Stripers at the Narrows

[yakPHISHn]

Mark- that is a channel catfish. you can tell because of the deep fork in the tail and the greenish brown color. I am told that channel cat are the best eating and people prefer them in the 15-25 range because the meat is more tender.

[Fishinfool]

On the Fly (Harry) organized a trip this morning out of Goodhands ramp just south of Kent Narrows. Six of us launched shortly after 7:00 (Raptor, Mark, On the Fly, FL Boy, and one other guy whose name I did not learn). Low tide was expected about 8:00 am, giving us an incoming tide most of the morning. I rarely look at the Solunar charts. However, while checking the tide chart last night, I noticed that the Solunar schedule called for a strong bite from 8:00 to 10:00. From my experience today, that was on the money.

Shortly after launching I began trolling with 4 med and med-light spinning rods -- each had a different lure. After only 15 mins, I trolled close in to a grassy point and had a hard knockdown. It turned out to be a 22" striper. That was a pleasant way to start the day.

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I threw a few casts to the same spot and caught two more smaller stripers in quick order. All three of those fish hit a 12 Fathoms 3" Fat Sam Mullet paddletail -- this proved to be the top bait for today. The two most productive colors of Fat Sam are shown below.

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I moved over to fish near a large area of structure below the bridges. I have occasionally picked up fish near there. Today, the stripers were packed tight in there. In my first 7 passes through the area, I caught 8 stripers, including two runs when two rods went down at once. On one of those double headers, I caught a 20" striper on one rod and a 28" striper on the second rod. The 28" fish is my second largest striper from the kayak.

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All this catching happened in a 45-60 minute period that fell within the Solunar recommended period (maybe I should pay more attention to those ratings).

Those fish were caught on slow or slack tide (go figure). Once the tide started moving, the bite died off, or maybe the fish moved somewhere else. I decided to pedal north past the bridges to work the northern end of the Narrows. The areas I fished looked promising, but the bite was not nearly as strong as I had experienced earlier.

At the end of the day, I finished with 15 stripers from 12" to 28" with 4 of at least 20". The Fat Sam mullet on 1/2-oz jigheads accounted for 11 of those fish. The other 4 came on Gulp swimming mullets on 3/8-oz jigheads. I concentrated my trolling in shallow areas. All but one of the fish were caught in depths below 5 ft. The one deeper fish was caught in 6.5 ft depth.

I hooked a cownose ray on the way back to the ramp. After it ran back and forth for a few minutes, I broke the line.

Absolutely phenomenal report John. You guys are pros! That 28 "er had been lounging in the underwater recliner too long and needed a good fight to shed a pound or two...

BTW, I've been watching those solunar tables on the tides 4 us site (or whatever it is), and wondered if they were b.s. or not. So far, they're accurate but you still have to find where the fish are.

[Mark]

yakPHISHn,

Channel cat, huh?

Thank you.

I'm glad it was not one of the invasive catfish species because I let it go.

[AbuMasgouf]

Well done gents and great report indeed!

Curious John, What site were you looking at the provided the Solunar charts?

[J.A. Veil]

Well done gents and great report indeed!

Curious John, What site were you looking at the provided the Solunar charts?

http://www.tides4fishing.com/us/mary...island-narrows

[Goody]

Looks like it was a beautiful day out there. The water looks so calm. Great job guys.

Mobile

[eyedaddy]

Great Job! Thanks for the info also!

[iHeartfishingboy]

Very nice!! I've got to work on trolling. We use those charts often and do have more successful fishing trips.