10/14 - Devil's Bridge
Posted: Oct 16th, '23, 08:44
The forecast this past weekend was not friendly with 20+kts winds and 4-6' seas for offshore fishing. Inshore the seas seemed fine even though it was going to blow 15-20kts, gusting higher. A friend had been hearing reports of Albies/Bonito along the elizabeth islands out to sw corner of the vineyard so we went for a ride and went looking.
We went down the buzzards bay side and went through Quicks Hole and found a few pods that would come up for 45 seconds or so and then back down. No real large pods of bait so nothing stayed up long nor did it attract birds so it was blind luck finding fish. We headed over to the Vineyard near Devil's Bridge and found a few boats doing some run and gun for albies and we started trolling fast track rapalas and had a couple rods rigged up with epoxy minnows for casting. Trolling didn't do much for us as there were a lot of weeds in the water but during that time we saw large masses of fish just off the bottom. Stopping over a pile and dropping down the jigs brought up some really nice Black Sea bass. Too bad the season on them was closed and all needed to be relased
Even still catching something was better than nothing so we kept jigging them up, I'd have to say pound for pound a black sea bass will out fight a striper hands down. We caught and released a few dozen and then joined the boats doing the run and gun. As we fished, we watched the front coming in from the south of Noman's, any rod left in the rod holder the braid started singing from the wind, the kind of song which says gonna get your but kicked and the seas kicked up.
We tried for the albies for another hour before starting to head back, doing so, crossing Vineyard sound was sporty. We stopped in Robinson's hole and finding lots of bait but nothing under them, the sound was nasty with tide heading south and wind heading north so even though we were headed down-sea, the period was short and the nice wide bow of the Bertram came in really handy. Nothing again in Woods hole, and the ride back through buzzards bay was rough till we could get out of the long fetch.
I'm not giving up on running the boat, hoping to chase tuna another time before they disappear.
We went down the buzzards bay side and went through Quicks Hole and found a few pods that would come up for 45 seconds or so and then back down. No real large pods of bait so nothing stayed up long nor did it attract birds so it was blind luck finding fish. We headed over to the Vineyard near Devil's Bridge and found a few boats doing some run and gun for albies and we started trolling fast track rapalas and had a couple rods rigged up with epoxy minnows for casting. Trolling didn't do much for us as there were a lot of weeds in the water but during that time we saw large masses of fish just off the bottom. Stopping over a pile and dropping down the jigs brought up some really nice Black Sea bass. Too bad the season on them was closed and all needed to be relased
Even still catching something was better than nothing so we kept jigging them up, I'd have to say pound for pound a black sea bass will out fight a striper hands down. We caught and released a few dozen and then joined the boats doing the run and gun. As we fished, we watched the front coming in from the south of Noman's, any rod left in the rod holder the braid started singing from the wind, the kind of song which says gonna get your but kicked and the seas kicked up. We tried for the albies for another hour before starting to head back, doing so, crossing Vineyard sound was sporty. We stopped in Robinson's hole and finding lots of bait but nothing under them, the sound was nasty with tide heading south and wind heading north so even though we were headed down-sea, the period was short and the nice wide bow of the Bertram came in really handy. Nothing again in Woods hole, and the ride back through buzzards bay was rough till we could get out of the long fetch.
I'm not giving up on running the boat, hoping to chase tuna another time before they disappear.
