 My son and his family came home for the long week-end. Fred serves in the Army and has a wife and two kids, so we only get to fish together a few times a year at best. This was one of those times. A bonus was that I had the privilege of taking my granddaughter’s boyfriend fishing on only his second fishing trip of his life. Alex had never caught a fish of any sort, so I was on a mission to change that!
We left the house at 5:45 and launched, catching some pogies right there at the ramp and headed out of Rich’s inlet. Our first stop was a small ledge about 10 miles from Rich’s inlet. It was a bit sloppy, not rough but with wind from one direction and swells from another, I decided to start with some dead ballyhoo so we could use the extra trolling speed for steerage. Within 10 minutes of setting out our spread we had the first dolphin of the day on. We told Alex to pick up the rod. Soon after the fish jumped and we knew he had a dolphin on. I had given Alex a brief “tutorial” before we started to fish and he handled that fish just like an old pro! I gaffed the fish and now it was time for the customary pictures of Alex and his first fish.
Then it was back to fishing. Our expectation were high now, only to be dampened by another hour and a half with no more bites. So we picked up and moved a few miles further offshore. After an hour or so at the at spot we had our second dolphin of the day hooked up. This time my son, Fred, fought the fish. This one was slightly larger at about 10 pounds and fought nicely. Then the big drought set in. Finally we decided to move back in to the first spot. It has calmed down and was slick calm now.
We put out live bait this time. It was long long before we had a looker in our spread. The dolphin was sniffing our prop wash bait and had it going crazy while giving us a good show. Then it charged the bait and MISSED! One more time it made a pass, jumped and then left having never touched the bait. After a while we looked back and saw at least 25 - 30 small dolphin following our live bait. We threw every thing we had at them and couldn’t interest them, finally they left. Then so did we.
Great day on the water, even with the slow bite. It was great to spend time with my son and to see Alex catch his first fish. My 9 year old grandson was suppose to go with us but when we woke him up he wanted to go back to bed. Maybe next time he’ll go with us. |
