Big Stripers and Monster Blues with Reel Cast Charters

On Tuesday I got a call from fishing friend Rick Seifert. He told me he had booked a trip for Thursday evening with Mike Roy of Reel Cast Charters and asked if I wanted to come along... easiest decision I've ever made! He said I should bring a fly rod, we were probably going to start start out live lining bunker and switch to fishing eels after dark. I figured it would be a great opportunity to get some shots at big bass on the fly, and certainly a good chance to break some personal records whether or not they it were on my favorite stick.

What we ended up doing was a little bit different from the original plan. Different water, different tactics, at least before dark. We started out fishing big topwater walking baits for big bass and blues. The action was extremely impressive. This part of the night was my best shot at getting a truly large fish on fly. I had a number of chances, had some huge bass boil on my big fly, but the only one I ended up hooking was a smaller bass. The plugs were, unsurprisingly, more adept at hooking and holding fish. The number and size of the fish in that spot and the way they hit those big do walking lures was impressive. The first bass in the boat for the evening was a 30lb fish... quite an impressive animal on an artificial! It took Ricks's lure multiple times before getting hooked and putting on an absolutely violent display on the surface.

The bluefish in that spot were true monsters. Mike weighed one, 16lb 4oz if I remember correctly...

Photo Courtesy Rick Seifert

After the sun set the topwater bite ended and we switched over to live lining eels. I dropped the fly rod and got back to my roots as a spin caster. Fishing the eels was pretty similar to using a Texas rigged senko for largemouth, except the fish we were catching were quite a bit larger... I think I got 4 over 20lbs, the biggest being 35 or so, my biggest striper by far; unfortunately she didn't hang around for the photo op. The hits were incredible, and the ensuing battles even more so. It really changed a lot about how I thought about targeting big stripers. The methods, the places we fished, the time of day... all new things to learn that I should, in time, be able to translate into big cow stripers caught not on conventional tackle, but my weapon of choice; the fly rod. For now, I'm pretty stoked with these ones.

Photo Courtesy Rick Seifert

Photo Courtesy Mike Roy

All I can say is thank for inviting me Rick, I had an absolute blast, and thanks Mike for putting us on the fish! I can't recommend Reel Cast Charters enough, Mike obviously knows how to find and catch those big fish, if you are looking to get into some big stripers, blues, or false albacore on light tackle or flies give him a call.

www.reelcastcharters.com