July, 20th 2010

The main story here, again, seems to be the extreme heat that is lingering. Water temps are in the low 80's, for the most part, but that has not prevented us from going out. We've seen more Specks in the last week than we had this Spring so things are looking up. One day we landed 7 in an hour and a half, after a hard 5 hours of effort. And another day we managed 4 in a 1/2 day trip. About half of these fish were over 20". They were all females still in spawning mode so they were all tagged and released. More Reds are showing up so that's encouraging.
I'll be out of town the first 2 weeks of August and I'm very hopeful that the Red fishing will start getting better the end of the month and into early September.

June, 24th 2010

Since my last report, the water temps have really shot up. With the heat index hitting the 100 degree mark on too many occasions, there was only 1 way for that to go. There are still a few Stripers in the shallows and we are still catching the occasional Speck, but we are working for them. Few citation size Specks are being reported now. All in all, fishing has been slow every where. If we can catch a break from this heat, I'm hopeful things will improve.

May, 27 2010

What a difference a week makes! Not that the fish are jumpin' in the boat but some nice Specks are starting to be seen by the hook and line brethren. Yesterday a fella put a 24" release Citation in the boat. A female full of roe. We tagged and released her. We also got a 20"er that was also tagged and released. Today we only had 1 Speck for the 1/2 day but it was a 21 1/2" male that went home for supper. Finally we're seeing some citations reported in the paper. This does not make a season but it sure makes me more up beat!!

May, 17 2010

It's looking like the bad Winter has slowed things down even more than I first anticipated. The bad new is that the Specks just flat have not made a good appearance yet. There are some out there but they are few and far between. Normally, you would see 3 or 4 citations listed in the local paper each week but, so far, you're lucky to see 1. I know they are there because the netters are catching some. Also, the weather has been less than cooperative. Lots of wind.
The good news is that there are Stripers about. Fishing to structure has been the best bet but we've had a couple of good days with them on the grass beds. Croaker and a few Blue fish are out there, also. The boyz from Texas wound up catching about 16 Stripers last Thursday after a very slow start to the day. Regular Striper season starts May 15th and ends June 16th. After that, it is C&R until October.
And even more good news is that the grass beds are in the best shape they've been since hurricane Isabel came thru in '03. Many of the beds have expanded and some are reaching the surface in 6 foot of water.
We're going to keep hitting it every chance we get so check back or call for the latest report.