09/13/08
My goal today was to move my gear back into Great Bay for the last month of my lobster trapping season. I plan on pulling out the week of 10/13.
Tradition has the bugs coming back into the shallows of Great Bay to shed one more time before returning to the ocean for the winter. I put 6 test traps in Great Bay a week ago.
Today these were the first traps I checked and I got 3 keepers. Not bad I thought. I started to get mentally prepared to move traps. Lobster trapping is my hobby but it is sure work.
Then I got to check my gear in Little Bay. Trap after traps were coming up with lobsters. I soon made the decision to leave my traps where they were. I have not seen the quality of lobster I was catching in years. And the pheromones were fragrant. I had 2 traps with nice keeper females in them. In both traps were two courting males each. 2 traps, six keepers.
I love those ladies.
I brought my medium cooler today not expecting many bugs and knowing moving traps was going to make space in the boat a premium. I knew things were going well when I filled the cooler. Out of 28 traps I took home 21 of the nicest lobsters I have caught this year. Not a cull in the bunch. Two phone calls and they were all gone. F&G cancelled clamming today due to the recent rains.
I caught a tom cod in my lobster trap today. After lobstering I put a hook though it nostrils and let him free swim. Just at top of tide at Adam's Point I landed a 23" striper.
Tom cod is the other white meat.
It was such a beautiful day to be on the water I went back out and spent the rest of the day fishing. There was guy anchored in the Dad and Coalman Honey Hole. My first reaction is not printable. I drifted by him and could see he was using live bait. We spoke on how the fishing was and he told me he had taken a couple bluefish. BLUEFISH? They don't go well with live eels so I moved on. I worked the next drift lower and landed a 21" striper.
I could see his motor running and watched as Steve pulled anchor at the honey hole. As I motored by he waved me over. How did I know his name was Steve and his port of call was Sagamore Creek? Because he gave me what was left in his live well. 4 Pollock and two tinker macks. THANKS Steve.
It didn't take me long to get back to Adam's Point with my bootie. The first drift and the mackerel was swimming for its life. The line off the open bail was screaming, set the hook, nothing. Reel up the mack and it is cut in half. Boo Fish. And that is what happened to my bait. Yellow eyes are the scorn of striper fisherman.