Beating Up Stripers with Mike Roy

On Monday Rick texted me, asking if I'd like to join him on a trip with Mike Roy (Reel Cast Charters) again Wednesday morning. Well, I had a serious striper itch in need of scratching so that was a hard offer say no to. And so we found ourselves, both a bit tired, driving to the boat launch early Wednesday morning. It only takes one big topwater explosion to wake you up though. Rick took first blood with a nice bass on a spook right up in the rocks. Inches, inches from the rocks. If we'd been on shore we'd only have got that fish if we were standing 15ft back. I was throwing the spook for a little while, spurred on by Rick's nice fish, but when bass and albies started blitzing everywhere it did not take long for me to break out the fly rod, and once it was rigged up it was in my hand for pretty much the rest of the morning. The fly rod was clearly not a good way to get albies on this particular morning. Rick caught 5 albies, I had a few halfhearted takes. The were busting very sporadically though, and I didn't really feel that I got my fly into the fish. Did I mind? Not at all. I was there for the striped critters.

After all those albies we found bass busting very consistently in the bowl between two small points,and the flood gates really opened. In the fog we could hear pops and splashed all around the boat, and as it cleared the blitzes were revealed.

Rick and Mike fished Albie Snax, metals, and spooks, and they caught a ton of fish. I had on long fishless period, but eventually got into the swing of things and started getting a bunch of bass. The killer fly was my confidence streamer, a deceiver with a pink SF blend body and chartreuse topping. If I got that anywhere near the blitzing bass it got slammed, often in a visually spectacular way. I love topwater eats, but there is something exceptional about watching a bass suck in a streamer, then strip setting hard.

I got a pile of schoolie bass in the 16-22 inch range and one that was probably just barely legal keeper size, all just gorgeous, healthy, strong fish. I've had such a slow few months for stripers this is exactly what I was in need of. Once again, a big thank you to Rick for inviting me and Mike for putting us on the fish. Mike is a heck of a fishy guy.

The hard won fish of the day for me.