A bull red, 2 flounder, 1 trigger fish, and 2 tautog at CBBT, Sep 28, 2014

[ComeOnFish]

It's the rod, the lucky rod!

This would be my last trip to CBBT until December.
JohnE, Dave (HokieDJ), and I fished CBBT on Sunday September 28, 2014.
Dave and I wanted to fish for sheepshead, but the baits were sold out at Ocean East 2. And I forgot to bring blue crabs that I bought the day before.

So Dave and I decided to fish for bull reds and possibly flounders. Dave was very confident about catching bull reds on the same flounder rigs and tactic we had been using for flounder. Also, we know that Tufnik caught a bull red a week ago using the same flounder rig.

Dave hooked the first bull red. The bull red broke the line in a minute. I think Dave had under-sized tackles for bull reds. I had adequate tackles that work for both flounder and bull red. And also I had the lucky rod.

When Dave hooked the first bull red, I was ready. Minutes later, as soon I felt the first tug, I pedaled away from the bridge columns without thinking anything. About 5-6 seconds later I was sure that I hooked a bull red. I managed to keep the fish in the middle of two bridges.
It took me about 20 minutes to land a 49-50 incher.
After that, I wanted something for dinner. So I spear fished at the First Island. The water was clear (9-11' visibility) for about 45 minutes during the 2 hour spear fishing. I saw schools of small spade fish. I saw about 10 tautog. 4 of them were keeper sized. I hit 3 tautog. A 16 incher got away somehow. Put two at 17-18" in the cooler. There weren't many tautog yet. Catching Tautog with hooks would be difficult for awhile I thought.

Dave hooked 7-8 bull reds. But due to the undersized reel and line, I think, all bull red broke his line.
John managed to catch 2 flounder. Catching flounder was toughest thing on the last Sunday.
Dave somehow caught a trigger fish @15"

Fishing log:

[Goody]

Wow! That's some serious action! Nice job guys!

Mobile

[RavensDfense]

Nice fish, man. Looks like Sunday was the day to be out there!

[HokieDJ]

The line was fine. I had 40lb braid and 50lb mono leader. I tried it straight braid also. It just those Reds are smart.
They wrapped me in the pilings and it was only matter of time before the barnacles cut my line.

Bucktails with Chartreuse gulp was the ticket that day.

[Reelaxin10]

Nice job on the Bull Red, and sweet video!

[JohnE]

Congrats on the bull red. Awesome job! I will be fishing down in that area almost every weekend until the end of the year. Too bad you can't go, should be some really good fishing coming up.

Dave, I think you should try one of my 'huge' ugly stiks you were poking fun at. Might help pull the reds away from the pilings, and they are still sensitive enough to feel the flounder bites. I have three of them and use them for just about everything. But I do want to get a medium weight tiger lite for flounder and specks.

I did also catch 4 or 5 small specks up to 11 or 12" near the second boat channel on the way back in. Good sign that they are recovering. They were destroying the gudgeons on the teaser hook of my flounder rigs.

One of the flounder hit gulp shrimp on spro jig head. It literally inhaled that thing, and I ruined the $5 jig head trying to yank it out to do more fishing with it. The other flounder hit the 4" swimming mullet on bare hook. When I filleted them, the fatter one had a whole squid it it, but the skinnier one seemed to be starving.

[HokieDJ]

I wasn't making fun out it. I was just saying they were big rods for flounder. I remember using a big Ugly stick before while floundering and I couldn't feel a thing so that's why I got a bass rod.

I didn't really planned to find Bull Reds. It's one of things you run into while floundering in the Fall and Spring. I thought about switching to my other rod and reel on the way back but was too lazy and I wanted to see if I could land a Bull using the flounder rig.

Nice job on the flounders. I really tried to find them but I kept snagging the reds. Literally 4 times in a row while you and Joe were talking down stream. I was dailed in on the Reds on where they were sitting and what they wanted but couldn't land any.

[JohnE]

Yeah, depends on the type/size of ugly stik. The three I take are actually just sensitive enough for flounder, but strong enough for anything we might run into out there. They are really versatile for me, but I do have a skinny baitcaster rig like you had and I do seem to catch more flounder on that one. That is really something to catch a bull red on those little rods.

[AbuMasgouf]

Man that's a workout! Nice going!

Going to be going down there next weekend... hopefully there would be some action left

[ComeOnFish]

The line was fine. I had 40lb braid and 50lb mono leader. I tried it straight braid also. It just those Reds are smart.
They wrapped me in the pilings and it was only matter of time before the barnacles cut my line.

Bucktails with Chartreuse gulp was the ticket that day.

Yup, I will use the same Buck-tail Gulp combo. Though you may order 100 2oz buck-tails to land one .

Was your reel a Curado? Was the drag set to too light? What is the max drag on your reel?. I set the drag on mine at 18# (max is 20#) - my leader was 30# test mono.
I noticed that your rod didn't bend much like mine.

Joe

[HokieDJ]

It's a Chronarch but it only has 11# drag and set to max but I doubt it was full because I had to break down the reel to fix a stuck level and it didn't feel right when I put it back. I even had to thumb it to stop the pulling. That rod is strong and sensitive. I have pulled in a 35" Black drum with it.

It was my luck that all those reds hit the pilings immediately. That said, I will look into changing my knots on the leader. I have been using a Palomar knot on the mono leaders but I think it's not as strong as if it was used on braid.

[tufnik]

Nice work, Joe! Now you too will have red fever...lol...

You'll get one next time, Dave, for sure!