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In the spirit of the forum getting a makeover, I figured I'd breath some new life into it from the other side of the bay and contribute a report since I haven't posted one in a long time. This report covers multiple fishing trips I've made to several different locations over the last month or so starting in early to mid October. 
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I'll start with 3 or 4 short 1 - 3 hour trips I've made to the back bays behind OC to target stripers. For the most part, this a night game for me. You can catch them during the day, but I find nighttime is better. Plus, if I wait to go until after the family has gone to bed for the night, then (in my mind) I'm not really using a family pass to go fishing, but rather just missing out on a few hours of sleep
. It's schoolie fishing. I've occasionally caught a legal sized fish in the past (28" - 35"), but typically fish are in the 16" - 26" range. I target areas with lights and moving current. When the current is moving it can be stupid easy fishing, but when the current stops it'll be crickets and you can't buy a bite. A Tsunami sand eel, 6" BKD, or 6" Zoom Fluke are my favorites to use, but after I get a handful of fish boated I'll start switching lures up just to test how others compare and teach myself different ways to work different lures. If the water is clear, I'll sometimes position myself in the shadows and cast into lighted areas to watch how fish react to my offerings. I've been able to time the current right the trips I've made this fall so far and it's been steady catching the entire trip with 30+ fish nights in just a couple hours, sometimes leaving them biting. The size has mostly been 16" - 23" so far with a handful of fish 23" - 27" thrown in. And a bonus catch was a keeper flounder on my first trip in early October. The fish should be back there until water temps get below 40 degrees, so if you're in OC for the holidays you might want to sneak out at night if you can.
I've made 2 tog trips to the OC inlet area as well. The catching was fantastic, but the ratio of keeper to throwback wasn't kind to me. I had a total of 2 keepers over 2 trips. Although the water was still 60+ degrees on those trips so the ratio has likely gotten better since then. Sand fleas and Asian crabs both worked equally well for me tipped on 3/4 oz tog jigs. When I got a good bite going it was drop down and set the hook kind of fishing. I was often getting hit on the drop in these occasions and was hooking into fish before even getting to the bottom. I tried to work through short tog at times hoping for a keeper, but several times I had to move because there were just too many small fish (~12"ers) coming up. My favorite part of my second trip was when I was fishing a stretch of rocks along with 4 boats. I had been catching fairly steady and noticed I was doing much better then the boats on either side of me. As a 5th boat idled in to anchor up, the fellas on that boat asked one of the other boats that was already anchored up how the bite was? They responded "Slow. But this guy in the kayak over here is murdering them." Heck yeah I thought. Suck it boats!
I made a single trip to a spot on the seaside of Accomack County. I went looking for specks in an area that will often hold them in the fall. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any specks, just 14" stripers where I expected the specks to be. On the paddle back to the launch I noticed some fish in supper skinny water pushing wake chasing bait behind an oyster bar that was barley covered in water. I knew it had to be puppy drum so I shot over to the spot and put a lure in front of them. Hooked up right away, but it was a 22"ish striper. That repeated itself a half dozen times with stripers all ~22". I was so confident they were reds that I have never been so disappointed to see stripers at the end of my line.
But the best trip of the month was a trip to Northampton County. This trip was solely a puppy drum mission. I knew I'd likely catch specks and strtiper too, but I told myself I was going to chase drum. I had a plan to try 3 different spots, but I never had to leave spot 1 all day. I arrived during the last hour of outgoing tide and was greeted to big schools of puppy drum tailing, pushing wake, and jumping completely out of the water. This would go on all day long. I was instantly into reds in the 20" - 27" range on anything I threw at them. I stated with jig head and soft plastic, switched to an X-rap, broke the through wire off on the back of the X-rap so switched to a chatter bait, switched to a spook, switched to a different spook after the tail hook through wire broke again - this time on the first spook, then tried some crab quarters on a jig head. As the tide switched to incoming, the action never slowed but the species changed completely. Where I had been hammering pups for over an hour turned into every cast specks in the 17" - 22" range with a few striper sprinkled in. The striper were mostly 16" but I did get a 26" and another a hair short of 28". I could have stayed there and kept hammering on specks and stipers, but I opted to follow the tide up into the marsh to see where the puppy drum had gone. Sure enough I found them in the skinny water pushing up into the marsh with the tide and it was game on again. The entire day was pandemonium fishing and easily the best day of catching I've had in 2021. I lost track but estimate I landed at least 3 dozen pups, 2 dozen specks, and a dozen stripers, give or take. It was just one of those days everything lined up perfect.
