8-14 Sandy is still rocking.

[rolmops]

Left Frank's around 7.30 in the AM and set up in 45 feet of water, just to see what's there. The party started almost instantly with a bait ball that was several hundred feet long. I snagged 5 mooneyes  on the spoons and they were all about the same size or bigger than the magnums. Moving farther out, real marks started filling the screen at around 85 feet until about 130 where they thinned out. On the surface there was this pattern of flat water lines  between larger patches of fairly wavy water. Moving into one of those patches of water, the salmon started the party with a double both  over 20 pounds and from there on, for almost 5 hours it was hit after hit with most well over 20 pounds, but only as long as we were in that specific patch, the edges of which were clearly marked by cross currents and temperature rises and falls.  The lures of the day were Magnum Ice frog and Chicken wing each with gold colored backing. After having some pop off I set the releases on the blacks a bit tighter which solved that problem. Their jaws are getting harder so we had to set the hooks harder We boated and released 18 fish.

The change has obviously started. The fish are darker and the jaws are looking different.

The interesting thing for me was that there was only one obvious 2 year old 10 pounder, all the rest were big and there was not even one with lamprey marks. 

They say that only one in seven fish survives a lamprey attack and the lack of lamprey marks makes me think that there is a correlation between the the lack of lamprey marks and the fish being so plentiful this year. DEC please keep on doing your thing against the those snotty sucker eels. 

All in all a great day on the water with lots of laughter and joking around with my son who was very happy to be away for a day from a very demanding job.

Edited 4 hours ago by rolmops