Chesapeake Charter

 

My plans Saturday were to meet up with friends and spend the afternoon on a fishing charter in the Chesapeake Bay.  Trophy Striped Bass season opened April 20th and by most accounts the fishing has been the slowest in many years.

 

Back in the 1990's when I began fishing Chesapeake stripers on my own boat a spread of 6 trolling rods could be expected to produce limit catches on most days.  Today most charter boats run 20 + rods with tandem lures (2 lures to each rod) and limit catches can be hard to come by.

 

Capt. Randy Dean nets a nice striper

 

 

We left Chesapeake Beach about 1pm and by 1:45 the first fish was on.  My buddy Paul boated it, a nice 36" female.

 

With the first fish coming so quickly our hopes for a limit catch were high but the second hit did not come until 7pm when my friend Jeff pulled in a twin to the first fish. 

 

 

As the sun set in the western sky the rods were cranked in with another fish hitting shortly before the last lure was in.



Canon 6D, EF24-105mm, ISO 25600, 1/40, F7.1

 

With daylight nearly gone and a half limit in the box Capt. Randy nosed the Bay Hunter back into the dock at Chesapeake Beach.