These past two Saturday's i joined my friend Joe Diorio out on the sound on a hunt for big stripers. Its not the kind of fishing or technique that I'm used to at all, as 99 % of the time i am a lures only fisherman. So it was kind of cool as a change of pace. Last Saturday i met Joe and Dan Emerson at the marina and we started our day off snagging bunker and then were off to the reefs to live line them. It was a day of heartbreak for me sadly.. I don't own any salt gear or avet reels or really any of the tackle needed and of course the first fish i hook up with proceeds to pull line at an unstoppable speed and my drag was set as tight as i could without it snapping. After a few minutes the fish brought me into the rocks and broke me off. I never gained an inch on the fish. It was a big fish no doubt. After retying i drop down another rig and bunker and get a take almost instantly and snap... main line breaks. 30 lb braid probably had a fray somewhere from the previous fish that i didn't see when i re tied.. At this point i was over it.. Totally pissed off and feeling bad that i was losing expensive lead and leader material given to me. Joe ended up getting a 36 inch and a 39 incher and me and Dan had a big fat goose egg. Plenty of hits but the fish were avoiding the hook and when we did hook them we lost em. We switched gears to fluke and sea bass and Joe got a few sea bass on the diamond jig and him and Dan landed three keeper fluke and one short. I just watched for a while and threw some smaller baits with no action. Was not the day i was hoping for but still got a taste of the salt and now knew what i needed.
I got the text yesterday about going out this morning and i went straight to the store. Took my strongest bait caster i had for pike fishing that had a 16 lb drag and put a fresh spool of 50 lb braid on and bought some lead and made 50 lb leaders. With the hope for another chance at my new personal best fish and to not have my equipment fail me this time. This morning joined by Tom O'Connor we started off catching porgy's which was actually a lot of fun and had a bunch of double hook ups. Once we had enough legal sized baits to drop down we went out to our spot. We marked a ton of fish today but today was way different than last week. I had one bump in the first 3 hours and had nothing to show for it and Joe got us on the board around 9 am with a 40 inch nice fish. Few minutes later Tom hooks up and during the fight his reel came off the rod and the line wrapped around an eye and snapped the line thankfully not the rod. Was a Bummer!!! About a half hour later as im getting the here we go again feeling i start getting messed with and my rod bends right into the water and as i lift up the rod tip its Fish ON! Fish made a great first run and the fight was simply awesome on a medium heavy largemouth jigging rod. Probably took 5 minutes to get in and once i saw my sinker i started getting excited... then i saw her. Knew immediately it was the biggest fish of my life. Joe lipped her boat side for me and we got some pictures and some measurements.. length and girth in a few spots. After a few minutes of reviving her she swam away like a champ back down to the depths. I was beyond pumped. New PB fish at 44 inches and 35 lbs! We didn't catch anymore stripers the rest of the morning and we went for the fluke the last hour with just one short and a few hits each. Thanks Joe for putting me on my best fish ever and for the fun couple days of fishing. Non stop laughs and an all around good time out there. If i could afford this kind of fishing i would do al ot more of it but i simply cannot with a wedding just a few months away. My mission was accomplished and now i feel good about going back to my largemouth and my pike fishing. Back to my casting and lures!
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