Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Deale MD 7/6/09

Went out on a charter boat with a group of folks from Northern VA Chapter of CCA. (LoosenUp Charter Fishing run by Capt Frank Carver)

The trip was planned to run from about 3pm until about 11pm. The plan was to fish for spot and then use them as live bait for stripers and then do some fishing for croakers after that.

The spot fishing was on and off at times during several drifts, but we got more than enough. Then we ran south to find stripers.

I'm still in awe of what happened next. It was an extremely lucky instance of being at the right place at the right time.

It took a while to get there, but Capt Frank found a place for us to "live line" for stripers using the spot as bait and the action was immediate, fast, action packed, and non-stop until we limited out in less than 40 min.

The limit on stripers at this time is two fish over 18 inches per person, but only one of them can be over 28 inches.

Not only was the action fast, the stripers that we caught ran larger than I ever would have expected at this time of year. I did not expect any fish over 28 inches, yet we first limited out on fish over 28 inches!! Near the end I heard it announced that we had to start releasing the larger fish and had to stop fishing once we had put 3 more of the smaller fish in the box. There were fish on lines when the halt was called and those were released.

I caught three (one released) and fought a couple that came unhooked. In less than 40 minutes!!! On light tackle the battles with larger fish lasted several minutes.

Then we went on to the croaker fishing, which was slow. Still, the few that we caught were good size.



Janet's first (see the bait's tail sticking out of mouth)


My first was one of the larger fish


My second fish


Filling the box. With 16 anglers, our limit was 32 fish plus one for the boat crew.


The first croakers - a double!