# Plo 8/5



## Lipyourown (May 11, 2005)

Went out last Sat from 2-7 PM with CT. First we drifted the point itself looking for flounder. It has been red hot for flounder the last couple of weeks but we (CT) managed just one undersize one about 13" during 2 drifts about 1/4 mile each from the oyster sanctuary to the three legged buoy. Most of our minnows came back with just the head (small blues or surgical flounders?)



Headed due east in search of blues. In this area of the bay it is pretty easy to know where the blues will be vs. where the rockfish (western shore for rocks boys and girls) will be. I thought that was important to say since I really wanted to avoid the rockfish because we were at the end of that heat wave and we didn't want to stress a bunch of 17" rockfish. 88 degrees that day.



Due east to the target ship / buoy 72 / middle grounds and dropped our lite trolling lines with Tonys and Clark spoons. We drop just east of the 70 buoy and continued east. BAM! Nice blues to 5 pounds were biting to the point that we decided just to troll 3 lines because of the hot action. I put about 5 in the cooler for a planned cookout on Sunday. As predicted, the shallower we got, the smaller the blues got and then they started busting on top as we hoped for. No rockfish in this area and it doesn't matter a lick what type of lure you cast. 



Of course there was the boat that went charging through them and put them down along with two charter boats that wanted to troll for these smaller blues (if they would just troll 1/4 mile west their customer's would get a better class of blues). Drifted through some natural slicks from the melee and vertical jigged picking up a couple more. Saw some weird waves on the way back west, nothing under them and headed home. We caught over 25 all day. Second photo is of a couple of flounder I got right in the wash at Kitty Hawk over the 4th of July. See if you can see the bucktail used in the low quality photos in the gallery.


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## cygnus-x1 (Oct 12, 2005)

lip, nice report and nice catch! I was wondering if you could expand upon your description of trolling. I see you were travelling west to east I guess you kept going over channel edges there. But what were you using (1lb, 2lb sinkers, planar trolling style sinlkers) ... I am new to trolling and all I know is the double bounce on the bottom method. When you were setting your lines out what depth did you try and set them for or what depth did you drop them in?


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## Lipyourown (May 11, 2005)

We travel west to east to get to our destination. Once we hit the channel ledge, it goes from about 100' to 40' and still traveling east, we drop our lines there, usually 4 of them at this time of year. We drop right between buoy 70 and 68 and continue east about half a mile then keep doing big circles getting no shallower than 25' and bcak round kissing the channel. At 20' it seems the fish get smaller, though more willing (busting on the surface). We don't troll the chanel edge for this type of fishing. The area I describe has lots of humps and is good for chumming, flounder drifting, croaker at night and the occasional drum. It is among the best water on the bay. For summer, we troll it for blues hoping for spanish.

Lite trolling gear for us consists of 20-30# powerpro/fireline. The rods are beefy muskie baitcasters (usually with a line rating of 15-30#s adn up to 6 ounces of lead). Now I would never cast a lure heavier than that on those rods, but trolling an 8 ounce sinker is fine. I say that becuase for summer blue / mackeral trolling we use (2) 8 ounce inlines, (1) 4 ounce and one line with no weight. Try to cover the bottom to the surface. length varies 8 ouncers about 75' and free spoon 200+ feet. I'm no pro but the fishing there is like clock work once you do it 5 or 500 times. Tie line to sanp swivel, put on sinker and attach another snap swivel. Tie 10' feet of 50# mono to that then tie a inline swivel on then 5 ' feet of 50# mono and tie spoons directly to that. Still sporting to bring in the fish but not taking 10 minutes to bring em in render c&r a vain attempt. 

For rockfish I use the same set ups but use 2 ounce spro bucktails with out the inlines and send em back up to 300' in the late fall and spring (along with 4 sh!tkicker pennboat rods with special senators for the trophy seasons). Cyg, let me know if you are gonna be on the western shore sometime, I think your boat is broke?


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## Lipyourown (May 11, 2005)

Oh yea, red is the color of the spanish spoons this year (so i am told) and planers are cool and all but we found are just as cumbersome as an inline during the landing and slightly more complicated than the inlines so we don't use them anymore. 1 pound weights would kill the sporting aspect of it and are unnecessary in that shallow water.


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## cygnus-x1 (Oct 12, 2005)

My first experience trolling (me being in charge that is) was last year. Around the puppy hole the mantra for the fall is heavy and deep. So most of my trolling gear is geared for 16-48oz weight, This is for fall rockfish. For rock you only travel at 3.6 mph so you are really down deep with the heavy weights. Many people I know use downriggers with real heavy weights. I guess for the blues and your light inline sinkers and your speed you are not real near the bottom. I assume you are trolling at 5-7mph? I hear that spanish mack like it fast (7-8 mph) and that the shinier (chrome) the better. If my boat doesn't break down on me again I hope to troll surgical tubes over by the deal island channel ledge in addition to bottom fishing. Two weekes ago I was getting ready to switch over to trolling when I lost my steering and had to be towed in. 

I would run out to your area (we are not that far away from you) but my trim tabs are not working and my boat eats gas when it digs into the water so for the rest of the year I am staying close to home.


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