[lonniebruner]

I'm one of the few people (the only?) on this board who have a sailboat and also try and get serious about fishing. I usually have terrible luck but today was the best I've ever had fishing the Chesapeake from my sailboat.

I trolled from G1 at the mouth of the West River to BPL and back with only a few bites. The fishfinder was marking an amazing number of fish -- more than I've seen on that screen -- but they were all at about 38' and my lines weren't that deep.

Then at around 4:30pm around G1 at the mouth of the West River, the action started. I was trolling two rods each with tandem chartreuse bucktails. There was a point where I was trying to untangle the tandem rig and one of the bucktails was dangling in the water and the damn blues would come up and nail it right there in front of my eyes -- 6 feet from the stern! This happened multiple times. I barely had to let any line out and they were after it before the leader disappeared under the water, and they were decent-sized blues.

Caught lots of 15"-18" blues, once two at a time. What a fun fight. I could hardly get one unhooked before the second rod was screaming.

Then I caught a 27" rockfish in the below picture just east of the G1. I now see the value of those big-mouthed nets because this one I had to wrestle in by hand and he almost threw the hook in the process. God, that would've pissed me off to no end. Somehow, with scraped knuckles, I landed that SOB.

Man, solid day. This makes up for all the dry days and all the times I got made fun of on VHF 68 for being a sailor. )

 

[mburrows870]

Congratulation, very nice fish. My sister has a sailboat, I keep telling her she should troll while out.

Mike

 

[lonniebruner]

I think the reason they were hitting the lures so close to the boat is that there's no motor noise.

 

[goinsfishin]

Congrats on a nice fish and way to keep at it.....may you catch many more!

As for comments on being a blowboater.....ya dance with the one that brung ya......

 

[cwoods]

Glad that you found them! I fished with Pat Malady on his boat out of West River, yesterday. We went up to Thomas Point in the morning, found a small school of breakers, and caught a blue and 6 rock (1 keeper) before they disappeared. Then, we trolled 30 miles up and down the eastern and western shore and caught nothing. We saw you at G1 in the late afternoon, but we were about a mile closer to shore.

 

[swartj]

Nice fish. Glad you had some success. Where you under sail or power while you were trolling?

 

[Grady Mike]

Nice catch! I guess I got to get more serious about trolling.

 

[CAPT.MACK]

Way to go! Thanks for the report.
A good way to keep the other boats trolling away from you.

Capt. Mack

 

[Hunter]

Way to go.:thumbup: I am impressed with your effort and glad to see you hit pay dirt...Don

 

[lonniebruner]

Caught these fish under sail power. That may have been while they were hitting so close to the boat.

 

[gtricker]

Great job. How fast were you going?

 

[scotttaylor]

nice catch...have you thought about what an optimal sailboat might be for Ches Bay fishing? How bout a Freedom w/ unstayed rig, no shouds or spreaders? Id also like to have a CB to pull up for sailing into thin water!
S.T.

 

[Fish nut]

You were having FUN and enjoying the chesapeake in your ride. Dosent get any better than that. Thanks for the Report

 

[lonniebruner]

gtricker -- about 2-3 knots.

scotttaylor -- sailboats in general are not suited for trolling, especially if you're moving fast. You can slow it down to a degree but hard to stop. Don't even try heaving to or the boat changes course too much and the lines will go under the keel. Also, all that rigging interferes with the fishing. Trolling more than two rods is also prone to tangles. Rig the rod holders up so you get the best spread possible.

Lonnie Bruner

 

[joemassi]

Great job. I have been seeing fish at 35 feet all August. I guess they are hungry enough to bite now. I might get out tomorrow to join you.