This past month has been good to me in the catching department, I hope others are out catching as well!
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.I'll start with 3 or 4 short 1 - 3 hour trips I've made to the back bays behind OC to target stripers. For the most part, this a night game for me. You can catch them during the day, but I find nighttime is better. Plus, if I wait to go until after the family has gone to bed for the night, then (in my mind) I'm not really using a family pass to go fishing, but rather just missing out on a few hours of sleep
. It's schoolie fishing. I've occasionally caught a legal sized fish in the past (28" - 35"), but typically fish are in the 16" - 26" range. I target areas with lights and moving current. When the current is moving it can be stupid easy fishing, but when the current stops it'll be crickets and you can't buy a bite. A Tsunami sand eel, 6" BKD, or 6" Zoom Fluke are my favorites to use, but after I get a handful of fish boated I'll start switching lures up just to test how others compare and teach myself different ways to work different lures. If the water is clear, I'll sometimes position myself in the shadows and cast into lighted areas to watch how fish react to my offerings. I've been able to time the current right the trips I've made this fall so far and it's been steady catching the entire trip with 30+ fish nights in just a couple hours, sometimes leaving them biting. The size has mostly been 16" - 23" so far with a handful of fish 23" - 27" thrown in. And a bonus catch was a keeper flounder on my first trip in early October. The fish should be back there until water temps get below 40 degrees, so if you're in OC for the holidays you might want to sneak out at night if you can.I've made 2 tog trips to the OC inlet area as well. The catching was fantastic, but the ratio of keeper to throwback wasn't kind to me. I had a total of 2 keepers over 2 trips. Although the water was still 60+ degrees on those trips so the ratio has likely gotten better since then. Sand fleas and Asian crabs both worked equally well for me tipped on 3/4 oz tog jigs. When I got a good bite going it was drop down and set the hook kind of fishing. I was often getting hit on the drop in these occasions and was hooking into fish before even getting to the bottom. I tried to work through short tog at times hoping for a keeper, but several times I had to move because there were just too many small fish (~12"ers) coming up. My favorite part of my second trip was when I was fishing a stretch of rocks along with 4 boats. I had been catching fairly steady and noticed I was doing much better then the boats on either side of me. As a 5th boat idled in to anchor up, the fellas on that boat asked one of the other boats that was already anchored up how the bite was? They responded "Slow. But this guy in the kayak over here is murdering them." Heck yeah I thought. Suck it boats!
I made a single trip to a spot on the seaside of Accomack County. I went looking for specks in an area that will often hold them in the fall. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any specks, just 14" stripers where I expected the specks to be. On the paddle back to the launch I noticed some fish in supper skinny water pushing wake chasing bait behind an oyster bar that was barley covered in water. I knew it had to be puppy drum so I shot over to the spot and put a lure in front of them. Hooked up right away, but it was a 22"ish striper. That repeated itself a half dozen times with stripers all ~22". I was so confident they were reds that I have never been so disappointed to see stripers at the end of my line.
But the best trip of the month was a trip to Northampton County. This trip was solely a puppy drum mission. I knew I'd likely catch specks and strtiper too, but I told myself I was going to chase drum. I had a plan to try 3 different spots, but I never had to leave spot 1 all day. I arrived during the last hour of outgoing tide and was greeted to big schools of puppy drum tailing, pushing wake, and jumping completely out of the water. This would go on all day long. I was instantly into reds in the 20" - 27" range on anything I threw at them. I stated with jig head and soft plastic, switched to an X-rap, broke the through wire off on the back of the X-rap so switched to a chatter bait, switched to a spook, switched to a different spook after the tail hook through wire broke again - this time on the first spook, then tried some crab quarters on a jig head. As the tide switched to incoming, the action never slowed but the species changed completely. Where I had been hammering pups for over an hour turned into every cast specks in the 17" - 22" range with a few striper sprinkled in. The striper were mostly 16" but I did get a 26" and another a hair short of 28". I could have stayed there and kept hammering on specks and stipers, but I opted to follow the tide up into the marsh to see where the puppy drum had gone. Sure enough I found them in the skinny water pushing up into the marsh with the tide and it was game on again. The entire day was pandemonium fishing and easily the best day of catching I've had in 2021. I lost track but estimate I landed at least 3 dozen pups, 2 dozen specks, and a dozen stripers, give or take. It was just one of those days everything lined up perfect.
This past month has been good to me in the catching department, I hope others are out catching as well!
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IMG_E1315.jpg
IMG_1312.jpg
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