Byte Me and I got invited to go out with my buddy, Dave-O, and his friends, Mario and Lenny, aboard their boat the "Knot Guilty."
The day was off to a bad start when I woke up at 5:45 ... especially considering that we were supposed to be meeting at the dock in Keyport at 6:00.
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Apparently, I never turned on my alarm clock, so I quickly called Dave-O to tell him and the rest of the crew to shove off without me as I didn't want to hold them up. However, when I spoke to them, they still needed to get bait and get the boat rigged and ready; so Dave-O told me they would wait for me to get there.
We headed out an hour later than we expected, but it was chilly in the morning, so we expected that the fish would be likely be sluggish until the sun warmed some of the shallower flats. When we got out into the bay, there were quite a few gannets and gulls working over bait; but, we were not interested in playing with any bass as everyone on board was looking to 1st & foremost try to see if we could put a flounder catch together.
We drifted a few areas with nothing but a couple of skates to show for our effort. However, there were a few "swings-n-misses" before Lenny finally got the skunk off the boat with a nice keeper flounder. Once we got the first one in the boat, we tried anchoring up in the area and Lenny started chumming heavily with a mix of clams & musses to try to get them to feed more aggressively. For baits, we fished a mix of clams, mussels and sandworms, and none of the baits worked any better than the others as we caught fish on all 3 bait types.
Mario caught the 2nd keeper of the day; I added another nice keeper a bit later. Mario decked another really nice, fat one to fill out his limit; with 4 fish in the box, we were feeling a bit better. It actually looked like we might be able to develop a very slow pick with the building tide. We knew it wasn't going to be gangbusters, but we were hoping we could scratch out a decent catch and maybe, just maybe ... eek out a limit.
Unfortunately, the flounders weren't in tune with our game plan. I'm guessing they didn't get the memo with our mission statement and itinerary as they never really showed despite our best laid plans.
To try to make up for the slow flounder action while the tide was running hard, we decided to toss out a couple of clam baits far behind the boat to see if any stripers were home. Almost immediately we had short bass repeatedly hitting the clam baits. Unfortunately, we failed to land any of them. Dave-O did have a couple different ones hooked, but they managed to throw the hook every time before he could land them. (I think he was purposely shaking them off the hook to try to keep me from trying to turn our flounder trip into a bass trip.) However, just to prove to him he can't keep me away from the bass that easily, I landed a single small striper on a piece of sandworm fished on a tiny flounder hook.
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Toward the end of the day, Mario caught a 3rd keeper flounder, and I added another really nice one that was probably 2.75 lbs. to fill out my limit. However, by this time the tide was dropping out & we knew the tiny bite we had would die. With only 6 flounders in the boat that late in the day, it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get a full boat limit, so we decided to give it just a few more minutes.
Just before we were ready to call it a day, I got a crushing strike from another flounder. This one hit & fought considerably harder than the others, and when we got it in the boat, it had a much larger mouth than the others. The way it hit so aggressively, I am guessing it was probably a female one guarding her nest as she really hammered the bait when she took it. When we compared it to the other fish in the cooler at the end of the day, we noticed that its eyes were on the wrong side of its head.
![Image]()
We ended with the 7 flounders over the minimum size limit which made for a decent amount of fillets ... nothing to write home about, but enough action between the caught fish, junk fish and missed fish to keep everyone awake. We saw quite a few herring and bunker breaching and jumping, so it looks like the Spring baitfish run has bounced back from Sandy's devastation ... so far.
It was fun day on the water with a fun group of guys laughing, joking, fishing, and breaking each other's stones. But mostly, it was just a group of guys getting together to enjoy a beautiful day on the water. It was one of those gorgeous days on the bay when it makes you feel good to be alive. It was also great to see loads of baitfish splashing and birds working in the bay again after a long winter. It is always a pleasure to fish with "my boys from the back of the bay" and I am already looking forward to our next outing.
Hopefully, the next time we fish, we'll be able to drag our buddy, Ted, along. I could tell when he met us at the dock at the end of the day that he would have much rather been fishing with us than working.
