Back on the water this past Fri + Sat. Heard news of Tuna on the SW Corner of Stellwagon last week. Three generations of the Mankin family joined us this past Fri to target Stripers. Talking Dick into trying for a Tuna first thing in the AM we left the dock at 4:30. Journeyed across Cape Cod Bay to the grounds was a pleasant ride. Tried for a couple of hours with spreader bars with no avail. Saw a few whales, some bait and scattered birds. Not enough sign to keep our hopes up and our eyes open, we headed to Peaked Hill Bar for some Bass. Trolled Mann's Stretch 30 for a couple of hours, landing about a dz Stripers and Blues. During the battle with one of the Stripers we noticed several Tuna in the 150# range busting the surface. We put out a 9" slugo, hoping for a Tuna hookup. Unfortunatly, no Tuna but a 30 something # Bass wanted it for a snack. As the tide turned our fishing slowed and we wandered back into Cape Cod Bay. Finding some diving Gannet's we dropped our lines back in. The bite was now starting to turn back on! It seemed that we were landing a Striper every five to ten minutes. The sizes were any where in the 24 to 38" range. They seemed pretty happy getting back to the dock with their limit catch. Saturday we headed back out to Stellwagon with the same intention with the Thomas party. Same results - not much Tuna sign ! Back to Peaked Hill for some more Striper action with Stretches. Then we decided to jig some wire on The Race. Again we lost the tide and headed for our previous days spot in C.C. Bay. Once we arrived there we soon found out about 50 other boats were working our spot. Still, the action was hot and exciting with a few bigger Bass than the previous day. Tyler filleted ten more bass for this group in the 15# to 30# range. Water should be warming up soon, kicking the Tuna Bite into high gear. Calm Seas <'////><

For the first time we competed in the LCI Tournament (Lake Champlain International)
Arriving last Fri (June 19) we settled in to our boat slip and motel mid afternoon. Never fishing Champlain before, we had received information that there were bigger Lake Trout around than in years past. This would be the main species that we would target. We set out that afternoon to go thru our equipment and do some pre - fishing. Getting the bugs worked out and scouting some hot spots we felt confident we would be into Lakers for the weekend. Sat morning brought us a lot of action with small fish. We wound up with 19 fish from 2 to 6 #. Deciding to fish a entirely different area in the afternoon, we hoped for bigger Trout. The first fish of the afternoon was slightly smaller than the biggest we caught in the morning. This excited us and we decided to work this area for the rest of the event. That evening we had one of our dipsy diver rods go off with what appeared to be a substantially larger fish. Unfortunately the hook pulled and we never saw the fish! Sunday morning we caught 9 Lakers with our largest 2 being in the 8# size bracket. These 2 fish were weighed in and wound up being our best 2 for the weekend. From noon on Sunday the lake had kicked up with strong north winds. Unfortunately, a strong wind like we were experiencing was preventing us to fish productively. Using Davis Spinners and small Rapala' s, you must maintain a 1 +1/2 mph speed. This wind was pushing us up to 2.5 then down to .5 mph. We still managed to catch a few more fish but we couldn't produce the numbers like the days before. For the Tournament we finished in the top 20%, which in my mind is great- for never having fished the lake before. All in all, we had a lot of fun and caught quite a few fish. I would like to thank my Crew of Bob D. Andrew V. and my DAD, for all their help with running the rods and help controlling the boat. The LCI is one of the best organized Tournaments that I had competed in ! I hope to see some of you guys there next Fathers Day, I will be sure to go back ! Please call or write for any info or help you would like for this area. Tight Lines ! Capt. Steve <'////><

Sunday June 14 and Monday June 15 we targeted Black Sea Bass in Buzzards Bay. Both days were very successful with 58 keepers on Sun and 95 on Mon. We were useing white Spro jigs tipped with squid strips. Around 90 % of the Sea bass we caught were legal size. Screwy Louie and his two companions Stanley and Stan ususlly want to target Fluke on this trip,but the season does not open till July 1 this year. We did manage to catch and let go a couple of fluke in the 18 to 22 " bracket. Monday we noticed a huge flock of Turns working in the Chanal to the Canal. Hurring to pick up our bottom rigs we flew across and started firing plugs ! Instantly we had three large Blues on!After catching a couple of dozen we went back to bottom fishing. Ariving back on our waypoint we dropped down and instantly everyone was "Doubled Up" ! This ferroucious bite didn't last very long but we had about 25 flopping on the floor in about 5 minnutes.

Today (sat june 6)we set out in search of Stripers along the Elizabeth Islands. We were hoping to catch some larger fish following the bunker. After plugging along the shoreline and behind every one of my secret boulders, we caught 1 rat (20") bass. Not marking much or witnessing any other anglers hooked up, we decided to switch species. We headed to Cleaveland Ledge (near the west end of the canal). First couple of drifts were slow,and now we started to become even more frustrated ! The tide started to pick up and so did the fishing. Black Sea Bass, tataug, fluke, scup, bluefish, searobins and even a choggie were on the feed. All in all we fileted almost 40 monster sea bass and 30 jumbo scup. Not the migrating cows we were looking for but a lot of other action and some good eats ! <'////><

After a cold hard winter the "Doubled Up" finally got wet this past weekend. We fished the Cape (out of Sandwich) for Stripers both Sat + Sun. The intentions were to catch some Mackerel, to live line. Filling up both tanks with bait, was a little more time consuming than I had hoped for. After a short run we were finally fishing. Within 30 seconds of the first bait hitting the water we were into the Stripers ! The biggest fish of the weekend was in the 35# range caught by a 12yr old angler. Most of the other Keepers were around the 20# mark. We also caught many 28-30 # fish, using up all of our bait. Both groups wound up with limit # catches of fish ! Thanks to Todd, Chad (the 12 yr old) and Mike for Sat. Donald, Chris, Paul and Brian for Sun.