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Date: July 23, 2023 Body of Water: Casco Bay - Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Striped Bass Time: 8:45 AM - 1:45 PM Moon Phase: New plus three days; waxing crescent moon Tide: Low at 9:29 AM and then flood through-out Conditions: Clear and bright with light, southerly breeze; 65 - 75 degrees. Water temperatures 64 - 65 degrees (+/-) in Hussey Sound and beyond, but getting to 70 and above in the anchorage. Another lazy start to the day, but this time without the benefit of cloud cover or fog; Oh well, at the very least I could enjoy a comfortable day. I went straight to Hussey Sound for bait, but my tardiness led me straight to a pretty slack tide, and by 9:45 or so, I still had not found any mackerel. And I'd moved around a bunch trying to find them! I'd noticed a couple of bigger boats coming in from offshore. They had rods with floats and balloons, so they were going striper fishing; maybe they'd scored their bait offshore? Red Marker 2 was well within sight and seas were calm; I ventured out farther than I've been before. Still, I found no mackerel near the marker, and I was starting to wonder what my next move might be. The sonar showed some cloudy haze on the bottom, below the marker in about 75 feet of water. With a bit of reluctance (this is a good way to get snagged on lobster gear!), I sent my Sabiki all the way to the bottom and started jigging; fish on !?!??!! This turned out to be a squid, so into the well it went. Still over similar marks, I sent the Sabiki down again, but this time fought a full string of "harbor"pollock. It looked like they'd be the bait for the day, so I dropped a few more times and loaded the well with over a dozen. These were eager biters, even at slack tide, and two ounces of spoon were enough to hold bottom efficiently under these docile conditions. I went to Vaill Island for the first time this season. I prefer Vaill at higher tides, but it was close and convenient; and there was enough swell from the south to create some attractive wash along the ocean-facing shore. Unfortunately, a single pass along the south and west faces of Vaill did not provoke any strikes, so I crossed the mouth of Hussey Sound and set up again along the rocky shoreline of Peaks Island. There had been bass there the day before, after all. I found that live-lining the pollock requires a slightly different approach than with macks. The pollock don't seem to tolerate being casted too well, and when active, they like to dig to the bottom. It took a bit more effort to keep in touch with these baits, keep them out of the bottom weeds, and keep them lively. But when my bait got solidly "thunked" for the first time off a rocky drop at High Noon, my confidence returned. After this aggressive hit, I lost contact; but the bait had been moved inshore and alongside the boat, so I wound down and got tight! But after a decent run, the hook pulled, and I reeled in a dead and descaled bait. My next bait got thumped and killed, but my third bait got chased to the surface over about 15 feet of water. After a couple of misses, it got slurped off the surface. This 29-incher provided a strong fight and was the first bass captured on a pollock aboard amybaby22. After another chase and miss, I relocated to Crow Island. I though the adjacent, deep water might yield a bigger bass on a depth-seeking pollock. I simply had to settle for another 28-inch "keeper" that came from exactly the same spot as the previous day's 30. This fish simply ate confidently and was an easy hookup. Or, my confidence was increasing as I got used to this new dynamic. I returned to the dock, thinking we might squeeze in a late afternoon session. That didn't happen, but it was still a great day! What do I have to say about this? So much water and so much to do! I thought about finding some new areas to try fly-fishing the incoming tide, but conditions pulled me offshore. I figured I might learn something, and I did; I found another source of bait during difficult conditions, and I developed some faith in the use of pollack as bait. It's been a couple of decades since I've done so, and while I never had much success with them, Captain Ben of Go Fish! charters out of South Portland sure believed in them (especially for bigger fish) and would always put them in the well, given the opportunity. I was also joined by a couple of seals and multiple pods of porpoises at the outer reach of Hussey Sound and beyond, so perhaps this was a more reliable area for bait. Mid-summer conditions are here! I had no success with the squid when I tried to live-line and bump-troll with it. It turned transparent and hid; and was dead after a short swim. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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