HRBT, ES shoals, then HRBT again

HRBT Friday night, blues, croakers, dink flounder, stripers, storm with lightning, off the water at midnight.

Saturday, WRO demo day. It was cool to see all the big names. Kevin, Routh, Lozier, Hoover, TKAA, & POL came to represent.
Then went to the Eastern Shore shoals for 5 and a half hours to try for the Bulls. No love. Bite to eat, then HRBT again for the light line action.

Shad

Previously injured 22" striper

Strong, healthy, fat 28" striper

Had two other 22" stripers flop off while trying to take pictures.

"You've gone completely insane..."

So my wife says.

I just can't get enough.

I wanted to go to the HRBT lightline Friday night, but the wind was a bit too much. So I decided to try the James river for Richmond stripers. After 3 hours and only this dink.....


I called it quits and just as I was getting back to the launch, an old friend called (the kind of friend that you know you shouldn't go drinking with any more because it always leads to trouble). So I met him at the usual watering hole, along with Mr. Jager, Ms. Sauza and Sir Jameson.

Woke up with the usual regrets and did the mother's day weekend. My mom's still in Korea, but made the wife pretty happy.

Monday comes around, checked the weather report, and it sounded reasonable. I got the kitchen pass, but didn't tell her where I was planning on going (HRBT). She got around to asking before I left and I told her. Despite the wifes plea for sanity, I had to go for it. Drove down from Richmond at 6pm. Launched at 7:30. Met NAVYIDC for a bit and started lookin' for the fish. First came the croaker. LOTS of croaker. They wouldn't have been so annoying if they were bigger. Then came the flounder. Probably around 5 or 6. Dropped 3 right at the yak, one of which might have when 17 or 18". All pretty small. Then, finally, I found the stripers in the lightline. They weren't reacting the same to my presentation as they were last tuesday, so I had to keep switching to find what they wanted. By the time I figured it out, the current was slowing down. I managed 7. 18",19",19", 20.5" 22", 23.25"and a 26.25". The blues were pretty damn annoying too. I didn't keep track of how many, but it was a lot; the biggest being 20". Got back home at 4:45. Slept for a bit, up with the baby at 7, then off to work.


Worth it.

Feelin' kinda crazy

Last Friday, I got off work and decided I needed to put some points up on KayakWars. From Richmond I got down to rudee around 9pm and slayed the bluefish on topwater. Had a ton of them with 12 making the cut for KW. Man that was fun. Spent the night at my parents. Then after paddling 10 miles for OpSmile Saturday morning, I booked it over to Rudee to find some more. I ended up with 8 from 2pm to 10ish. Got back to Richmond late that night to do the family thing all day Sunday. Tuesday after work I drove down to the HRBT and fished the light line with Specks and Justin from TKAA. We launched around 8pm and the blues were out in force. Specks and I maxed out our limit for KW and went looking for stripers. I caught up with Justin as he was catching one after another in the light line. I ended up with 6 but 2 of them were too short for KW. I finally got off the water by 3:15 and got home by 4:45. Slept for a couple of hours and off to work.

I figured I would get my time in while I can since it's mother's day weekend coming up and I know I won't be getting any kitchen passes.

Caffeine=my friend