may 29th

[ronaultmtd]

Went down to my Sister's place at Cobb Island this morning- my minnow trap was empty so I caught four white perch and cut two up into fish steaks for cut bait. I paddled out of the inlet around 9 a.m.- it was overcast and windy- as I approached the channel approximately a mile from Mitchell's Creek, I noticed the swells were about two, sometimes three feet in the channel- I was trolling a 5/8 oz (7/0) jig head with a pearl bass assassin on one rod and a 6 inch chartreuse shad on the other- I pulled across the channel to the back of St. Margaret Island and back again- nothing. the paddle was tough against a stiff south wind and breaking water in the cockpit so I decided to anchor up on the edge of the channel closer to the 6 foot bar than the 36 foot deep trench running next to the channel marker. I wasn't there fifteen minutes when a boat came very close to me making me straddle the yak with feet in the water to ride out the wake- that should have told me something, but I am a hard head- twenty boats later, I threw in the towel- nothing is worth drowning- I was catching fish but it was getting rougher and the boats were everywhere- fifty feet off the bow- 75 feet off the stern- you name it they buzzed by at close range all morning long- at 1 pm I started paddling in- four blue catfish- biggest one was 28 inches

[richardbb85]

no croakers

[ronaultmtd]

Richard- In all honesty, I was not fishing for croakers- only fishing for catfish and stripers- the baits were too big for all but monster croakers- large chunks of cut bait- white perch cut in three baits per fish- I caught the perch in Mitchell's creek on tiny jigs with little soft plastic swim shad bodies like you would use to catch crappie in fresh water- and I used an ultra light spinner to catch them- lots of fun bait fishing-occasionally you can catch baby stripers, puppy drum, and snapper blues on this same outfit as it mimics the tiny minnows around the rocks.

The croakers are in but like everything else, they are affected by the low salinity and the red may worm swarms- two weeks from now it should be back to normal...I marked lots of fish and saw some bait fish jump out of the water, so the fish are here- just not biting.

When I target croakers I use a standard double bottom rig with smaller hooks and strips of fresh squid- and I drift fish in 10-15 foot of water well off the channel- My Brother-in-law catches the heck out of them off his three piers in Mitchell's creek- some are very large, too- they are in 6 feet of water in the creek.

I am going back out today- later in the afternoon- I have caught some big river minnows (according to my Brother-in Law) in my traps (I baited them with cut perch yesterday before I left) and I will drift fish them along the edge of the channel on a fish finder rig with 6/0 circle hooks- I am not going to anchor up and get my brains beat out like yesterday- just too rough for me (although I am getting a lot of faith in the sea worthiness of the OK Prowler)- I am going to let the conditions dictate where I fish- probably closer to Rock Point- farther back from the inlet

[ronaultmtd]

The Bay was not nearly as choppy today but there was a lot of boat traffic- I trolled a silver 2 3/4 inch Rattlin' Rapala and Mepps spinners, chartreuse shallow divers and fire tiger deep divers- caught three small stripers- one may have been legal- 18 inches but it was too close a call for me to keep it- the Rapala caught all the stripers