North River

I got off of work early today and decided to try the north river. A buddy of mine caught a 7 1/2lbs + 28" speckled trout yesterday so i figured it might be a good time to try my luck. I fished for about 3 hours and had a few strikes but only one hook-up. Got me a 22" speck. It was the fattest speck i have ever caught. Probably 4+lbs!

Toggin at the 1st island!

This time every year for the past 3 years I get a job scaring people for Halloween. Last year and the year before i worked at Busch gardens for howl-o-scream (where i met my wife). This year i kept it close to home and got a spot at the haunted swamp. I always have a ton of fun scaring people but i have to say...it cuts into my fishing time a LOT. Luckily for me i don't have to sleep much:)

I worked during the day Friday then got to the swamp at 7. I worked til 12am and headed home to try to get a few hours of sleep. I think i got about 3 hours of sleep but I didn't care cause I was going fishing! Rob Choi invited like 4230 kayakers to go tog fishing with him and I'm glad he did! I met up with Rob, Billy, Kyle, Tripp, Jason, Joe and 4224 others at oceans east. I was about 5 mins late and wish i had got there sooner. That morning alone OE sold 70 DOZEN fiddlers. I got the last 3 dozen and they were TINY.

We got to the launch and started paddling just before sun-up. It was a nice calm easy paddle all the way out. As soon as everyone made it to the island and dropped down they started hooking up! One after another all in the same area. I'm sure there were several doubles cause the action was hot! For whatever reason it took me what seemed to be 30mins of not catching while everyone else already had at least 2-3. Eventually i got into them just like everyone else. Kyle Sawyer and Rob Choi were the hot rods of the day and ended up with 25+ tog each! Kyle had one that was 21 1/2"! Pig tog!

One of my favorite things to do is catch fish next to powerboaters. That morning we all did just that! There was a 30'+ boat with an inboard motor that puled right up next to us without saying a word. He heaved his anchor right next to us to try get on our spot since he saw us slaying the tog. We surrounded the area with kayaks and he had no way to get any closer or cast in out spot. We continued to catch and release keeper sized tog right in front of him for about an hour til he gave up and took off empty handed. That is a good day if i do say so myself:) The total tog count was probably 75 or better (At least 50 of those were from Rob and Kyle) . Everyone caught tog to bring home and most of us caught our limit. I ended up with my limit of 4 that ranged from 16"-18". GOOD TIMES!!!!!!

Weak night at Rudee.

Launched around 6pm and fished til around 1:00am with my buddy Rob Choi and William Ragulsky. The most exciting thing that happened for me was finding over a dozen jig heads lodged in an oyster bed at low tide. We all ended up with a few undersized specks. At least it wasn't a skunk....

HERBERT (HRBT) 10/13

Got out at the ramp at 8ish and fished till around 1:30am. The light line was kind of weak at first so after only getting one small striper i tried for some flounder. I ended up catching 8 flounder ranging from 14"-18". After a while like clockwork the tide started ripping and the striper showed up in the thousands. I picked through them and got some solid fish in the 22-24" range. The highlight of the night was talking to the construction workers on their lift and giving them some striper i caught. Also i watched a guy troll a lure with a tuna reel. It was funny as hell! I could tell he snagged something because his bait clicker went off like crazy but you could hear the clicking slow as he slowed. He came to a stop and so did his clicker then he "set" the hook. It didnt move but he continued to pull as hard as he could bowing his broomstick till POW! He snapped off his monster..."rock". Funny stuff happens out there. Good times.

TKAA tourney

I fished the TKAA Heroes on the water tournament sept. 25th and had a great time! I decided to fish the Back river because the night before at New point comfort I only ended up with one small striper. I launched at Wallaces in Hampton and fished the flats close to the ramp but the wind was killing me and the water was muddy so i decided to head across the river to fish a creek that was productive for me before. I'm REALLY glad i made this decision. In just the first couple casts i hooked a tiny speckled trout that was way undersized. Within minutes after that I hooked a nice red drum on Alice's 5'6" light action rod and fought it for a good 5-10 mins. I was so excited to land the fish! I put it on the tape and it came to 25 inches. Not bad for the first keeper fish of the day! It's exciting to catch a Drum that size on light tackle but it being a tourney makes it 100 times more exciting. I continued to work my way back in the creek and i hooked a striper and landed it. I took the hook out, it kicked out of the boat and PLOP... into the drink. It was a small striper (around 17" i guess) but later i found it would have been a 2nd or 3rd place striper...oh well. After the striper i caught about 8-10 small specks under 14" all in the same little hole. I was working my way further back in the creek when i made one more cast to the hole and got distracted by something. I put my attention back to fishing pulled in the slack in the line and felt a little resistance. I figured it was another small speck but when i set the hook it was SOLID. It was another good fight and ended up being a bigger red drum than the last at 26 1/4 inches. I fished for a few more hours after that seeing red drum everywhere but not much luck catching anything other than an 18" drum and a tiny spot. I made my way back to the ramp 1 mile across the river through the 20+ mph winds.

Just like last year the weigh in was awesome! Wayne Bradby and crew did a great job! Really nice to see the HOW (heroes on the water) and Project healing waters Veterans get out and do some fishing. Some of them had never even fished before! Can you imagine! Some got their first fish ever. One guy was standing, casting, and catching with his flyrod! They are great organizations with great causes. I just might volunteer for it next year.

After everything was said and done i got some lures and stickers from Aqua Dream, got 4th place for the red drum and won a $100 entry fee for a bass tourney, also got various stickers, bags and things from Hobie. A few of my friends placed also. Forrest won 1st in the bass division and won a killer Kayak. Rob Choi won 57 hats and 2nd place for flounder, and Kam won 2nd place for his 20" speck. Great times!!!!