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Date: October 2, 2019 Body of Water: Waquoit Bay and nearby salt ponds and outlets Boat: Maritime Skiff 1480 With: Alone Target: Striped Bass and Bluefish Time: 7:30 AM - 4 PM Conditions: Just about all weather conditions. I'd expected to be held inside the bay by wind, but it was generally less than forecasted and so I was able to venture out along the Southside beaches and to other ponds. I started in the protected and familiar waters of Eel River, Waquoit Bay, targeting current seams. While a shore-bound angler was doing decently well with an aggressive topwater, I triggered more bites by slow-rolling small swimbaits. By this point, my supply had been demolished by blues, and so I was using whatever I had that was close; but all baits produced, whether they were white, natural, silver, Gulp!, shad- or fluke-style. If it was about 3.5 inches, it appealed! I quickly caught a couple of stripers and a surprise summer flounder. Things were off to a good start! The bite was not red-hot and I was losing my tide-driven current. The wind didn't seem that bad, so I headed down to the western outlet. I trolled just about the entire way without a tap. After a few casts with the popper in the area that had produced the previous day's blues, I headed out into Vineyard Sound. The water was absolutely fishable, and so I headed over to the main, eastern outlet of Waquoit Bay. I set the Yozuri plug out for a swim on the way there and scored a couple of blues before I reached the outlet. I jigged and swim-baited the outlet area with unremarkable luck and then switched to drifting the outside rocks of the eastern jetty. It looked like there was plenty of opportunity for bait and/or fish to hide along these nooks and crannies, but I only had a half-hearted bite from a blue in my first pass. The second pass featured a surprise Spanish Mackerel. At about 17 inches, it wasn't a giant, and it didn't fight any better than a bass or blue, but it was my first in Massachusetts (they are only a sporadic, seasonal visitor here) and completed a unique and First-time Slam for me; striper, bluefish, flounder and Spanish. I was hoping to encounter some Albies, but there was no sign of them. After a couple of trolling passes at the outlet (producing a couple of hard hits from blues), I noticed a bird-accompanied blitz taking place within the channel. I moved inside and got a couple of casts with the epoxy jig near the fray before it disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. These might have been Albies, but were likely blues. The tide was now flooding hard, and I picked up a couple more bluefish just inside the channel as I stemmed the tide (+ about 1 mph.) It was shaping up to be a fine day, but the surface blitz had me fired up; perhaps I'd been in the game? Or at least at the stadium where the game was being played? Regardless, I still had Albies on my mind, so I headed out of the channel to look for birds or other signs. Back at the Green Pond outlet, I came across what I was looking for; and I had a fish crash (but miss) my skipping Hogy jig. That hurt, but then I could clearly see that this commotion was caused by bluefish, not tuna. The miss still hurt, but not as badly. I spent the next hour or more looking for birds and bait. I found both, but no tuna. I did pluck another couple of blues from a blitz right along shore near Great Pond outlet. The biggest school of blues of the trip had bait trapped between shore and a short jetty. It was a cool sight, and both of my casts into the zone were rewarded with instant strikes. I ended the day by tucking into Green Pond and casting the popper into shallow water. The western side of the pond produced four stripers to 26 inches (the largest of the trip.) I had to tease several of these fish into striking, and that only added to the fun. What do I have to say about this? With the unique Slam, having covered a lot of water with a variety of baits to score a combined dozen stripers and blues, and the receipt of multiple job offers while out on the water (more about that, later!), Day 3 will long be remembered as a fine day. But with only one more day likely available for fishing, I knew that I wanted to target tuna, to the extent possible, the next day. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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