So seeing that the forecast for the weekend was looking pretty windy, I decided to take friday off and enjoy the nice weather. Thought I would get one more day of flounder fishing in and maybe some striper action along the CBBT. We got a late start (friend had to drop his son at daycare) and dropped into Crab Creek at 10AM. Went searching for bait. Nothing. We looked for over 45 minutes. The water was clear (could see the bottom in 5') but no bait. Saw a couple mullet and actually a couple of puppy drum but no schools of menhaden or mullet. Finally decided to head out instead of wasting the entire day searching for bait. Made it out to the channel between the 1st and 2nd islands at 11:30 or so. Set up some drifts using cut tube squid. Again we were fishing the incoming tide. I prefer fishing an outgoing tide but hey sometimes it doesn't work out. Fishing for an hour or so with no fish, no throwbacks, no croaker, no toadfish, nothing. Weird. It was an ok drift and you only needed 2-3 oz to hold bottom but no bites
Finally after about an 1 1/2 hours I hook into a nice 20" flounder. A nice fat fish. Alright maybe the bite is turning on. No such luck. Fished another hour or so and only managed one croaker (maybe 16"). Did see a bunch of birds working at one point and motored over to cast some storms, nothing. Had one storm bit in half so it was probably a school of blues. We ended up heading in at about 3PM. Slow day but the weather was nice. Did not notice anyone on other boats catching anything. So where are all the fish at?
I'm hoping to get out at least once next week as on Nov 1st I leave for a 3 week research cruise in the North Atlantic. I'll probably try the HRBT again at night and try to catch the outgoing tide. I'll let you know how we do.
Pete