Sol Watson and his fishing pal Percy met me at the ramp at 4;30 am yesterday and we had high hopes for the day. I explained that the bite was waning on my usual grounds and we might have to pull out the stops and find these fish elsewhere. The forcast was totally off and we were met with a stiff 15mph NW wind which made for a very uncomfortable trip to the grounds...Upon arriving I could tell it was dead for that amount of wind. We did mark a few but after an hour of releasing dogfish and bass we decided to make a move...Going farther north was going to be very uncomfortable so opted to run east which showed no life as well....From here we swing south and find the mother load of life and setup but not marking or seeing any charlie....I tell Percy to start blind casting the big Got Stryper bait and have Sol start vertical jigging with the RONZ...I pick up a rod and start to re-rig a dogfish torn leader when I hear *BOOM*!! and look up and see a whole in the water the size of a volkswagen...Percy is tight on the St. Croix Stella combo....We get to chasing the fish as I help Percy with technique....We decide were going to beat this fish fast and Sol and Percy change off every 10 minutes...At 25 minutes they hand off to me to get the fish up the last 30-50' or so....I get him up quick and add just a bit more drag...He is on the surface and just before we go for a gaff shot he rolls over and away on the outside of a circle and spirals his body in the leader. I go to release the drag but he kicked his tail hard a few times before I could and parted us off....Next time I will keep my hands out of the game...
We stick with this area for another hour or so until slack and the life and bait just DIES....So we pick up and head to another area that is just as lifeless....After an hour here we see breezers and I explain the game to these guys and Percy gets hooked up on a BEAST that was an awesome take....Before I can even get the boat turned around the fish is gone....We got one more boil but the boys had a deadline to get to the ferry. We ended the day 0 for 2 and worked very hard for what we got....
Somedays you just step in it and somedays you gotta work it out....Today we definently had to work it out....
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