- Gr8ful
Me With a Couple of Nice "Normal" Flounder:
Dave-O & Lenny Displaying My "Wrong-eyed", Aggressive Female Flounder:
The day was off to a bad start when I woke up at 5:45 ... especially considering that we were supposed to be meeting at the dock in Keyport at 6:00.
We headed out an hour later than we expected, but it was chilly in the morning, so we expected that the fish would be likely be sluggish until the sun warmed some of the shallower flats. When we got out into the bay, there were quite a few gannets and gulls working over bait; but, we were not interested in playing with any bass as everyone on board was looking to 1st & foremost try to see if we could put a flounder catch together.
We drifted a few areas with nothing but a couple of skates to show for our effort. However, there were a few "swings-n-misses" before Lenny finally got the skunk off the boat with a nice keeper flounder. Once we got the first one in the boat, we tried anchoring up in the area and Lenny started chumming heavily with a mix of clams & musses to try to get them to feed more aggressively. For baits, we fished a mix of clams, mussels and sandworms, and none of the baits worked any better than the others as we caught fish on all 3 bait types.
Mario caught the 2nd keeper of the day; I added another nice keeper a bit later. Mario decked another really nice, fat one to fill out his limit; with 4 fish in the box, we were feeling a bit better. It actually looked like we might be able to develop a very slow pick with the building tide. We knew it wasn't going to be gangbusters, but we were hoping we could scratch out a decent catch and maybe, just maybe ... eek out a limit.
Unfortunately, the flounders weren't in tune with our game plan. I'm guessing they didn't get the memo with our mission statement and itinerary as they never really showed despite our best laid plans.
To try to make up for the slow flounder action while the tide was running hard, we decided to toss out a couple of clam baits far behind the boat to see if any stripers were home. Almost immediately we had short bass repeatedly hitting the clam baits. Unfortunately, we failed to land any of them. Dave-O did have a couple different ones hooked, but they managed to throw the hook every time before he could land them. (I think he was purposely shaking them off the hook to try to keep me from trying to turn our flounder trip into a bass trip.) However, just to prove to him he can't keep me away from the bass that easily, I landed a single small striper on a piece of sandworm fished on a tiny flounder hook.
Toward the end of the day, Mario caught a 3rd keeper flounder, and I added another really nice one that was probably 2.75 lbs. to fill out my limit. However, by this time the tide was dropping out & we knew the tiny bite we had would die. With only 6 flounders in the boat that late in the day, it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get a full boat limit, so we decided to give it just a few more minutes.
Just before we were ready to call it a day, I got a crushing strike from another flounder. This one hit & fought considerably harder than the others, and when we got it in the boat, it had a much larger mouth than the others. The way it hit so aggressively, I am guessing it was probably a female one guarding her nest as she really hammered the bait when she took it. When we compared it to the other fish in the cooler at the end of the day, we noticed that its eyes were on the wrong side of its head.
We ended with the 7 flounders over the minimum size limit which made for a decent amount of fillets ... nothing to write home about, but enough action between the caught fish, junk fish and missed fish to keep everyone awake. We saw quite a few herring and bunker breaching and jumping, so it looks like the Spring baitfish run has bounced back from Sandy's devastation ... so far.
It was fun day on the water with a fun group of guys laughing, joking, fishing, and breaking each other's stones. But mostly, it was just a group of guys getting together to enjoy a beautiful day on the water. It was one of those gorgeous days on the bay when it makes you feel good to be alive. It was also great to see loads of baitfish splashing and birds working in the bay again after a long winter. It is always a pleasure to fish with "my boys from the back of the bay" and I am already looking forward to our next outing.
Hopefully, the next time we fish, we'll be able to drag our buddy, Ted, along. I could tell when he met us at the dock at the end of the day that he would have much rather been fishing with us than working.
- Gr8ful
Me With a Couple of Nice "Normal" Flounder:
Dave-O & Lenny Displaying My "Wrong-eyed", Aggressive Female Flounder:
