When I got home last night, I had two eels still alive from a boat trip on Tuesday. Since the weather was decent (and supposed to be worse tonight), I made the decision to hit the Gloucester Pier. Tide lined up with high tide at 9:30, so I got out there at 7:30 to fish the last 2 hours of incoming and see what happened. I put one eel on my 3-way rig and one eel under a bobber at about 15' down. Got NOTHING on the incoming tide, but at least there wasn't as much grass in the water last night...so I just left the eels sit out there through slack tide.
During slack tide, I started casting my spec rig in the lights along the pier and had one good bite. When I set the hook, the pole bent over, so I thought I finally had a good fish...what it turned out to be was two little stripers, one on each head of the spec rig...first time that's happened to me. Then my reel on that pole broke on the next cast, so I was done casting for the night.
As the tide starts going out and it starts getting colder, I'd resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to catch any fish (again). So I reset the two lines with the eels and packed up my other poles, tackle bag, buckets, net, etc and took it to my car. That was about 10:30. I figured I'd give the eels another hour or so and see what happened. At about 11, it looked like there was a tap-tap-tap on the rod with the 3-way rig, so I grabbed the pole and tried to set the hook...nothing. I set the pole against the railing and went to check the other pole. When I got back to the 3-way rigged pole, the line had moved about 50 feet and was now directly under the pier. I thought it was weird, but since I didn't have much weight on the rig, I thought maybe it was the tide. But when I reeled in the line, guess what...there was a nice striper on it. Since I had already put my net away, I had to hand-over-hand him to the deck...good thing that pier isn't that high! I'd also put my tape measurer away, so fortunately there was someone else on the pier who had one...22 inches...first keeper of the season!
The eel was still alive, so I reset him and threw him back in the water. Tide was moving out faster now, so the line seemed to be bouncing a lot as it moved. However, within like 20 minutes, there was another tap-tap-tap and this time when I set the hook, he was there. Again, I hand-over-hand him to the deck, borrow the tape measurer from the other guy on the pier, and the fish is a little bit bigger...about 24 inches (even though the way the picture is taken makes him look smaller).
So I'm at my limit and can go home! Awesome!!
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During slack tide, I started casting my spec rig in the lights along the pier and had one good bite. When I set the hook, the pole bent over, so I thought I finally had a good fish...what it turned out to be was two little stripers, one on each head of the spec rig...first time that's happened to me. Then my reel on that pole broke on the next cast, so I was done casting for the night.
As the tide starts going out and it starts getting colder, I'd resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to catch any fish (again). So I reset the two lines with the eels and packed up my other poles, tackle bag, buckets, net, etc and took it to my car. That was about 10:30. I figured I'd give the eels another hour or so and see what happened. At about 11, it looked like there was a tap-tap-tap on the rod with the 3-way rig, so I grabbed the pole and tried to set the hook...nothing. I set the pole against the railing and went to check the other pole. When I got back to the 3-way rigged pole, the line had moved about 50 feet and was now directly under the pier. I thought it was weird, but since I didn't have much weight on the rig, I thought maybe it was the tide. But when I reeled in the line, guess what...there was a nice striper on it. Since I had already put my net away, I had to hand-over-hand him to the deck...good thing that pier isn't that high! I'd also put my tape measurer away, so fortunately there was someone else on the pier who had one...22 inches...first keeper of the season!
The eel was still alive, so I reset him and threw him back in the water. Tide was moving out faster now, so the line seemed to be bouncing a lot as it moved. However, within like 20 minutes, there was another tap-tap-tap and this time when I set the hook, he was there. Again, I hand-over-hand him to the deck, borrow the tape measurer from the other guy on the pier, and the fish is a little bit bigger...about 24 inches (even though the way the picture is taken makes him look smaller).
So I'm at my limit and can go home! Awesome!!
