Blaine
Member
Registered: 01/29/02
Posts: 15340
Loc: South Carolina
Been hearing some rumblings about bones showing already. They have been thick out around the Vineyard and Nantucket so I was fairly sure we could find some a lot closer to home today. Josh and I left Niantic at 5 and headed east. We took a look around Race Rock but saw nothing so we continued along the Island. By 5:45 we were starting to see birds grouping up and begin diving. Not long after that there was peanuts spraying out of the water. The splashed looked odd... Fast moving and slashing just like albies but they were much smaller. We downsized to match the hatch and hooked up right away. Mystery solved... Frigate Mackerel! Haven't seen them in a long time. They were everywhere and not afraid of the boat at all. We had fish blowing up all around the boat, they were blasting 2 feet out of the water after the bait and looked like micro tuna blitzes. They move fast as hell for as small as they are!
It wasn't too much longer when we spotted some much larger slashes and splashes. We stayed way up wind and let the breeze move us to the fish. We both hooked up right away with our first of many bones. Mine was first to the boat and I didn't want to take any chances on losing the first one so I scooped it up in the net. She looks a bit tattered in the pic but the skunk was out of the boat! Just like the albies, the bones loved the Sebiles. Accurate casts produced hits every time. Many were misses and there were some spectacular explosions as well but we did manage to hook our share on the swimmers.
At one point, a couple of fish popped up a long way off the bow so I grabbed the rod with the Deadly Dick on it and fired off a hail Mary cast. I didn't get 3 turns on the reel when I hooked up. Just as I got that one within a few yards of the boat, another one popped up 30 feet away. I threw the rod with the fish on it in the holder and grabbed a rod with a Sebile on it, fired off a cast and again hooked up instantly. LOL... Now what? Somehow I managed to keep the two of them from getting tangled and got them both in the boat.
After we had boated a few each, I switched over to a Shimano Waxwing. They cast a mile and have some great action. I burned mine just below the surface and they were all over it...
We both had stuff to do this morning so we called it quits at 9 and headed in. We stayed right around Fishers all morning and had a blast. I kept 8 for the table and they were all loaded with peanuts and squid. Can't ever remember getting into them this early before, especially in the numbers we found... Could be an interesting albie season!
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