by Bob Dodds

Posted on May 22, 2022 by VHFC

Our opening week trip for sea bass trip didn’t start too well. I was fishing with my son Shawn, neighbor Kyle and his boss Tony. One way to get a day off, is to ask your boss to come. As we started, that 1/2” increase to 13” looked like it would spoil our trip. Most of the initial fish were between 12.5 and just shy of 13”. However, we were fishing with Capt. Greg Carr on the Kev n Ash II and he has never failed us before.

He didn’t this time either. We moved several times and started getting good sized sea bass. We ended the day with a boat limit of 50 sea bass from 13 – 20+” including the keeper double shown below. Shawn got the beautiful big one and this time beat his father. We had time left on the charter so Greg took us into the bay for some fluke fishing before the winds kicked up. We did get 1 20″ keeper and 2 shorts before calling it quits.
It was another enjoyable trip. However, watch out next time Shawn.

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

The triangle fly is probably the most unusual of saltwater flies. It’s one of the few, if not only, flies tied to a treble hook. It’s also barely a fly at all, because hardly any material is used. It is complete after tying the two straw pearl twinkle flashes and the tiny tuft of natural squirrel, leaving an entire hook fully exposed. Incredibly this barebacked treble fly is a knockout when it comes to sea trout.