Back in the Saddle

After almost a month long absence from my kayak due to my annual hunting trip in Wisconsin, it was once again time to board my Trident 13. This time of year has the big stripers making their way down the Chesapeake Bay, perfect for us Virginia based anglers! I joined up with Joe Underwood, Matt Anderson, and Chuck Wrenn in search of the big ole' rockfish. We headed out to Plantation Light to drift with the sea of boats that all had the same idea. We were all hoping to have the same results that friend Rob Choi and crew had.



Playing the waiting game...

Unfortunately our 7 mile long adventure yielded zero hook-ups. We watched some boats land some nice stripers, but it was not our day. The positive outlook that I took away from this was that this was my first cow striper outing of the winter. To me, the best is yet to come...

Later in the week had Joe Underwood and I heading to the Elizabeth River for an after work speckled trout hunt. Anybody that lives around this region knows that the Elizabeth has some BIG trout in the winter months. Joe has already racked up a little pile of trout citations in the last month so we knew that we had a good chance at hopefully getting another one...or 4!

It didn't take long to get into the nice specks. The name of the game tonight was SLOW! If your presentation wasn't super slow, you would probably go home hanging your head. Joe was the first one of the night to score another citation trout with this 24.25", to be only followed up with nice 25".



24.25" speck



25" release citation speckled trout

I was getting a little aggravated that Joe was catching more trout than I did, not to mention he just added two more flippin' citations! It was time to step up my game a little bit! I changed tactics up and immediately got positive results. I picked up a few nice fish before I hooked into something with a little more weight. My grin went into a little smile after landing this nice 24.5" release citation trout.



24.5" release citation speckled trout.

Watching the awesome meteor shower display had me making many wishes, some detailing fishing. I paddled back to the same spot that I just landed my previous citation hoping for the same "luck". Not 5 casts later, there was a hook set that was followed up by a loud zing in the drag! Now this fish felt good! The fight was not difficult until I turned on my head lamp and tried to bring the fish up from the bottom. Joe actually reeled in his line to come watch me fight this fish. My 2000 series reel was getting a workout! Finally after many drag rippin runs, I landed a 30" monster speckled trout! The pictures don't do this fish any justice.



What a beast!

It was just one of those nights; a clear night with an amazing galaxy display, combined with multiple trophy class speckled trout!  Needless to say we had a good drive back home. Next on the to-do list is to nail a big ole' striper! After all, I did make a lot of wishes during that meteor shower...

~See ya on the water!