Attacked by Bluefish followed up with a skunk!

This past Friday I fished the HRBT in search of a mix bag of fish.  I meet up with Dan shortly before sunset and we were greeted by an incoming tide and light winds.  It didn’t take long for us to find the fish as they where snapping at anything that hit the water.  Before searching for bigger and better fish I wanted to get three blues for the Pirates of Lynnhaven Yellow Eyed Demon Days Tournament, the first of seven in the Angler of the Year Series.  I was not looking for a win, just a solid 3 fish limit.  The Bluefish have definitely taken over the HRBT.   These were no normal Bluefish, as the devilish and angry demeanor was elevated 10 times that of a sane Bluefish. Warning…Explicit!  The second fish of the night latched hold of my crotch and wouldn’t let go!

Luckily I had worn my dry suite which protected my valuables. Once safe I heaved the blue across the Atlantic and then had a good laugh and paddled back to my spot.  I should have known at that point these feisty little blues had a major attitude problem and where looking for blood.  On the very next cast my gulp was swarmed by a school of Bluefish and they attacked the gulp as if they were a pack of piranhas. I reeled in my jig with just a tiny piece of gulp left, not wanting to waste my grub I casted out basically a scented hook and immediately hooked up with a decent blue.  I brought the blue demon over the rail, grabbed him with my left hand and while trying to reach for my pliers to remove the hook the fish somehow managed to wiggle out of my left hand and propel himself towards my right hand.  Within a millisecond I had 15.5” yellow eyed demon clamped on to my forefinger like a pair of vice grips. The only difference is vice grips don’t have razor sharp teeth.  With my hands kind of occupied trying to keep this blue from taking a chunk of finger off I used my left hand to keep him steady.  Luckily Dan was within yelling distance and I was able to get his attention.  He quickly paddled over to aide in the removal of the Bluefish clamp that was fused to my finger.  I could feel the teeth hitting the bone in my finger.  It took maybe 30 seconds of prying and beating this blue before it finally let go, which to me felt like minutes due to the horrible pain I was in.  After ejection of the Bluefish from the kayak I had to make a decision - stay and continue fishing or paddle back for the first aide.  Paddling would have been difficult seeing as I was pouring blood all over the kayak and gear.  Seeing how the fishing was good with plenty of Hickory Shad to keep things fun, I decided to deal with my wounds at a later time and knew eventually the bleeding would stop.   I took a break from the bluefish for awhile and caught a few croakers and plenty of Hickories while trying to find the stripers.  I never did find any stripers but had fun and around 11:30 decided to call it a night as I had plans to be on the Eastern Shore early in the morning.

Hearing good reports of drum being landed from the eastern shore, I finally had a day that the weather allowed me to get over there and chase some bruiser reds around the flats and shoals – well, so I thought.  The day started out optimistic with nice weather and a light breeze. 

Sunrise overlooking Fisherman's Inlet

I arrived at the Wise Point boat ramp a little after 6am and not long after my arrival Rob Choi pulled up.  After a short strategy session we were off. It was slow, slow, and slow.  The water clarity wasn’t the best for sight fishing and with the slight chop on the surface my eyes started to play tricks on me.  Slowly making way towards the shoals, while trolling 6” Swimbaits, thick fog started to roll in.  As cool as it looked at a distant, it was not cool once we were engulfed by it.  Navigating around the breaking shoals was a no go.  After limited visibility and no fish, Rob and I decided to split and cover two different areas in hopes that one of us would be able to locate the fish. I made my way to the North end of Fisherman’s Island bayside.  The water was much cleaner there.  After a couple hours of scanning dead water I made my way back south to an area where I had seen stripers in the last few years.  Still, no luck.  That was frustrating, I hate getting skunked!  The only good thing was the water clarity improved a lot from earlier in the morning but by then I had ran out of time.  I had to be at the Pirates of Lynnhaven meeting early that evening, so I made way back to the boat ramp.  That’s when my last glimmer of hope for the day came as a school of stripers came screaming along in some shallow water - like 18 inches shallow. They saw me and broke into two groups still within casting distance.  I landed a perfect cast, or so I thought, about 20 yards ahead of the moving school. With the water so shallow, the splash of the cast spooked the school and they left the vicinity and headed for the nearby channel.  Just as quickly as it appeared there disappeared my chances of catching a fish that day.  Out of time I called it a day to head back to enjoy the camaraderie of the Pirates of Lynnhaven.

Until next time, go and get Infishicated!